Stephanie Savage Quotes

One of the things I really love about TV is this symbiotic relationship you can get between the writers and the actors, and the characters start to come to life because you start to collaborate.

Writing 'Magneto' as part of a team took a little getting used to.

And I have the support of the writers: I have a great relationship with the creative team, and they have a good hold of my character and my personality, and they come up with some great stuff, and I'm forever trying to change it up, keep it fresh.

As a writer, all you want to do is write for great actors. That's all.

In television writing, you want to hear what the characters say as opposed to giving them something to say. It's the same with the cartoons.

I believe that as a writer and a director, you're only providing the skeleton of a character, and you're hiring actors to fill it out.

By the time I wrote 'Any Given Sunday' or 'Bats,' I sort of knew what my job was in terms of what a writer of dialogue does.

If you have a great script and great dialogue, you don't need to improvise.

I'm really calculating when it comes to these scripts - I'm really calculated about character behavior and dialogue.

It's down to the actors to show the writers the potential of the character.

I plot the first 5 or 6 chapters quite minutely, and also the end. So I know where I am going but not how I'm going to get there, which gives characters the chance to develop organically, as happens in real life as you get to know a person.

For me, the dialogue is the easiest part of writing. It just always seems so obvious what a character will say. Maybe it's because I talk too much!

I enjoy working on a series and having a long stretch of time to get to know and connect with my cast and crew. It also gives me the ability to play a character over the span of countless hours of television.

Once you've established where you are, you go to the character and elaborate on expressions and action.

I designed all the characters, anyway, and Frank Doyle was doing all the writing. I didn't have any more input on what direction they were going to go with Josie.

One of the greatest things about 'Continuum' is how great the writing is; our writing room is one of the most talented ones I've ever had. It really helps me as far as character development because they paint a very descriptive picture of who the characters are while still letting us have freedom to put in our own ideas.

With every episodic, there's a learning curve where writers try to find the voice of the characters by way of the actors. Many details are found along the way. On 'Caprica,' although the franchise already existed, we were creating an entirely new world full of new characters.

Personally, I've made myself a very small window of what I enjoy in this business, which is I love being a big part of the storytelling process.

The first and primary requirement for me in a director that I'd want to work with is: do they love writing, and do they love the collaboration process with writers?

I remember my dad working with me on breaking down my script and writing out a back story for my character and all that stuff.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

I'd love to work with Aaron Sorkin on something. Just the way he writes, he has no fear in writing people that are fiercely intelligent, and I love that.

I never write with an actor in mind - never.

Knowing that Gene and Morgan were playing those roles made it much easier to put the script together-we knew who we were writing it for. It took some mystery away.

A part of being an actress that is sort of frustrating is that the writers get to tell you about your character.