Robert Ben Garant Quotes

I started writing when I was 26, so I don't even know what year that was. I wrote a script for me to star in. A friend of mine, who was an actor that I would compete against a lot, had written a script and was taking all these meetings. He just kept pushing me and was like, "You got to do it. You're going to love it!" He's a very successful screenwriter now. His name is Michael Bacall and he wrote 21 Jump Street, Project X, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. So it was a few factors.

There are a lot of good stories out there, but I haven't found too many great scripts.

The hardest single thing you do is get the bloody screenplay right.

It takes me two to three years to write a novel. A screenplay is 100 pages and takes five years.

Something people say about acting is that acting is listening. But I think that writing is listening, too. That you really have to listen to what are they saying and what they're communicating to you. And so, a lot of it is just getting stuff down.

In my films writers are more important than actors.

Writing a screenplay is daunting for sure, but I think that Hollywood needs them, so if you can manage to do that, there's certainly a value within it.

My approach to making movies is different than other people, because I just write a lot of screenplays. I'm constantly writing screenplays.

I would love to write a screenplay for 'Badlands' one day. I don't think I could ever have the patience to do it; I don't even have the patience to write songs. I write some of the shortest songs ever because I don't have the patience.

The elegance of a really good screenplay, I admire it. I can't do it.

All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story... You've got good characters... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.

I came up with a story and I wrote it.

The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.

I didn't write 'Snow White' for any class, but I got bitten by the screenwriting bug and wrote a couple of scripts in my spare time instead of going to keg parties or something.

The written word is the basic of everything. Most important, the idea, and after that, the dialogue. You can rehash the dialogue as you go along, it 's disgraceful to have to do this, but now and again you have no choice.

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.

When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.

Especially when I write, I want to get out of people's heads and have them speak and have them get dressed and have them go to work.

So with 'There Will Be Blood,' I didn't even really feel like I was adapting a book. I was just desperate to find stuff to write.

The success of the movie industry comes from the story. And the story comes from somebody putting something down on paper.

If you're writing a screenplay from scratch, it involves a lot of creation.

Screenwriting is still a challenge for me. It's more technical than creative. You have to be a very good journeyman plumber and put the proper parts together. Then, if you can still inject a little bit of something worthwhile, you have done as much as can be expected.

You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.

I love writing for the screen.