Hamish Linklater Quotes

I've done, like, eight pilots, and every time, everyone thinks it's going to go for 10 years.

I've heard that George Clooney did something like nine pilots before 'ER' was picked up, way back when he was doing TV. It's just the way the business works. There are a lot of pilots that we've never seen. It's protocol.

From an actor's point of view, you never really like to hope that anything will go beyond the pilot. I'd always say to my agent every time I filmed a pilot, 'Great! Well, I'll see you at pilot season.'

As I slowly managed to take what I had learned into a transition from contestant to announcer and warm-up, I first had to prove myself on pilots. And as you know, many pilots are taped for each show that is lucky enough to breakthrough to being a series.

That's the hard part of television: When you walk into the network tests, you're signing away seven years of your life.

If you go to pilot then you are probably going to go to series. That's my feeling about it.

I feel terrible for directors of TV because all the episodes have to look the same. They make a great series for five or six years, and then when it's canceled, they can't break out on their own.

I never really planned on doing a television series.

In television, the writer-creator-showrunner is embraced as the creative mind.

The pilot system in television is utterly broken. It's a huge waste of money.

I had developed a sitcom with UPN, but it wasn't picked up.

Now that I know what goes into making a pilot, keeping it on the air, and keeping your fans, I'm at a point now where I do a pilot and just hope for the best. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.

I don't know if it's a romantic comedy but I'm in the beginning of the first of the season of 'The West Wing.' We shot it last year. I don't know. If anyone asks me to be in one, I'll jump on it.

Like, to do a pilot, you don't know what's going to happen with it.

As actors, if you get a pilot on HBO or on USA, your odds are good that it's going to get picked up.

The most important decision you can make as a showrunner when you're doing a pilot is who's in it and who's directing it.

I can't see myself being a television director unless it's for a two-hour movie.

I literally will write Shonda Rhimes, the creator of 'Grey's,' an e-mail once a month or so and just say, 'Hey, I love you and thank you.' That was my moment. Because of that, I'm doing 'Magic City.'

Alexis and I actually shot the very first scene of 'Gilmore Girls.' What I thought was fast was nowhere near what has become known as 'Gilmore pace.'

What I do know is how difficult it is in this industry to get a show on the air. There's so many different stages: getting a script bought by the network, then getting a pilot made and having that pilot go to series, and then, when that series gets on the air, having people watch it.

It's rare to get a part in a show that's greenlit, let alone two shows that have been greenlit.

What's really amazing is that the showrunner who really got me my start in TV is Andrew Kreisberg. He brought me on to 'Arrow,' and he tracked me down because he was a fan of 'Punisher.'

I had 'Breaking In' at Fox, and that was a constant stopping and starting of getting canceled and picked up again.

Pilot season isn't perfect, and it certainly is a very difficult time. But pilot season does work for us.

Working in MTV's development team, my days would consist of pitches and deciding which concepts we wanted to buy. We would then develop those into a pilot. Very few ended up making it to a full series, but if they did, I would manage the project alongside the show's creators.