Alan Bennett Quotes

You have to realize that when I started to work on 'Aladdin', Disney Theatrical wasn't in existence. I suppose I had always hoped that 'Aladdin' would be somewhere on the runway.

I'm kind of happy to know there may be some kid or teenager now who might never have had the chance to see my Broadway performance, but gets a taste for what it might have been like now, because they can see Clint Eastwood's film."

The nature of the beast is that film is a director's medium. It's not a Tracy Letts play, it's a John Wells film. 'August: Osage County,' as a play, is done. Written. On the shelf. It'll be performed in its entirety for years.

A film is different than a script. The text of the script is what it is.

I do not mean for one second to suggest that 'White Doves at Morning' was written with a movie deal in mind. Certainly not.

I wanted to do Dreamgirls. If they're doing a stage production of Sparkle, I think that would be hot.

I have a desire to create more film, more beauty, more art, more love, but I don't feel desperate. It's not about creating or building a career.

I did a film called 'Days and Nights,' which is a modern-day retelling of and inspired by Chekhov's 'The Seagull.'

My first project was 'Hunchback of Notre Dame'. I co-produced that.

When I see films made from books, I make a huge effort not to remember the book. It's important to see the film as a film.

Constantly, I've been asked to make a sequel to 'Beckham.' However, I thought a West End show was the proper way to go. Once we made the show, I wanted to make sure that I embraced the West End genre rather than just put the film on stage.

Obviously I love working in film and television, but I started in theater and I'd love to be on Broadway.

Fate destined me to play Fagin. It was the part of a lifetime, and I was the only actor to be in the stage production and in the film.

The painter... does not fit the paints to the world. He most certainly does not fit the world to himself. He fits himself to the paint. The self is the servant who bears the paintbox and its inherited contents.

You take some creative license when you make a movie, and things can be a little bit different.

I wonder what would have happened if automation and computers had existed when 'Oklahoma!' was having its out-of-town try-out, and three days before closing in Boston, when it was still called 'Away We Go,' they added a new song called 'Oklahoma!' I don't think that could happen today. It's almost impossible to change musicals on the go now.

I avoid watching other people's versions of films or plays that I work on.

I think it's always a challenge to adapt a beautiful literary work into a fresh and alive film.

The film world is always looking for great source material, and Broadway has traditionally and historically been a place to go.

The think that we hung the film version all on was 'Hedwig' on tour. On stage, it's one theatre, one show. It just seemed natural to change it. In the film, we were able to go to flashback rather than have her talk to the audience. And we had the play to practice and to see where we had made mistakes.

'Nicholas Nickleby' is 800 pages long. At one time, the theater production was 15 hours long. So it's an interesting process, about what you leave out and what you select.

I think we sublimated our Broadway desires by doing theater in Hollywood - not on stage but by doing the movies of 'Chicago' and 'Hairspray' and also musicals on TV. We did Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella' and 'Gypsy' and 'Annie.' Even 'Smash' was like doing theater.

Making a film is like learning the ropes all over again.

What happens in the studio is technically the same thing that happens on the stage. In the past I had to make quite brutal adaptations of the material to make it work on stage. I don't always like doing that because sometimes you're shaving away the things that you actually quite like about them, the spontaneity of it.

I really enjoy working on adaptations.