Alex Kurtzman Quotes

I never had any master plan about directing, and I don't really write.

I don't go through a torturous intellectual process to decide what to direct. I know what I want to direct the second I read something or hear a story. I just know when it grabs me in a certain way I want to direct it. And then I spend the next four to six months trying to talk myself out of it, because directing is really hard! But it's true, I know essentially when and what I want to do next... it's an undeniable feeling I get and it's not the same feeling I get when I wind up producing something.

During improvisations, I'll hear people bringing back up details from something I heard about at breakfast or something somebody was saying that they were thinking about, and it informs a rewriting of a scene.

I always claim that the writer has done 90 percent of the director's work.

I started out my career as a screenwriter and quickly discovered that adhering to a script isn't always the best way to make a film. You have to take into consideration the nuances of the characters and what the actors bring to their roles.

I do a lot of improvising when I'm writing, and I work very hard on the scripts... they are written very much in an actor-friendly way.

If you're a director and someone shows up and asks how I do it, I'd imagine, as a director, you're like, 'Man, I've got a million decisions to make; can you show up with an idea for the scene?'

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 hope to direct at some point, but I don't feel the pressure to rush it. I want to really know what it is that I'm doing.

When I give notes on a script, I say, 'Guys, I may drift, but it's part of the process.' So I'm aware that I'm drifting, but I'm grabbing a lot of stuff.

Scorsese is a fan of improv and is always pushing actors to think up something that would make the scene more fun. He loves any idea that helps the scene be alive.

Every single second of extra time to work with other actors has definitely always, for me, paid off for the film. For the project. Every single extra heartbeat you could get, mutually considering the scene, was of benefit.

I love good TV shows, but it's not what I do. I kind of sculpt my films as I go along. And TV is all about writing, so you just shoot, shoot, shoot what's written.

Eventually, I would love to direct, but not anytime soon. I just love the storytelling aspect.

I used to hang out with a group of aspiring directors before 'Pizza' happened. We used to discuss a lot of stories all the time.

After I met Ajay Bhuyan, we thought of making the English TV show 'Prison Break' as a Telugu film. Ajay put it all down, but somehow, we felt it would not work. Then 'Dhada' emerged.

I think all my films have a different journey. Therefore, I take it as it comes.

I go straight into shooting with a script that's 80 per cent complete and I wait for my characters to grow on me before I finalise the climax.

I made 'St. Nick' on a 30-page outline. 'Aint' Them Bodies Saints' was a full-bodied script, but it still had a lot of room for improvisation. There were scenes that weren't there on the page - just a sentence saying something happens. I was like, 'We'll figure this out when we shoot it.'

I definitely have to know every detail of a script and analyse its potential before I think further because if the director is the captain, then the script is the ship.

Though I have an idea about the climax, it always changes when we start shooting.

Finding one good script is a huge challenge. So I do a film whose script comes and grabs me. Once I finish that, I look forward to the next movie.

I don't find the songs; they find me. I just strum my guitar and wait for a lyric to come.

You always have three movies that you have to reduce into one. You have the screenplay. And then, you do a workshop and you add more scenes. And then, on the day you shoot, there's more action and interaction. It's like a souffle. It has a tendency to just grow and explode, and it's just too long.

We worked on The Perfect Storm, and I'll never forget, Wolfgang Petersen would talk about a moment. Like a non-speaking moment, where we'd all be sitting around eating dinner, and it would probably last maybe four seconds on screen. But he would sit there and talk about it for about 10 minutes. He knew what piece of the puzzle that scene would be, and if it were six seconds, it would be too long. If it were three seconds, it wouldn't be enough. I'm always turned on with people's enthusiasm like that.