Sam Esmail Quotes

My only close-to-game-plan is to follow good writing. If the writing is in TV or if it's in theater or in film, that's it. It doesn't really matter what the medium is.

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

TV is where a writer can write his novel.

It's wonderful to be able to sit down and write a play.

The instinct to impersonate produces the actor; the desire to provide pleasure by impersonations produces the playwright; the desire to provide this pleasure with adequate characterization and dialogue memorable in itself produces dramatic literature.

I think watching TV has influenced my books, but I don't think writing TV has.

Television is so neat; I grew up doing theater, and I've done a bit of film. I know I'm stating the obvious, but it's a unique storytelling form in that it's able to constantly evolve.

You have actors you've worked with previously, and you have actors you haven't worked with that you've seen in things where you know they can work in these parts. And then there are actors who blow you away, who surprise you.

When you cast somebody, you write to their strengths.

There's a positive side to film and television, the sense of feeding into the theater... Your fans will follow you, hopefully, and be open-minded to see you play other things and experience other stories you want to tell.

I feel much more comfortable as a writer than an actor. I feel like I am a much better writer than I am an actor.

It's communication - that's what theatre is all about.

I don't usually watch a lot of TV, but 'Mad Men' changed my perspective. I admire Matthew Weiner who came up with the idea and wrote such a great TV series, and the broadcasting company for being bold enough to air such a series.

I just like to go where the material is, whether that's TV, or movies, or the stage. As long as it's great writing, it's pretty much something I can't resist.

If you do television, and it's great, it's the best job there is. Every week it's another opportunity to really make that work and figure out how to make it work better. I love that it's like theater too, and the audience, and it's so short, like twenty minutes... It's like a Haiku or something.

I try not to have actors in mind when I write because the tendency then is to be influenced by either their last performance or your favourite of their performances.

Movies are all about plot. Theater, even if it's story heavy, it's about ideas. Theater has to resonate in your heart in a way that movies don't.

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.

I always used to say, as a director, that I could make anybody good in a movie if you found the right part. It all comes down to casting.

It's your job as an actor to fill out the blanks. I love doing that. To fill in the bones.

With the theatre, for God's sake, everything makes sense. You create a clear sequential reality for a specific audience at one particular time.

A good novel doesn't just transcend the boundaries of its target market - it knows nothing about target markets.

The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happen, even the writers.

The great thing about animation is it's like the radio. I used to do lots of radio when I was a kid, and you get to play parts you would never get to play ordinarily.

Characters don't belong to anyone, not even the person who plays them.