Isaiah Mustafa Quotes

I've written original material before, where I've come up with the idea and the characters myself, and that's definitely very different to working with someone else's characters and stories.

I think there's a tendency with actor/directors to imagine themselves playing every part and trying to get people to follow their rhythm, their tempo, their pace. I've learned now to just love being at the center of this creative swirl.

In the case of, like, Childish Gambino, he is someone who is a writer by trade, so he is very meticulous about how he writes his ideas. I don't do this with a lot of artist, but he would give me a treatment that he wants to do, and I'll go off that; then I'll give him feedback and pitch him my ideas.

Everything I write in my show is a collaboration with a team.

When you're doing a concept album, it's easy. It's like a movie: you already know what you're dealing with.

I really only put stuff out when I have something to say and I feel like I've got a direction and I've got an idea - and that can even take two, two-and-a-half years to flesh out.

I have a notebook of concepts. There are titles everywhere if you are looking for them. I pull from them. There is a secret list that I keep for myself about what I want to sing about, and those are the ones I know I am not going to give up for someone else.

In the morning, Capra would arrive with twenty-or-so pages in which he'd written down all of his ideas. Most were terrible, then all of a sudden there would be one which was astounding.

I write my books never thinking of an actor.

When I get a beautifully written piece of material, I immediately start imagining how I would interpret it. I love just daydreaming about it for months, breaking it down, seeing where I can spin something. How I can turn this into the most fun ride for the audience that I can make it? That's my job.

I think artists should really write more.

The writing of 'The Ladykillers' was fun. But once it goes out of your hands it's not fun, 'especially for someone who is used to being hands-on like me.

When I write a song with somebody else in mind, it's putting the cart before the horse. The way I write best is when I allow the song to tell me what it wants to be.

For so long, the model for writing has been, you sit in a room alone for a number of days or weeks or months or years and figure it out. But now, you don't have to do that; you don't have to be alone in the room anymore.

There are times when a film turns out differently from how it was narrated. But I don't look at it as a bad thing.

I've been writing the show with Nigel Coan, the director of 'Luxury Comedy', and Tom Meeten. Three's good. With two, you can lock horns a bit. On your own, you're not sure whether what you've made is any good. I don't know how people write novels. I would go mad.

I never know if I'm the builder or architect. The role shifts all the time. But what I have come to conclude is that the script is the muse.

In TV, you're a 'writer for hire.' That means you're trying to guess what your boss wants and delivering that story. There's a lot of spitballing. The big thing is 'breaking story,' which means coming up with a story. You do it by episode and put it all up on a board.

I never let the technical stuff get in the way of the storytelling.

I have always believed that facilitating good, unusual content should be one of my prerogatives as someone who has spent half his life in cinema.

When you work in a writers room for a showrunner, you serve that story, and you serve that showrunner. I don't think it should be called writing; I think it should be called rendering content. Because you are there to render the content that is agreed upon in the room, and you're serving the voice of the main storyteller, which is the showrunner.

I just try to write literally what I love. That's usually the barometer that I use. As trite as it sounds, I'm like, 'what would I want to see? What would I be excited about?'

It's fun to have someone to talk to and get input from when you write. I usually get stuck when I'm just in my room writing by myself.

I don't consciously sit down thinking I'm blurring genre lines, for the most part. I try to stay focused solely on serving the needs of the particular story on which I'm working.

I really enjoyed writing the adaptation of 'Into The Woods.' I thought it was wonderful to not be the director, frankly. I really enjoyed that aspect of it.