Greg Berlanti Quotes

I don't know much about writing a show or being a show-runner on a show, but I can only imagine that when you first cast a show and you first do a pilot, there are so many components that you're throwing into the mix and you're not sure how they're going to develop.

When you're making a TV drama, the showrunner is God, and so however onerous and difficult and consuming that responsibility is, you're being treated with respect, so it changes your whole outlook to the production. You're being asked about costumes, set design, music, every aspect of the show.

I won't name any names, but I've done a couple of shows where once the pilot got picked up, the creators openly said, 'I have no idea where we're going.'

It's such a process to get a show off the ground initially. And then, to already have a second season announced is a dream come true for any actor.

It's only when you're privy to the conversations and a member of the production team that you can direct the course of a series and make sure it flourishes.

I don't think there's any show that really escapes it: It's very rare that a creative producer stays with the show. As soon as the producer leaves, they cut the budget.

Working in MTV's development team, my days would consist of pitches and deciding which concepts we wanted to buy. We would then develop those into a pilot. Very few ended up making it to a full series, but if they did, I would manage the project alongside the show's creators.

I didn't have to wait six years to get my show on the air, worry that someone else had a similar idea, or wait around for notes that took my voice out of the show.

I was running the show on 'United States of Tara' and 'How To Make It In America' where I could say, 'Okay, I'm in charge of everything now.' But it still wasn't my show.

I wouldn't want to direct - I think that's a very different job. You have to be a very specific type of person to do that.

As a director, I get to have a much broader creative expression than as an actress.

I feel like my experience on 'Community' was that I saw just how important that first year is for a series. That is where you work all the pieces out, and that means honing the characters' voices, setting that tone, finding your angle.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.

Directing is a unique endeavor where you are in charge of so many people. As a writer, it is sort of the opposite.

When you're making a pilot, what you're mostly thinking is, 'Please let this be a real job, please.'

Like, to do a pilot, you don't know what's going to happen with it.

I had done a directing producing job before on 'Big Day' and 'Jake in Progress,' and those are two shows where I directed the pilot and stayed with it in series.

You have to get the casting right. You have to get the people behind it. Your director might not be the right director for the project. And then, it has to test and those people in that room, wherever they are, have to turn those buttons the right way at the right time.

As actors, if you get a pilot on HBO or on USA, your odds are good that it's going to get picked up.

I am currently talking to one of the studios about making American Star as a TV series.

I keep saying this, but the most important part of directing is casting, and the rest of it is pretty easy.

As a producer, I learned not to declare anything about a movie I'm not directing.

For me, the most important thing is the writing - and certainly the director. But if the writing isn't there, it doesn't matter who the director is!

What I do know is how difficult it is in this industry to get a show on the air. There's so many different stages: getting a script bought by the network, then getting a pilot made and having that pilot go to series, and then, when that series gets on the air, having people watch it.

I don't think of myself as a producer. In television, it's part of the business - if you progress and become successful as a writer, you're called a writer-producer. What that means is that you have a lot of say in casting and behind-the-scenes stuff. But I'm just a writer.