Harold Pinter Quotes

I like a drama. And I think that's the basis of good films, or good plays, is to have a nice drama.

If I ever wrote a script myself, it would be strongly emotional material.

Whether you're writing a horror show or a James Bond film, I think what bubbles beneath is interesting characterization. The colors that emerge through storytelling is what a dramatist does. There's always got to be something bubbling underneath that will erupt at some point.

Real life is messy, and drama is a shaped version of real life.

In making films, I'm constantly looking for people who are in conflict and who are going to surprise you and challenge you.

The essence to me of all good drama is argument.

You don't put your personal viewpoints in a good movie. A movie should only be concerned with characters, not some big moral, although it's always underneath.

We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.

As an actor, I'm always interested in my characters getting into trouble, because conflict is, you know, the great determiner of someone's mettle.

I feel, in drama, you don't need to be fed everything. Even though sometimes when you watch, you want to know what happened and you want to see it, I feel like sometimes it's so much stronger to see the effects that those actions have had.

Good drama must be drastic.

I have always wanted to do a book about actors because I think that the death of a character is a tremendously emotional experience.

I often attribute my screenwriting to journalism because they drill in the who, what, when, where and why - but we really need to land on that why. That's what I've been exploring in my writing for many years and trying to get better at.

My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.

The roles I'm interested in or have been interested in, you know, it's going to get down to conflict. Drama is conflict - conflict of interests.

I really think if you take away a character's obstacles then there's no comedy.

I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don't want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there's some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama.

Writing a great script - not just a good one, but a great one - is almost an impossible task.

Any show I'm working on, I want the stories to always be about something, and to have the potential to be emotional. That's the kind of story that I like.

I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.

If you know exactly what your character knows, it's a drama.

I believe that if the story is fleshed out and the characters more believable, the reader is more likely to take the journey with them. In addition, the plot can be more complex. My characters are very real to me, and I want each of my characters to be different.

The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human.

Short stories consume you faster. They're connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up against mortality. I know how tough they are as a form, but they're also a total joy.

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