Nic Pizzolatto Quotes

You have to make films you feel strongly about. And then hope you can find the audience.

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

But I'm never gonna get to a point in my life where what it costs to shoot a movie is going to determine what it is. The limits of my imagination is the only thing that's gonna stop me.

I love the intimacy and the passion and the danger that go into independent filmmaking. Because it comes out of a creative necessity. It comes from people who really want to make a movie and want to make a difference and want to grab an audience by the gullet and show them something different.

I don't shy from controversy. I'm telling stories, and I'll tell whatever story seems like it wants to be told.

I've been watching more American TV because of all the great TV series that have come out in the last five to 10 years. I'm a 'Sopranos' fan, I'm a 'Wire' fan, I'm a 'Mad Men' fan. I'm a 'Deadwood' fan. It makes me optimistic for the future of storytelling on TV that producers are willing to take that kind of jump.

The films I want to make, I really want to be passionate about.

We make films that we ourselves would want to see and then hope that other people would want to see it. If you try to analyze audiences or think there's some sophisticated recipe for success, then I think you are doomed. You're making it too complicated.

When you're a director, you really live whatever you do.

I'm deeply appreciative that many people have enjoyed my films, films that I made in my own style. The successes have helped me learn how to make films free of expectations and focus solely on the pure filmmaking aspect, without worrying about how much money it'll make.

If I bother about the expectations how will I make a film?

It is difficult to make movies on your own terms and also to make a film and convince somebody to have faith in it.

Making independent films is liberating. It eliminates self-censorship, which mainstream films are infected with due to commercial priorities.

I absolutely love television. What's so great about TV is that I can tell 20 stories in a year. If I was working at a feature studio, I'd tell 1% of someone else's story, over the course of four years.

Persistence is half the battle. That's what I love about independent movies. They don't have to be made. There's no studio with an agenda to set up a franchise like 'Batman' or to make a vehicle for a celebrity actor. My films are made because I love the process.

As a screenwriter, you always have frustrations. It's just the nature of the job, and you have to live with it. Your vision is not going to be the same as the director's vision. It doesn't mean one is better or worse; it means they're different.

I was a playwright who was still learning the ropes when Starz took a chance on me to create and showrun 'Vida.' They nurtured and supported me during every step of the strenuous process, and that is a debt that cannot be repaid.

I never planned my movies. I never selected subjects to win the National Award. I did films that made the masses happy.

I don't think it's a mistake to put every great idea into the first movie, because I've always said there won't be a second movie if you go 'we'll hold back these ideas for another one.

Movies have heart. Have mind. Have power. Have ambition.

In all honesty, I've written movies that have been made, and the process has not been as satisfying as writing for television.

If you really want your films to say something that you hope is unique, then patience and stamina, thick skin and a kind of stupidity, a mule-like stupidity, is what you really need.

As an actor, most of the time, you only have so much say in how, what and where things go. As a director, you really get to paint a bigger picture. You have many more brushes to use.

An awful lot of filmmaking and playmaking is taken over by marketers and publicists, who set about to tell people what to think. And people feel safer that way. But it's not safe, and the whole wonderful thing that cinema and filmmakers can contribute is to go into the not-safe land of real life.

I don't believe the writer should know too much where he's going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint—old man propaganda.