Justin Simien Quotes

I love involving actors at all levels - and they have to know that I want to hear their contributions, with dialogue, with story suggestions, with script changes, whatever.

One of my favorite things about 'Castle' is the fact our writers and producers are so collaborative. They allow us to bring in ideas, and they try to make them happen for us.

I'm not one of those playwrights who says, 'Show up, hit your marks, and don't talk to me!' I always want to hear from the other artists involved, whether it's the director, the lighting tech, or the actors.

It's always great when a director is just supportive of what you're doing. They're not so much critiquing you but giving you more ideas, giving you tons of things to work with, making you question your character and making you think about it... and making it seem like everything is limitless. That usually helps a lot.

I just can't say enough about the actors having faith and trust in the writers and the writers having faith and trust in the actors.

I think the best work flows out of a collaborative environment.

I like it when an actor is secure enough to ask questions, and the director is secure enough not to be threatened by that.

I just love working with actors, and I love working with writers, working with designers. I feel that I am just a storyteller, and whether I am wearing the director hat or the playwright hat, it doesn't matter. And the rooms I tend to be in are pretty democratic, and the best idea wins.

The directors I respect are the ones who have a collaborative attitude, who collaborate with actors.

The environment in a writer's room, I've really come to feel, should be some form of democracy.

It's interesting that instead of having to get tighter and more restricted for a collaboration, strangely enough, from the beginning, we've actually been more confident that we could handle this.

David was the kind of guy who was totally supportive of the actors and instructed the writing staff to trust the actor's instincts, since after all, it's the actors playing the character.

In a collaborative environment directors hire actors because they want their input, not just their bodies.

Writing is a solitary existence. Making a movie is controlled chaos - thousands of moving parts and people. Every decision is a compromise. If you're writing and you don't like how your character looks or talks, you just fix it. But in a movie, if there's something you don't like, that's tough.

You want to mix acting styles correctly. People approach the work in different ways. You want to make sure no one wants to kill each other because the approach is different.

On 'Vikings,' nobody's got an ego. Michael Hirst is just so open and so collaborative.

If you understand each other's way of thinking, you understand what kind of film someone is trying to make, and all the ideas that I come up with will fit into that film.

But, you always have to listen to everyone, because I'm not always right and other people have great ideas, too. I think that makes great moviemaking.

Mike Schur knows exactly what everything should look like but, at the same time, is super collaborative and loves working with actors that make choices and bring stuff to the table.

I want to be around people that are just as enthusiastic about the process and storytelling as I am.

It's part of the culture at ILM and at Lucasfilm that the work is better when you collaborate, you know. There's this culture of open exchange, a wonderful ego-free sharing of ideas and talent.

Jeph Loeb has been great to work with, and he's been really supportive of some really bizarre ideas I've had.

I do whatever the directors and writers ask me to do.

I've never had a working relationship like I have with them. I developed a lot of the design of this show with them. That conversation was about, "What are your needs? What are you looking for? Will this work for you guys? Will a show work where you've got one episode per character?" They really were a creative partner.

I'm not the writer who says, "You have to say it exactly as I wrote it," because you don't get good work. You want somebody who's going to bring something interesting to it and really create a character with you. You see that with certain actors.