Ziad Doueiri Quotes

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

I take time to write my script, if I have more scripts, I will make more movies.

If my film fails, I never think it was because the script was weak.

The filmmaking process is a team effort. A screenwriter cannot possibly do exactly what he wants as if he was writing a novel.

I was asked to do a reading of 'G.B.F.' and I loved the script. I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd read, but it took a year to get a green light for production.

I sat down to take a break from writing a book and wrote a spec feature that would end up being the movie 'Lies & Alibis' with Steve Coogan.

But the longer I'm in the business, you see a lot of times these screenplays have been rewritten 5 times and you're not really offending an author.

I have written my own screen version of Pern, but had no buyers yet.

It doesn't help anybody to put out a bad script.

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

I had written a script called 'Freed,' which I had wanted to direct.

I have always thought if you are going to make a film, it's much better to have an original script that will play to film's strengths.

I was hired to do this one great script called 'Cap'n Ricky' and that project is up in the air at the moment.

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.

'Unforgiven' is probably an example of a script that I liked right away but thought, 'This is great, but I'd like to do this when I'm older.' So I stuck it in the drawer for ten years and then took it out.

With network shows, writers can be so protective of every syllable.

'Hardware' came about because I had written quite a few scripts and hadn't had any luck getting them made.

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

There comes a time as you continue to write and work on scripts and screenplays where you realize that you have opinions about the next step of the process, and you kind of want more control over the translation from page to screen.

You can sit around and complain that Hollywood doesn't make any good movies. But you can generate your own material. So I read books. I come up with ideas. I was the producer on 'The Woodsman' to help get that off the ground. Sometimes that extends itself to directing.

Writing a script is hard, I've discovered.

It takes a year for us to generate a script that is ready to shoot. There are maybe 20 drafts of a script. And, each time, someone saying 'I don't really love this,' we discuss it for 15 minutes.

I usually just do, like, studio jobs, re-writes and stuff.

There aren't enough good scripts.

I started acting when I was really young. I knew I wanted to be in the industry in other ways. I knew that I wanted to do more than just act. I don't know that I knew it was screenwriting, but I just knew that I wanted to be involved.