Garry Shandling Quotes

It doesn't help anybody to put out a bad script.

Good scripts have always been, I think, hard to find. Good storytelling, good writing - it's just not easy. I have made it a point that - if I'm going to put the energy into doing this work - I will wait until I find something I'm really happy with.

Most development doesn't make it to series. So you want the writer and director to have a really good experience with development because, if it doesn't work out, you want to work with them again. You have to know their work really well, know the drafts really well, and when you give notes, you need to have really thought them through.

Lots of shows are written completely in the writer's room. And I wouldn't say 'The Walking Dead' is that way. There are three levels to it. There's us in the room. The writers going off by themselves. And me working with the writers on a finished script.

In many senses, 'Borgen' was a very democratic show. I was always invited to hear the writers' thoughts for the next episodes and allowed to comment on them.

A lot of directors keep writers away because the writers know the script better than anybody, obviously they do, and they have certain intents. But a lot of people would be surprised to know that writers are pretty flexible when it comes to their work.

I find that with any good run on a show with good writers, they put something on paper, and you put something back on film, and that affects what they put on the paper the next time.

When you have a good script you're almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script.

There's one great script that hit my desk that I didn't change at all, and that was True Romance.

These things are hard to pin down. We work on a script a bit, then work on a different one.

Part of what I love about producing is to get to work with writers.

With most good scripts and good shows, they expect the actor to bring some of their ideas to the backstory of the character. It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out during the process.

I take time to write my script, if I have more scripts, I will make more movies.

If my film fails, I never think it was because the script was weak.

I've had situations before where there are more people giving notes than there are writers on the show.

It takes a year for us to generate a script that is ready to shoot. There are maybe 20 drafts of a script. And, each time, someone saying 'I don't really love this,' we discuss it for 15 minutes.

I started out working as a script editor and storyliner.

If I can be dead honest with you, when I first see the script for a new episode of 'Endeavour,' if anything jars, I say, 'What's this? Has it got a place in our story?' And if it hasn't, it has to go.

I think of myself as a problem-solver. I want to go in and help the director and the writer to get the best they can out of the text they're working with.

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 don't think I'll ever be a producer who's into taking the meetings and fighting the big fights with studios. I really don't like that part. I'm much more interested in the material.

I think the community that's created within a writers' room is a very interesting topic.

To me the only real star of the movie is the writer. And I work with writers very closely, from outline to first draft and on to the seventh draft, whatever it takes. Then my job is to support the director to make the best movie we can. Some producers try to go past them, but my job is to support them.

Because I work in television, I always knew that I loved working with writers. It's very collaborative. You're always in a room full of writers.

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.