Martin Freeman Quotes

A good script makes our job a lot easier.

My preference is for good writing. It doesn't matter if it's for film or TV. Whatever. It starts with the writing. Even though I've had problems with writers, it doesn't matter how great of an actor you are. If the writing is bad, you're going to struggle.

I wouldn't know a good script if it bit me in the face.

How can you turn down Marks and Gran? Their scripts are so rich in texture.

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.

'King of California' was just, I thought, a really great, fresh, original kind of script. I loved the tone, the mix of tragedy, comedy, and drama, and that it was a good part.

When I first read the script a few years ago I thought it was one of the best written scripts I had ever read.

I just want to tell a good story, so I always ask myself, 'Are these people real to me?'

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

It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.

'The Piano Lesson' is very sophisticated, easily the most adult or complex material I've attempted. It's the first film I've written that has a proper story, and it was a big struggle for me to write. It meant I had to admit the power of narrative.

If you get a script and it's really well written, that's always exciting.

Whenever you can manoeuvre your characters into a situation where they both have a good argument to make, you're on the right track.

The script is a blueprint for the film - there are very few bad scripts that make good movies. If you really like the character and understand the utility it serves within the movie, that's a part of my process.

On 'Stranger Than Fiction,' the script was so good that I stuck to every line because it was just such brilliant writing from Zach Helm that I felt like I really just want to shoot the page.

When you say the name Gilligan, you know who that is. If a show is good, if it's written well, you should be able to erase the names of the characters saying the lines and still be able to know who said it. If you can't do that, the show will fail.

One of the challenges is creating characters. I am trying to compose my sentences to express epic events happening to ordinary people.

The reason most novelists are not good screenwriters is that you don't have time for a lot of details. Novelists can really create a richer experience for the reader and have many subplots. You only have 90 pages because each page is a minute of screentime. You have to have certain things happen by certain pages, a certain story arc in the movie.

The screenplay has to be gripping. That's when the film will work. Then, I see how much I can relate to the character I'm playing.

It was really fun to start writing movies because you could actually take characters whose voice you enjoy writing in and have actual things happen to them for more than five minutes. It was really fun to thread it together.

My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.

I work in a dramatic context, meaning we write with a lot of character specifics, a lot of story specifics. There's a lot of architecture in our songs.

For me, the first thing is script. When I heard 'Mom''s script, it really touched me and moved me. I felt really nice about the story. That's the reason I did the movie.

It always comes down to script and characters.

A good script is like a work of art in itself. I've read hundreds of scripts, and good ones are very rare. If the writer has something to say, and a voice, and a plot that matches character, and an emotional trajectory that works, then I'd be an idiot to fool around with it. It's just that few scripts ever are like that.