Thomas Jane Quotes

When you think of things like The Sopranos, The Wire, Damages, they are beating film on a regular basis. Most films are terrible. It's only the 2% that are good. There's things you can do on TV which you can't do on film. There is something about those episodic, serialisations that are grand and operatic.

I like to use a bit of chaos when I shoot. I think it may be something from the way I shot my first film - I was very scared, of course, and I prepared everything, I wanted to make sure that the characters did the right thing at the right time on the storyboard. But then I realised that in life, there is so much more than what you can predict or write in advance, that when you shoot the story, it's good to leave some gaps where you lose control. I think this combination of chaos and organisation gives a kind of quality.

That's what I think is the neat thing about TV: how alive it is and how the writers respond to the stimulus that they're getting from the actual actors. Whereas a movie is more hermetically sealed.

With 'Deep Space Nine,' I learned that when you get a script, you should give honor to the writer. On 'Larry Sanders,' even on '24,' you could make up stuff.

It's fun when the writers start writing jokes to you, but also it's fun when the writers will come to you and say 'Hey, listen, we're working on this story and we need to know if you speak any foreign languages.' And I said 'No, I don't. I speak a little Spanish, but I can learn a foreign language.' And they go 'Okay, do you think you can learn Portuguese?' And I go 'Yeah, whatever it takes. If it's funny, I'll do it.' So of course I start looking online and learning Portuguese, and as it turns out, I get the script and it's now Serbian.

Well, the best part about stand-up is that you control everything. Period. When you work in movies, or on TV shows, there are 50 other people involved. And it's hard, man. They brainwash you to think you're doing the right thing.

I like working in television because it's an evolving story that you tell. That's also one of the things I don't like about it, too. Because sometimes it's hard, and just when I think I've nailed something, it changes or we have to change it or change the joke or the character is evolving in a way that I don't have control over.

I just think it's weird that Donald Trump wants to be an executive producer of a TV show while he's President of the United States. I agree with Newt Gingrich. He doesn't have to do that.

I don't think that any scene [in Pineapple Express] is word for word how you'd find it in the script. Some of it was much more loose than others. The last scene with me, Danny [McBride] and James [Franko] in the diner - there was never even a script for that scene. Usually we write something, but for that scene we literally wrote nothing.

There were a lot of lessons of production to be learned. On the page, the biggest thing you learn on any TV show is how to write to your cast. You write the show at the beginning with certain voices in your head and you have a way that you think the characters will be, and then you have an actor go out there, and you start watching dailies and episodes. Then, you start realizing what they can do and what they can't do, what they're good at and what they're not so good at, how they say things and what fits in their mouth, and you start tailoring the voice of the show to your cast.

People think "The Office" was improvised, but it's all on the page. We do that because what we found is that in the early days of "The Office," we went in with it sort of 80 percent scripted and we did some things and then we improv'd and we did - you know, and it gets a laugh on the floor because it's the first time they've heard it.

I kept saying I want to do an episode that's set in the past, how do we do a period episode of Black Mirror? And simultaneously there was another idea we were thinking about and the two things sort of gelled and became San Junipero.

Most of the bands that I really like no longer exist. That might just be because I'm in my thirties or whatever. But I also think it's the rare band that doesn't, like, turn into something else.

I'm generally a very annoyingly positive person, in real life. I think that might have something to do with my gravitation towards angry human beings on screen.

If somebody comes before me and I think that they will do a good job in fulfilling the mission - even if I might not have nominated them - if I think they're gonna do a good job, I vote for 'em.

I think you should know that real-life white people are not all as funny as the ones on 'Seinfeld'.

I moved out to L.A. in July and Hot L Baltimore started in September or October. So I had done a few things. I'd done a Mary [Tyler Moore]. I'd done a Waltons. I hadn't done a Rhoda yet I don't think.

Rosencrantz: We might as well be dead. Do you think death could possibly be a boat? Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is...not. Death isn't. You take my meaning. Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not-be on a boat. Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats. Guildenstern: No, no, no--what you've been is not on boats.

Think of things not as they are, but as they might be. Don't merely dream- but create.

When you start a TV show, you're not necessarily thinking, "Are we setting up what we need for season seven?" You're just trying to stay on the air, and you try to learn your job as you go, and do what you can.

Shh! Listen! Someone’s coming! I think — I think it might be us!

I think religion might throw up a kind of resistance, but I think if one talks about conditioning we can all kind of understand that.

Now things on TV are every bit as good or better than what you find in movie theatres.

It is much more difficult to get implemented politically what might be desirable economically. Even if you came out with an economic argument in favor of equalization - and I think there are arguments on both sides - I would still come down in favour of some sort of a scheme on strict economic grounds.

I think you can use some of those words on TV. But one thing you can't do is throw coffee, I've said it over and over again!