Jay Roach Quotes

To be able to write a play a man must be sensitive, imaginative, naive, gullible, passionate; he must be something of an imbecile, something of a poet, something of a liar, something of a damn fool.

As my kid gets a little bit older, if I feel like I have a little bit more time on my hands, I'd like to get more into developing ideas and writing things.

I'm not staying away from any genre. I'm trying to get scripts that I like.

To be a dramatic writer takes hard work, talent, and discipline. And that's why I just make up crap.

I'm not a playwright.

Short stories are fiction's R & D department, and failed or less-than-conclusive experiments are not just to be expected but to be hoped for.

I had always written. I had written stories and poems. Then I started writing plays.

I am not, at heart, a playwright.

Acting is my first focus, but at the core, I'm a storyteller, and however that comes out is fine with me.

I think our storytellers - our songwriters should be great storytellers, and they should be mountain climbers and explorers, because music is something that can cross all different borders.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

Writing is as big a part of my career as acting is, financially and time wise. So, yeah, I love it. That's all I wanted to do since I was young was be a writer. So that and acting are the two most important aspects of my career.

I do actually dabble in a bit of poetry! And I'm yet to pen a script, but it is something that I've been telling myself I want to do.

I'd have been a filmmaker or a cartoonist or something else which extended from the visual arts into the making of narratives if I hadn't been able to shift into fiction.

Choosing to write a play is some kind of surrender. I don't make an outline. I sit and work, and suddenly the door opens, and out it comes.

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

As a playwright, you are a torturer of actors and of the audience as well. You inflict things on people.

So far, everything I've worked on has been deeply connected to reality. I'm not constitutionally opposed to working on something completely fictional, either. It just happens that a lot of these stories have crossed my path in a way that makes them intriguing, but I'm up for anything that's intellectually engaging.

I work for ABC. If the thing that ABC is paying me for is storytelling - not to make sure that a costume is exactly right or all those other things - then it is up to me to find the most creative space possible so that that function of my job can happen.

Fiction writing is just an excuse to go discover interesting things.

The stuff I'm passionate about is what I write; it isn't multi-million-dollar franchise movies.

For myself, I feel more natural writing stories or novels than writing plays. I feel more like myself, like I can express myself better, and like I have a greater clarity about what I want to do.

I don't consciously sit down thinking I'm blurring genre lines, for the most part. I try to stay focused solely on serving the needs of the particular story on which I'm working.

I am trying to write a play that is big and I feel represents me - that's my big ambition.

Fiction is open to whoever comes in the door, as long as you come in energetically.