Jeff Nichols Quotes

By the time I wrote 'Any Given Sunday' or 'Bats,' I sort of knew what my job was in terms of what a writer of dialogue does.

I feel I do not have script sense. Like Kartik Aaryan has a very good script sense.

To be honest, I have never thought about the intricacies of a script.

My stories are pretty simplistic, but the characters are always complex and always right, and that comes from the script and my research and reverse-engineering what I find in the real world.

If you have a great script and great dialogue, you don't need to improvise.

When I work, I think mainly in terms of dramatic choices.

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.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

And I have the support of the writers: I have a great relationship with the creative team, and they have a good hold of my character and my personality, and they come up with some great stuff, and I'm forever trying to change it up, keep it fresh.

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

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.

I remember my dad working with me on breaking down my script and writing out a back story for my character and all that stuff.

We start with strong characters and build the movie from there. That not to say we don't struggle with story - that's the most challenging part.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

Creating characters is like throwing together ingredients for a recipe. I take characteristics I like and dislike in real people I know, or know of, and use them to embellish and define characters.

In television writing, you want to hear what the characters say as opposed to giving them something to say. It's the same with the cartoons.

I never write with an actor in mind - never.

Characters are incredibly important, but I tend to build them around the plot during the outline stage. However, once I'm writing the manuscript, the characters I'm writing dictate how the plot unfolds.

For me, screenwriting is all about setting characters in motion and as a writer just chasing them. They should tell you what they'll do in any scene you put them in.

I spend a lot of time with my characters.

I envision the script as a story in my mind, memorize the entire thing and have it play out. It helps me figure out where my character needs to go.

Knowing that Gene and Morgan were playing those roles made it much easier to put the script together-we knew who we were writing it for. It took some mystery away.

Once you get into a feature, whether it's a sequel or an original one, you have to start all over again, and you're creating a world, creating new characters. You're also tracking emotions. You're trying to create emotion and create a character that you can fall in love with for two hours.

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.

No I don't really write thinking about specific actors because it can get in the way a little bit.