Mary Steenburgen Quotes

By the time I wrote 'Any Given Sunday' or 'Bats,' I sort of knew what my job was in terms of what a writer of dialogue does.

It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.

The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.

Once, I optioned a novel and tried to do a screenplay on it, which was great fun, but I was too respectful. I was only 100 pages into the novel and I had about 90 pages of movie script going. I realized I had a lot to learn.

If you have a great script and great dialogue, you don't need to improvise.

I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of an outsider in that regard. If I can maintain that approach to screenwriting, it can continue to be enjoyable.

I like scripts. I spend a lot of time writing them.

If I ever wrote a script myself, it would be strongly emotional material.

I am not an analytical writer. Once I flesh out my characters and decide on the elements of my plot, the story unfolds in my head almost as though it was a movie reel.

I'm consistently blown away by 'Mad Men.' Having spent so much time in the writers' room, I'm cursed in that anytime I watch something, I'm always calculating what the writers are up to.

When I first read the script a few years ago I thought it was one of the best written scripts I had ever read.

Writing a TV show is totally different than writing features, or just, what I started doing is writing features. You write a little bit more organically. You start from the beginning to the end, beginning, middle and end.

Personally, I've made myself a very small window of what I enjoy in this business, which is I love being a big part of the storytelling process.

Sometimes I find it tiresome to write actions and describe the scene in a very intricate way so that every crew member understands where we are going - that I can find a little bit long and tiresome. But dialogue is just all my life. There's no way I could ever be challenged, not challenged, but I'm always so happy to write dialogue.

Writing a great script - not just a good one, but a great one - is almost an impossible task.

When I wrote for TV, I was always thinking in terms of character and story. After fifteen years, it became hard-wired in me.

If you get a script and it's really well written, that's always exciting.

Good scripts are hard to find.

When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.

I believe that stories find writers, writers don't find stories. With the 'Pendragon' series, I actually had multiple story ideas and decided that instead of writing them individually, I would create a character whose journey would thread them all together.

My preference is for good writing. It doesn't matter if it's for film or TV. Whatever. It starts with the writing. Even though I've had problems with writers, it doesn't matter how great of an actor you are. If the writing is bad, you're going to struggle.

I've only ever taken a playwriting class, but I like creative writing and writing screenplays.

The way you write a screenplay is that you close your eyes and run the movie in your head and then you write it down.

I tend to jot down moments, lines, interactions that don't really make any sense. I try and explain these scattered notes to my close friends, and they become more and more logical. I see screenwriting as a bit like a math equation which I have to solve.

It's hard to write a good plot, it's very hard.