Joel Hodgson Quotes

I don't act, anyway. The stuff is all injected as we go along. My pictures are made without script or written directions of any kind.

It's TV: you just have to jump in and just do it. You don't have time to think about it. You don't have time to write a history, which makes it even better. I go with first instincts.

Spontaneity is everything to me, working without a net.

You walk on a set, and you have no idea - that's why I don't storyboard. It's all possible.

Somebody who doesn't understand my directing style could be pretty taken aback by it if I start going off the schedule and focusing on something because I'm inspired in the moment.

In orthodox film-making, you never shoot sequentially - but with improv, obviously every move you make has a knock-on effect; it is a cumulative process. I have improvised, on the non-scripted 'Timecode.' It can become entirely indulgent: actors smashing crockery and competing verbally.

I think making a movie or a record, the best things happen by accident - and those end up being the magic. Every time I've followed my gut it's been better than when I've tried to do what I was supposed to do.

If you wait until the right time to have a child you'll die childless, and I think film making is very much the same thing. You just have to take the plunge and just start shooting something even if it's bad.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

You can't buy something which does not exist. In a way, let's make things exist and then judge later. Don't cancel the process of creativity too early; let it flow.

Part of being an actor is letting things come about organically as opposed to forcing them.

Improvisation is terribly haphazard.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I never rehearse. Never! I think it's a waste of time.

In my work, I have never had any use for anything that I have known in advance.

I'm very open and never write what I'm going to say. Speeches bore everybody else. I have to freestyle. Every time, from one program to another, everything changes and I improvise.

If it were all in the script, why make the film?

If you're waiting for the perfect moment, you'll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There's nothing foolproof.

There's actually something interesting about having no rehearsal time - you have to just walk in and go with your gut, which is exciting.

I come in. I'm going to sketch, I'm going to drape, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I had acting teachers, and one of the things that was encouraged was to keep it fresh, to be spontaneous. That's the magic of film often.

I like to work spontaneously.

An actor finds things in the moment with a director and other actors that you don't have time to hand-draw or animate with a computer.

I like the spontaneity; I like to just get people together and hit 'record' so hopefully it has got a liveliness about it.

I try to push and find something awkward. The gems to me are truly awkward situations, and you have to have somebody who's willing to fail because those can't be conceived. They never play if they're thought about and discussed too much. You have to create them right at the moment and look for something honest.