Hayden Schlossberg Quotes

I have a partner, Danny Strong; he's an incredible writer and, really, my backbone. So when we don't see eye to eye, it's painful.

There are very few things in real life on which I agree with Jeremy Clarkson, surprisingly few for people who have to make a TV show together. But that's part of what makes it work.

When it comes to filmmaking, we have to deal with ego, anger, and a lot more; barring all these, how the team works towards the outcome matters.

I always have a ping-pong table in the studio. If you're with an artist and you notice the situation is going south a little bit, it's like, 'You wanna play ping-pong or foosball?' Or, 'You wanna go grab somethin' to eat?' And then you just like talk to them and relax them and get them comfortable and get yourself comfortable.

I am totally down with disagreement. I don't like Haterade, but disagreement is wonderful. When someone disagrees, we try to reach common ground. That's good.

The great thing about movies is that they're collaborative. And the worst thing is that they're collaborative.

All directors have their strengths and weaknesses, as all actors have, and all artists. What you try to do is complete the relationship and take care of the stuff that the director won't take care of.

When you work with someone you don't quite know, you have to figure the director out, and you can come up with ideas that are counter-productive.

I think when you work enough on your doing freelance stuff on other films, you start to feel what it feels like to work with people who are not totally on the same page as you.

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.

As a writer, you're really in control of almost everything. That's not the case in TV. You have to be prepared to work with a lot of people to make something happen, and you got to be prepared, at least in the beginning, to not be too good at your specific task.

We can't always agree on everything.

When you're working on a creative thing, everyone has an idea, and they're pushing it. The first time you work with anybody, you have to get comfortable with the way another person pushes hard for what they want.

The only thing we don't do together is get in front of an actor and show any indecision at all about what we think. We don't always agree, so we meet privately, then one or the other will approach the actor.

You learn how to compromise and you learn how to read each other. Honestly, being in a band with two guys has prepared me so much for when it's time for me to get married!

Consensus building doesn't necessarily fit with my experience.

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.

Working at Pixar you learn the really honest, hard way of making a great movie, which is to surround yourself with people who are much smarter than you, much more talented than you, and incite constructive criticism; you'll get a much better movie out of it.

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

I can do whatever I want. They will tell me if what I am doing is stupid or a total waste of time. I may tell them that they are wrong, and we will come to an agreement.

I think most co-directors and co-writers just hold hands.

But I'm blessed to work with great people. I collaborate with brilliant stylists both here and in Paris. I work with a great design team. I really allow everyone to bring their ideas. I almost rely on them to inspire me.

No matter how much success you're having, you can't continue working together if you can't communicate.

My acting experience has been a benefit. What I learned from directors is how to listen to and talk with actors. I know how they think and what they need.

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can't get creative and find alternate solutions if they don't listen to each other. There's a lot of arguing and justifying.