Howard Gordon Quotes

Film is a very intimate medium.

A film engages you emotionally and intellectually.

If you're not connected emotionally to a story, then you're dead. You're really just opening the door for people to lose interest and their minds to wander, for them to start picking it apart.

The reason I'm an actor and am trying to make my way in drama is to move people, to affect people, to gain a response - so these people who come up to you in the street are your audience.

Big stories need human stakes.

I didn't expect to feel pathos for the villains in our show. I feel quite moved in several of our episodes; I never realized that a show like 'Motive,' which aims for a broad appeal, could have that sort of emotional impact.

You don't get as invested in someone in 90 minutes as you do over 13 hours of television show.

I tried so hard with movies like Vertigo and Middle of the Night and others. I felt those would show me that it's only a matter of time before I'd find the right one to reach out and touch people.

What I find frustrating about scripted television is that it's rare that you are surprised by how you feel about the character, or how you feel about the show.

I don't really make movies with an intention other than asking myself, 'Do I love the character, and do I love the story?'

What captivated me about 'The Flash' is the human drama in it.

It is very touching that you are able to create some kind of impact through a character.

Whatever films I make, the mandate is that it should touch the audiences and engage them from the first scene.

I think it's touching that the fans feel so close to the characters that they feel personally hurt. I've felt that way in plenty of TV shows - 'Game of Thrones,' 'Mad Men.' How could they do that to that character? That's drama.

Audiences are just like us as writers - we grow attached to characters. In certain ways you don't want them to change.

You really have to do your job as a writer and push people to be as creative as possible. What's nice about the TV medium is you have such a connection to the characters that when somebody dies, the audience cries. They really feel it. You really don't cry when someone dies in a horror movie.

The network wants you to make a thing that's just a stand-alone episode, so you never get any character or continuity. This is one of the ways in which television can actually be good, and even better than the movies, because it gives you a chance to tell a long story.

I think ultimately that's why the audience will tune in longterm, for the characters and the relationships.

We have no filter for music, but we feel it when what's being spoken and sung is telling a story and evidencing a character.

If a character dies, you should feel that. If a character accomplishes something, you should feel that. That's where you try to find that balance. It's impossible to articulate, as you go through it. You just have to recognize it.

Television series always have a lot of characters because you want people to identify with someone on the show, who will be your eyes.

We see films all the time, whether they have access to all kinds of intellectual property or artifacts, and the one thing that they don't get is story. So I think whether you're talking about a biopic or an action film or a science-fiction film that has all the CGI in the world, if you're not trying to connect with an audience, it doesn't really matter.

One of the great things about TV is the story to tell can be very internal and really character-based.

Some TV shows are like really good novels in that there are enough episodes that you start to have your own feelings about how the characters should act. When the scriptwriters go slightly wrong, when they make the character make a left turn that he or she wouldn't do, you know enough about the characters to say, "No, that's not what she would do there. That's wrong." You can actually argue with a TV show in a way that you can't do as much with movie - you inhabit a TV show in the way you inhabit a novel.

Well, I think “likability” is an overused word. I don’t watch people 'cause I like them; I watch them because they’re compelling. Sympathetic is a little different... Likable just thins you out. Working to make a character likable is what kills most TV shows.