Lois Frankel Quotes

I'd like to do something that hits close to home.

I like movies I can relate to.

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

Fortunately, our audiences are used to a kind of boredom in the theatre, and if the writer is skillful, he will flatter them into thinking: 'Why, that's us up there, and aren't we - for all our little foibles - pretty nice guys and gals?'

I want to do films I can relate to emotionally.

There are conscious reasons and unconscious reasons why I pick something. You know, I have to be moved by the story and usually that means it has to touch me in some kind of personal place.

It's amazing when I do a gig how many people of different ages come up to me afterwards and chat to me about songs. The emotions I feel are what any person can relate to. Sometimes I'm just a narrator.

I think people do want to relate their entertainment to what's going on in their lives. Not everything.

Because of 'Wasn't Expecting That,' I've had a lot of people come up to me and say how I've written their lives or their grandparents' lives. It means the world to me that I helped in the tiniest way.

Whenever I perform, people get me because I'm talking about things that people can identify with and relate to. I'm not just up there doing jokey, jokey, joke.

What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.

I always assumed people wanted to hear me tell stories, but then I had 'The Sunset Tree.' It turned out, my own stories were the ones that registered with people the hardest.

But in film you always watch situations or stories that you really have no relation to. A lot of times just because there's no personal connection doesn't mean you can't connect with the film or the characters in the film.

The way I write my songs is that I have to believe what I'm writing about, and that's why they always end up being so personal - because the kind of artists I like, they convince me, they totally win me over straight away in that thing. Like, 'Oh my God, this song is totally about me.'

In terms of the parallels, I've never related less to a character than Riggan.

The audience will show up if you have authenticity. Like 'Moonlight,' there was stuff in there that is so specific to that community where the filmmakers grew up. Even if I don't understand everything they're talking about, I will love it if I feel that it's real.

I had a strong visceral reaction to the 'Moonlight' script, partly because I felt I knew all of these characters.

That's the power of fiction, that it can take the collective and make it personal.

We used to go to movies to see stories about ourselves. It would transport us to new worlds and we'd see aspects of ourselves reflected back.

I'm focused on finding characters I connect to.

I want everyone who's listening to know who I am and not just see me as this singer. I want them to feel connected to my story.

I think people will discover themselves in 'Ankahee.'

I've talked with friends about this: when you write about yourself, that's what people connect to. When you write a sermon or a lesson, that may not reach people. I've learned a lot from people who have been writing about themselves.

If I want people to connect to my words and my stories, I need to tell them where they came from. Because then, when you break into song, they have kind of a blueprint for why I wrote that song, so they can come to it with something they went through that helps them connect to it.