Alcee Hastings Quotes

I'm not a very 'this is planned out' person when I get to set. 'This is how I'm going to do it' - I'm never like that.

I feel like my own background in improv and doing documentaries makes me really comfortable with a situation where you're letting things unfold and you don't have to be a jerk, stomping his feet, trying to get his way on everything.

When I do a take, I very often try things that I haven't planned to try to see if I can pull it off.

I used to be very rigid because I just wanted to get through it. Now, if I think a scene should go a certain way and it goes another, I'm able to go that new way with ease.

The fact is I'm an opportunist. I'll take materials around me, materials on my table, and work with them as I'm searching for an idea that works.

My methodology is not knowing what I'm doing and making that work for me.

But I just think we've got such a continuity with what we're doing that most people come in and fill in the blanks. And sometimes we leave a lot of blanks to be filled.

I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right.

I like to work spontaneously.

You can't always go by the book, even in comedy.

The hardest thing is that I never do anything the same way twice, and when I'm on the air, I'm very unscripted, and I'm very comfortable in that role. So me being scripted is not a comfortable place for me.

Sometimes, thinking on your feet can be the most creative. Constrained circumstances can bring the best out of you. Some of the most successful shows come out of shoestring invention.

Think on your toes, use what's around you, and come up with something organic and fun.

Producing a series is like being Lewis and Clark: You know where you're going, you just don't know how you're going to get there. When people say, 'You should create a bible for your show,' I say, 'You don't want a bible. It'll prevent you from making discoveries along the way.' And that's what happened on 'The X-Files.'

I never make films thinking 'This is my film. This right here is undoubtedly Kim Jee-Woon style.' I am not even sure what 'Kim Jee-Woon style' is. When I make films, I never allow myself to make hard-set decisions ahead of time.

You have to be very flexible and understand as a director, especially as a writer/director, that you cannot hang onto stuff really hard. You have to be ready to accept those happy accidents and to anticipate that they are going to happen and capitalize on them.

I don't stick to special techniques, conscious techniques.

My policy is to have no policy.

I like to reinvent with each project, in any which way possible.

There's no set way to do anything. Sometimes you have to go outside the box; sometimes you can do things the standard way. Like, you don't have to have a beat to write a song: sometimes you can write lyrics without the music.

I do not believe in planning.

Government tends to stifle innovation, and it abhors improvisation. Any good military strategist will tell you that a battle plan rarely survives past the first engagement. After that, you have to improvise to survive and to win.

In technology startups, there's a lot of winging it.

I always just like to improvise, and that goes for my audition tapes as well.

I'm a guy that, when there's something rolling out there, the predetermined rotations might go right in the garbage can.