Actor Input Quotes

On movies, I like to involve the cast in the writing of the script. I like to have a rehearsal period, after which I do the last draft, which gives me a chance to incorporate anything the actors have come up with during the rehearsal period, so I'm very inclusive as a writer.

Once a film gets into production, the actors sometimes begin to have more input than a writer does.

The great thing about 'Justified' is that the writers will craft a scene, but if the actors come up with a great idea, they're 100% for it.

It's strange not to allow the actor some input and breathing room into what was written on the page - it is their job to make it come alive.

I can only get to a certain point as I write and then I have individual conversations with everyone that I cast. I always do a rewrite based on the conversations.

Before you start production, you have characters you have created without actors in mind, then all of a sudden you've got actors. They bring an enormous amount in creating these characters, and creating the dynamics between the characters that you've written.

The character of Brent Spiner. We certainly collaborate on the concept of that, but he basically writes the script, then it's sort of a combination of his voice and my voice.

Plays are frequently infected with ideas that came from actors or even sound engineers. Some Shakespeare scholars wonder whether some of the Bard's lines came from onstage improvisations by actors.

Mike Schur knows exactly what everything should look like but, at the same time, is super collaborative and loves working with actors that make choices and bring stuff to the table.

We have a full writers' room, and with something like 'MyMusic,' we've scripted it out with professional writers. There is some very basic improv from the actors, but everything is very to the letter, so it's easy to edit down to an episode. There are fun little things an actor might throw in there.

We always try to leave room for the actors to come in and make discoveries on set, in their interpretation of the scene. The shot list is scaffolding.

You write a character, but in essence, it's just a concept of what it could be, and then actors come in and they have their own sort of interpretations and thoughts. If you respond to those and then go forward with them, then it's kind of like magic to see the idea you had become alive and in the flesh.

Actors don't request what scenes to be written in. That's just not how it works.

In a collaborative environment directors hire actors because they want their input, not just their bodies.

Generally speaking, actors are allowed NO input. Actors are dumb.

A lot of directors want to storyboard you, whereas the best way to get a performance out of an actor is a collaborative process where you listen to the actor's input.

After making 'Secretary,' it was a real shock to me to learn that some directors just aren't interested in what actors have to say. They just don't want to collaborate.

If a director can find the exact combination between the written word as a guideline and improvisational input from his actors, I think that's where you'll find the most successful work being done.

You learn, even at 'S.N.L.,' that the funniest scripts a lot of the time were written with the actor, because they know what makes people laugh. It's always going to be better if they own it.

I try to always be open to what the actors want to try. I don't storyboard and try to be intuitive and open on the day of filming.

Every actor wants to get their two cents in about a scene at the end of the day.

We [ with Emilio Estevez] asked if we could take some things [ in Breakfast Club] that weren't in the shooting draft, but from earlier drafts, "Can we maybe use this?" And Hughes was very amenable to all that. And there was some stuff that I liked, and I said, "How about this?" And he went, "Well, we'll check with Molly [Ringwald]. Those scenes are with her. And if she likes it, fine." So it was just wonderful. It was great.

A lot of what you're seeing these characters go through is something that either is a story one of the actors told in the writers' room or one of the writers themselves told in the writers' room.

To me, the screenplay only becomes the Bible of the film after the actors have been cast. You go over the initial script with them and listen to the way they talk. Then you try to do a rewrite to accommodate them.

I really want to have actors contribute their own ideas, with phrasings and ideas on all levels.