Joe Morton Quotes

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

Setting is my primary joy as a writer, building a world and watching people respond to it.

I think as a filmmaker and as a director, you shortchange yourself if you inhibit the ability of your actor to bring their own personal experiences to the characters.

The thing I love about being a novelist is that with each project, you invent a new world. You approach it with a different set of aesthetic and structural ideas, and you grapple with a different series of problems in figuring out how to tell the story. And yet there are certain concerns that stay constant.

I see myself as not a typical theater person, but a person who uses the theater as a place to meet people and explore ideas.

The opportunity to create a small world between two pieces of cardboard, where time exists yet stands still, where people talk and I tell them what to say, is exciting and rewarding.

What I like most about directing is creating a world more so than anything. To me, the music is the wrapping paper on that world.

The magic doesn't come from within the director's mind, it comes from within the hearts of the actors.

Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor, and it comes alive in a way that you didn't expect.

I'm trained in the theater, and acting, for me, is about the imaginative life I create for myself, not about basing it on something real. I think that whatever I create becomes the reality for the audience.

With acting, there's a certain amount of independence you have within the framework of the storytelling. When it's done well, it's a collaborative medium.

Before 'The Walking Dead,' a few of the jobs before that were just like, 'Ugh.' I try and make everything as creative as possible, even when I get the script and can't imagine what I'm going to do with it.

I guess I have a fascination with the idea of puppeteering. I think, in a lot of ways, directing is puppeteering. I guess I see a lot of analogies between what puppeteers and filmmakers do.

The things that I'm interested in directing are fiction, because then you're not married to a particular reality.

I think, in a lot of ways, directing is puppeteering. I guess I see a lot of analogies between what puppeteers and filmmakers do. There's something about creating life out of things that have no life.

Writing is harder than acting. I enjoy acting for just the brevity with which you can be in the experience of doing it. Writing is kind of more satisfying in that you're creating a world and doing something that feels bigger, but it's very time consuming and has a higher threshold for failure.

It's such a gift when you know who you're writing for and you know that that actor is capable of so much that you can relax a bit.

The idea of science fiction, mythology, and creating a world is my favourite thing. I do love the reality of dramas and playing that, but being able to start from scratch, to completely build the character and this world, I love that.

Photography is a pursuit that allows you to be very hands-on with what you show people of either yourself or the art you want to make, and acting is kind of the exact opposite. You do have a modicum of creative freedom as an actor, but you're still very much a cipher for other people's art.

We often compare the experience of writing a book to that of playing God. It is up to us, and only us, to determine what happens to the people we invent. It is for us alone to determine what is good and bad, just and unjust, appropriate and inappropriate for the worlds we create. I love that about writing books.

For as long as I can remember, I was always creating random characters.

I'm a director's actor, and I surrender myself to the vision and the process. I think nothing else matters then.

I'm just making 'Threadworlds' out of the things I love and that I'm passionate about learning. When we created 'Avatar,' Michael DiMartino and I did the same thing.

With writing fiction, I'm either not courageous enough or just not suited for telling truths in a more conventional way. As an actor, I inhabit those characters as I'm writing them.

With the acting, it's somebody else's brainchild, and I'm just sort of helping flesh it out. There's a special satisfaction to being the brains behind the operation.