Emer Kenny Quotes

I don't usually watch a lot of TV, but 'Mad Men' changed my perspective. I admire Matthew Weiner who came up with the idea and wrote such a great TV series, and the broadcasting company for being bold enough to air such a series.

I would not have so many scripts being driven by demographics. The play's the thing - not the 18-35 year old male age group.

Ever since I was introduced to Ekta Kapoor, I have learnt a great deal from her storytelling, and the learning continues.

A good novel doesn't just transcend the boundaries of its target market - it knows nothing about target markets.

You can be far more challenging, articulate and intelligent writing for television than you can writing for the cinema.

Writing for a soap - writing for 25 characters day in, day out - is one of the most difficult jobs in Hollywood.

I think if you're writing a play, it should be its own end game; you'll never get to do a good one unless you know it's not a blueprint for a film; you're not going to get the action right and the story right.

When I was in school, I was always writing scripts and dressing up as characters. I'd constantly be that guy who'd get up on stage. I used to write imaginary TV shows, like soap operas, for fun.

When you write a script, you always think about what your heart is asking.

Every day, I learn something new. I think one of the most exciting things for a writer is to work on a TV show. It's like a novel. You have a really long time to develop and learn about the characters, and you can just really keep digging in deeper, every week.

TV is where a writer can write his novel.

I get a lot from all young people. I make movies for young people. If I made pictures for people my age, no one would see them. I hang with young people all the time.

That's the holy grail as a TV writer, to work on a story that you care about and to put it out there and for it to find the audience and connect with fans and connect with critics.

You have a specific, defined audience-at MTV, they assume the audience to the news is 15 to 30 years old and they do a lot of research about the things they're interested in.

If you start writing to an audience you're talking down to them. I've never written for any age group, I just write character. If you can capture that you'll get the audiences, and it will be a wide range, as it is for 'Twilight,' it's a pretty wide range.

The idea of a youth-based society that you live in for a certain time and then you no longer live anymore is an interesting idea for a movie, but you need young people that people want to go see.

I think watching TV has influenced my books, but I don't think writing TV has.

'Justified' had such dead-on beautiful scripts that you didn't want to mess with it.

With these scripts and these writers, so much of it is done for me. Because we don't just throw words around: we make sure the audience understands.

I've made a couple of films that were a little too wide and non-specific - like 'The Doctor.'

I would like to write a play.

Great writing makes great television.

Sometimes it's necessary for soaps to hang on to an audience by sensationalizing, but it's a beast I don't understand any more, an art form that has fostered extraordinary talent. It's a great arena to learn your craft before you move on.

It's such a gift when you know who you're writing for and you know that that actor is capable of so much that you can relax a bit.

A lot of scripts are written with an eye on what will be popular or what will titillate or what this actor can do well. I don't think those kinds of scripts ever work.