Judd Apatow Quotes

Any script, even like The Founder, if it's something that I imagine myself playing this character or that character - any of the characters, basically - how do we flesh these characters out to be good enough to have amazing actors that come in that make it really difficult for them to say no? Even though I'm not right for any of those parts, that's just kind of how we go about it.

If you read a part that you want to play, and you already know you have actors you want to work with but it's not on the page, it's not going to be on the screen. So that is the most difficult thing to do for a producer, is to get a script that attracts this kind of talent.

Elia Kazan. He wrote my favorite book about filmmaking, 'Elia Kazan: On Directing.' There is a thing in the book that I do every time, it's part of my production structure. He said when you're hiring an actor, ask them what draws them to the project, and don't lead them to the answer.

Casting a film is to me one of the most important things next to the writing. If you cast it properly everything takes place very easily. If you cast it improperly you're fighting an uphill battle.

Certainly, for me, and it's gone this way on every project I've worked on, the "writing" never ends until you're done with the movie.

You read a script, you try and think through what is the best, most wide-ranging way of telling the story: who stylistically, character-logically, psychologically fits inside the world of what you're trying to do. A lot of it, when you're casting, is trying to get yourself in the head of a director.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

I'll write a character with a certain actor in mind, but then once I start casting, I have to forget about who I pictured.

Finding original source material is not easy, but when something special like 'Edge of Tomorrow' comes along, everybody recognized it. I wasn't swimming against the stream. Warner Brothers immediately supported it, Tom Cruise signed on instantly; Emily Blunt, who was our first choice, signed on immediately.

A film is a chain of very difficult decisions, and I think one of them is to choose an accurate cast.

I keep saying this, but the most important part of directing is casting, and the rest of it is pretty easy.

As an actor, you see a sliver of how the show is made, but to see the actual writing process and the re-writing process and the casting process and art direction and set design - all of this is happening in a very intense period.

I love the process of working with a filmmaker and the writers and the actors.

I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.

I don't normally think of a specific actor. I concentrate on the character, and then when we get into pre-production, that's how names come up.

I can only get to a certain point as I write and then I have individual conversations with everyone that I cast. I always do a rewrite based on the conversations.

Usually, I write my scripts first, then think of the actors, or I have a reference of someone.

Sometimes casting falls in place easily and sometimes it takes a while. Fifty per cent of my job is done when I get the right actors.

Sometimes I'll ask the book writer to write a monologue, not to be performed, just as if they were notes for the character.

I usually try not to think about actors while writing, because the odds of those stars aligning and you getting those specific people are so rare.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it.

On movies, I like to involve the cast in the writing of the script. I like to have a rehearsal period, after which I do the last draft, which gives me a chance to incorporate anything the actors have come up with during the rehearsal period, so I'm very inclusive as a writer.

You set up the look, the visual effects and the sets, and that's awesome, but I enjoy the casting most of all. That's where you really get to define the show.

I love working with actors. I love to see what they're going to do. There's just something very thrilling and satisfying with being involved with something, all the way through the process [making movie].

Once you start working with a particular actor, that actor becomes very present in your mind as your mind as you're writing subsequent episodes.