Viggo Mortensen Quotes

I think the script is the key. Regardless of how great everybody else is working on a film, if you're working on a script that you don't think is great, you're not gonna be able to make a great film. Whereas if the script is great, then you can.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

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.

Screenwriting is a much more collaborative effort. When you write a novel, it's just you, with input from your editor.

Writing, yeah. Me and my friend Scott Bloom just finished the first rough draft of a script. It's taken us three years to do, but we finally got a first draft. And we'll see whatever happens with that.

Since signing with Universal, I have been working closely with Gary Ross, the director, producer and screenwriter. We have spent many hours on the phone, and I've been sending him information and items that have been useful to the writing process.

Everyone has an idea that they think would be a great movie. Everyone has a cousin who they think you should work with.

It's really interesting with scripts, because you never really know. It's paper and it could be great or awful. Even scripts that are good could end up not working.

There's one great script that hit my desk that I didn't change at all, and that was True Romance.

I wrote the screenplay for 'This Is Where I Leave You' - all 40 drafts of it.

Siva is one of the best writers in the industry, and 'Srimanthudu' is a great script.

All the writers for 'The Chi,' they're all phenomenal, so I'm just working on projects with them. They have great scripts.

Great writing attracts great actors. It attracts money. Without a great script, you have nothing.

I'm so grateful to grab hold of something that wants to be a play. It doesn't happen very often. I don't have unwritten plays waiting for their turn.

I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.

One of the greatest things about 'Continuum' is how great the writing is; our writing room is one of the most talented ones I've ever had. It really helps me as far as character development because they paint a very descriptive picture of who the characters are while still letting us have freedom to put in our own ideas.

I'd love to work on a script in collaboration.

I like to begin every screenplay with a burst of delusional self-confidence. It tends to fade pretty quickly, but (for me, at least) there doesn't seem to be any other way to start writing a script.

I have great editors, and I always have. Somehow, great editors ask the right questions or pose things to you that get you to write better. It's a dance between you, your characters, and your editor.

When you decide you want to become a television writer, you naively assume it's going to be like the writers on the old 'Dick Van Dyke Show.' You'll write something and they'll just put it on TV. But what you quickly discover is that American network television is television by committee.

I wasn't trained as a writer-director. And the projects I write are difficult to finish.

I think a good script is a rare thing, and I think no matter who you are you have to fight for the good ones.

I would always rather do a mediocre script with a great filmmaker than a great script with a mediocre filmmaker.

For me now, it's about what you would write and what you wouldn't write, and that's how I select what I am going to do. It can be quite nice being brought a concept by a studio for me to work on.