Elizabeth McGovern Quotes

It is hard for 2 creative people to work together for that length of time and not fall out.

When you have an author and an auteur, it's a difficult and challenging relationship.

Creatively, I thought we were still viable and could do more records. But our working relationship just wasn't happening at all, and our chemistry as people broke down because of that.

Three writers together would be a nightmare of obstreperous self-consciousness.

In an ideal world, as a director, you usually wish you could do your own thing and not have to take anyone else's point of view into account, but occasionally you work with someone like Robyn, who brings a new set of ideas to the table, and the whole ends up much greater than the sum of the parts.

When you're in this music thing, and you got friends involved in this, of course ya'll gonna have disagreements, and that's gon' be the outcome: we gon' fight each other.

Co-directing is not possible with my brother. We have very different opinions.

The real drawback when you write with a partner is that where you want it to go and where they want it to go is similar, but not exactly lined up, and that's where it's going to lead you into trouble.

Artistic temperament sometimes seems a battleground, a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of creativity wrestling.

It's only been a couple of times in my life that I've really locked horns with actors. It did not hurt the films, it just hurt the moment of the filmmaking.

But we wanted to work in a way we never had, which was write everything together. We had to face each other in the same creative room, which gets tougher as you get older, because you don't want to be confrontational.

Certainly when, you know, you put a lot of creative people together, there's ego and tension and all that stuff comes into play. But on the flip side, there's a lot of camaraderie and closeness.

If you understand each other's way of thinking, you understand what kind of film someone is trying to make, and all the ideas that I come up with will fit into that film.

In most multiple composer situations, you find it because someone got nervous about the music and insisted that somebody else come in and help.

Working with friends isn't easy - the nature of an artistic project means it's about two strong visions colliding and a bit of mental wrestling.

Being in a band is hard. Even if you like somebody, you start to argue over silly things.

And Paul Moravec, not being a theater person, would always trust me when I said things that I am like, "you're going to need another 10 seconds of music year to get them across the stage." But I always knew that the people were going to be coming to hear his music of which my words are going to be a part. It was clear that he wanted to go and direction A., and I wanted to go and direction B. We would've gone and direction A. That's the most important piece of advice I can give to anybody who finds themselves in an opera, or musical comedy situation like that.

Writers can get very angry when an actor says, "I don't know, I don't feel very comfortable with this line." Sometimes though, you're working with a writer for whom that is simply not apt - like Harold Pinter.

By the time we made "Abbey Road", John and I were openly critical of each other's music, and I felt John wasn't much interested in performing anything he hadn't written himself.

I feel like there is a different, new energy when I collaborate with a living artist, whether it be a composer, designer, lighting designer. I love that process.

Sometimes, I've had the experience with a director where I didn't share the same vision of the movie.

Collaborating with other artists is an emotional thing. Obviously, you don't do it unless this person inspires you.

The Sekrets record is very much me, and Dan's Emergency Room is very much him. And then Alkaline Trio is very much ours.

I don't really get that, when groups tour together or even do anything together when they hate each other.

I only collaborate with the people I rock with in life, period. I rock with people where I really respect their craft and respect what they're doing. That's what collaboration should start from.