Mary Steenburgen Quotes

For me, it's always about what's on the page. I have tremendous respect for writing. When you recognize good writing, and you're lucky enough to get it, like with 'Lost,' that's what I follow.

Some of my favorite movies are action movies. You want something good to say. That comes from good writing. But writing is not a skill I possess, unfortunately.

'The Leftovers' is my favorite job I've ever had in my life, anywhere, ever. It is one of the greatest TV shows ever made.

We all have great faith in the writing team that puts together 'Heroes.'

There are a lot of considerations that come into play when you craft one of these 'Saw' scripts, and there's only so much you can put into them.

That's why, when Alias came along, I knew I'd be OK if the show was on for five or six years because the writing was so good and the creative team was so strong.

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

Good storytelling appeals to me - good writing.

I'm very focused on 'Dexter' right now. I want to make it as good of a show as we can.

There are a lot of good stories out there, but I haven't found too many great scripts.

When you have really good writing, you're compelled by the actors who are in it, and you may think it's the actors or the design or the filmmaking of it, but then you're like, 'Well, the base is a really rich story that these guys have created.'

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.

You can have a bunch of great actors in a film, but if you don't have anyone telling a great story, it's a moot point.

If it's an excellent script, I enjoy it tremendously, the acting part of it.

In an ideal world, I'd love to work on something that is on par with 'Lost' or better than 'Lost.'

For me, the most important thing is the writing - and certainly the director. But if the writing isn't there, it doesn't matter who the director is!

High-concept one-liners were huge when I got my start in the film industry.

You can't make a good movie with a bad script, no matter who's involved.

I went to journalism school, so sometimes writing the script of 'Being Mary Jane' is me putting my journalism hat on.

First and foremost, it's got to be on the page. It starts with the writing.

My focus is films, and 'Angela's Eyes' is one of those TV projects that has some good TV concepts behind it and good writing.

The cool thing about 'Transparent' is that the show is funny but not like a sitcom is funny. It all comes down to the writing... The writers on that show are so good that you don't have to worry about anything. There are so many things that can go wrong making a TV show or a movie, but if the writing's good, that's, like, 95 percent of it.

If the script is not good, the film will not work.

I just want to work on good scripts.

These days, you don't need a song or glamour to make your film work. It is all about a good story.