Jenji Kohan Quotes

I love involving actors at all levels - and they have to know that I want to hear their contributions, with dialogue, with story suggestions, with script changes, whatever.

I wasn't involved, except to the degree that they sent me drafts of the script as the writer turned them in. They asked me at one point to write a memo about what I thought of it.

In many senses, 'Borgen' was a very democratic show. I was always invited to hear the writers' thoughts for the next episodes and allowed to comment on them.

I really want to have actors contribute their own ideas, with phrasings and ideas on all levels.

Mike Schur knows exactly what everything should look like but, at the same time, is super collaborative and loves working with actors that make choices and bring stuff to the table.

Whatever you do, whatever you come up with, whatever you decide on, you can go with it, and if the director or the execs, they like it, then you'll stick with it. That's a good thing, as opposed to having something that's already written.

The concept of making a movie in which the director dictates is kind of exotic - and absolutely not truthful. Directing means allowing a great deal of collaboration and listening and having the ability to change your mind.

The way it works in commercials is they come to you with the script, and then you do the visual, you do the storyboards, and you give your vision of it, but it's very much their baby. You just kind of put your polish and sheen on it and your interpretation of it, but it's very much the agency's idea.

For right now, I'd like to tell stories that I want to tell. I haven't wanted to use someone else's material yet, but I would with the show. It's become an integral enough part of me now, that I could definitely tell a story in this.

I'm the type of actor that believes the director has to be in charge. I've been on sets where the actor's ego was the most important thing, and with a director that messes it up. But I don't like a dictator, I want it to be collaborative - the best idea wins. If I feel respected, and I'm going to give that back. If a director wants to try something, cool, I'll give it back. I also feel like they cast me for a reason, so I'm going to make my mark on it... let me do my thing.

Some directors are like it's their... nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.

Katie Grand often comes in from a very different angle than what I've been thinking about. And that really gives it that extra something, because designers can often get stuck in their own view of how the collection can look. I always love the way that she turns it into something else and I kind of let go at that point.

You just have to go with a good story and a script that you like and people that you like to work with.

As a director, I hoped that I was able to help the actors by giving them the space and the respect they need and the trust. I gave them what I always felt I needed when I was working.

I can't do things by myself. I need a motivation, and the motivation is always the director's. I find my freedom inside other people's barriers. It's easier for me to find myself inside someone else's tracks.

I love when a director shows up with a lot of energy, and different ideas about how to change things and do it a different way. Once you get into series, sometimes you don't have that, so I certainly don't take that for granted when I get it.

There’s no right way to tell all stories, only the right way to tell a particular story.

I had the luxury of working on the script with Andrew [Dominik] for a good year before the film started, so I was already intimate with the story [of The Assassination of Jesse James] and felt quite prepared walking into it.

We couldn't get it off the ground as a film, but then we begin to think television, and Lowell pushed it out there and Jim and Nick were anxious to do Hap and Leonard anyway, and I had worked with them before, so it was a perfect story. I love the series. I hope there's a second.

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.

I learned early on that there are all sorts of stories I have no place telling.

I believe that improvisation is really just a directorial tool. It's a writing tool. It's not so much that the actors get to say whatever they want, whatever pops into their head. It's an opportunity to write the last draft of the screenplay as you're working on it.

Working with Jim Sheridan for instance, we did this movie Brothers. Jim will ask anybody - we'll get a delivery on set, and like the poor delivery guy will be like, "Here's your pizza," and he'll be like, "Come over here. Come here. I want to ask you a question. Do you think this is real? What do you think? Should we do another take?" And they're like, "I, uh, you want your pizza?" There's no shame in everybody's ideas. There's no shame in somebody not knowing.

If a good editor will let me tell my story with the right artist, I'm happy.

I wanted to know as the director how the actors wanted to tell this story I wanted to know what they thought.