Carice van Houten Quotes

I tend to arrive in the rehearsal process with very strongly developed ideas about what I want to do. But I don't like those ideas to be things that are not subject to change, or subject to development, or subject to challenge.

That adage about 'Write what you know' is basically the opposite of the way I function. I write about what I'm curious to find out.

That first writing session, what Dan Hill calls a creative blind date, is always a real challenge, and you bring that back to your partner when you return to writing with them.

Part of making art is learning how you make it best. I'm not great at sitting down at a desk and writing for three hours. I write best verbally, talking through an idea with people, so I do my best work when I collaborate.

I've written with people who aren't like me, then I've written with people who totally get it. It's like a blind date, and you never know what's going to happen. But it's really cool because they learn from you, and you learn a little bit from them. And sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't.

I like working with writer-directors because you can solve problems right there.

Before I ever put anything on paper, Jerry and I would talk back and forth.

I might be like a conductor, or I collect the stuff together and I do a lot of my own writing. But what is a pleasure is the whole creative thing in which we're all excavating and trying to find something.

I have always just made things. I don't see what I make as being defined by a medium or aesthetic. It probably comes more from a fundamental restlessness, an attempt to create tools for questioning or understanding, and I have always been interested in using a wide spectrum of mediums to do this.

My idea of artistry has always been 'try everything until you find out what works.'

Being able to chuck ideas around and bounce ideas off each other with anyone I'm working with is just something I love to do, that's how most of these ideas are formed.

The worst thing when you're working is to say, 'I have a question,' and the other person goes, 'No! This is what it is.' That kind of rigidity is very challenging because musicals are constantly mutating.

I don't want the baggage of knowing things when I walk on to a set. I am more comfortable being an empty slate, surrendering before a director and writer's vision. I've realised that this is the best way for me to function.

I try to just focus on what feels right to me when I am conceiving it, conceptualizing, designing, etc. and then talk it through with the team and listen to what they have to say. This kind of thing is a team effort, and working with a great team is the most important part of filmmaking for me.

Jeph Loeb has been great to work with, and he's been really supportive of some really bizarre ideas I've had.

It's my approach as a filmmaker always to go in, not with a thesis or preconceived notion, but with curiosity and questions and inquiry. So in some way, I'm always surprised. I'm always finding paths of engagement.

I've always liked playing with somebody else and collaborating, just to get out of my own head all the time. Everybody does, but artists especially, we torture ourselves. So it's good for me to immerse myself in somebody else's work.

Brian Eno developed systems to keep himself on edge and to keep himself in a position where he's generating ideas.

As a writer, you're really in control of almost everything. That's not the case in TV. You have to be prepared to work with a lot of people to make something happen, and you got to be prepared, at least in the beginning, to not be too good at your specific task.

People sort of imagine Chris Morris and me sitting somewhere dark, with dripping taps and chilling background music. In fact, we like to sit on his roof in the sunshine - and there's an endless amount of just sitting there, going, 'So, erm, er, what shall we do?'

I spent almost 3 months with Bergman, four hours every afternoon. We sat and went through the whole script. To be honest, most of the time we talked about life and other different things. It was really a wonderful time.

My approach with actors is to try and give them whatever it is they need from me. Direction to me is about listening and responding and realizing how much they need to know from me and how much they have figured out for themselves, really.

A lot of actors never talk to other actors about how they're doing things, or why. I think it's important to share the way you're thinking.

Theatre people, who are an adaptive species, know that to remain sane in the process of production where everyone and his uncle has an opinion about how to fix a show, you must pick the people whose knowledge and taste you trust and stick only to these few. The Tweetocracy is no place to look.

Fashion is much more collaborative than one might think. You have to have an idea and vision, and you have to communicate that vision to a team of people, and you have to create an environment that allows those people to give the best that they can give.