Jehane Noujaim Quotes

The roles I'm interested in or have been interested in, you know, it's going to get down to conflict. Drama is conflict - conflict of interests.

I like people to be surprised by the turn of events. I don't want things just to be pat and formulaic. If there's some sort of internal combustion in the character or a desire to change the way things are going, that makes for conflict, which is the essence of drama.

I have my ideas of what a good documentary is, but drama is a different animal because you're arranging everything.

I think conflict is one of the things that makes for a good story.

As an actor, I'm always interested in my characters getting into trouble, because conflict is, you know, the great determiner of someone's mettle.

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

I really think if you take away a character's obstacles then there's no comedy.

Even with a stable character, you want something surprising to happen, hopefully because that's what the camera loves the most. That's what is great about film.

The best fiction is geared towards conflict. We learn most about our characters through tension, when they are put up against insurmountable obstacles. This is true in real life.

In a comedy, after the day is done, you can figure out ways of how to make it even funnier for the next day. In dramas, it's very different - the mindset that you're in.

It's really about, oh come on, this guy wouldn't say that or he wouldn't do that, you know, it's about the characters, about the story, about the situation.

Drama and comedy, to me, are all about being surprising, coherent, and true, all at once.

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have - by disrupting that order - a way of surprising.

Real life is messy, and drama is a shaped version of real life.

The idea behind a dish - the delight and the surprise - makes a difference. Great literature surprises and delights, and provokes us. It isn't just 'Here's the facts - boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.' It's how you tell it.

You asked what is the secret of a really good sketch. And it is a sketch is a small play. It's got a beginning, and a middle and an end. It should have a plot; it should have the characters, conflict. It is a little play. And in it, will be funny stuff.

With any good story, you need the adversary, the heroes and villains. You need a good mixture to make it work.

I like dramas because there's a big overlap between film and fiction, so I feel relatively qualified to talk about plot and characterisation and that sort of thing.

I think plays have nothing to do with one's own personal life. Not in my experience, anyway. The stuff of drama has to do, not with your subject matter, anyway, but with how you treat it. Drama includes pain, loss, regret - that's what drama is about!

You won't have a story unless you have conflict, which means if there's no conflict in a situation, people look for a way to make some.

The essence to me of all good drama is argument.

It's hard to tell writers, especially in movies, that words are secondary. Behavior is important.

Drama is all about the moment of ultimate conflict for a person.

Roles don't fascinate me. It is the narrative, the screenplay that is fascinating.

We figured the audience would want good stories, great art, wonderful characters, people you could fall in love with that we would immediately put through hell.