Creative Restrictions Quotes

When one gets time duration, one becomes very restricted, and hence, creativity suffers.

I think that I've been pigeon-holed by virtue of the fact that I've spent so much time in front of a green screen.

Unfortunately, I was branded as a glamour actress and was forced to do only glamour roles.

I can't do too many films.

A director in Hollywood in my time couldn't do what he wanted to do.

I find there aren't that many options as an actor.

I think I have been stereotyped as an action director in Hollywood, so all I got were the action scripts.

A lot of the time, as an actor, you don't have the freedom to change what your lines are, and they can often be very unnatural or difficult to portray in a real light.

Too many people in charge at ESPN, for my taste, were a little too fearful. It's a Disney network. There are just certain boundaries that you can't even tiptoe along.

There are worse things than getting pigeonholed in Hollywood.

I think part of making movies is dealing with restrictions of freedom and budget. I'd rather deal with restrictions of budget. It's better to feel free within any budget.

Once, I'd written a Western story, and one of the panels was just a hand holding a six-shooter, and there was a puff of smoke coming out of the barrel, and a straight horizontal line, indicating the trajectory of the bullet. So that page was sent back to me from the Code office, saying that the particular panel was too violent. I asked them what they meant, and they told me--I swear--"The puff of smoke is too big." Well, of course. So I had the artist make the smoke a little smaller, and the youth of America was saved.

Otherwise, to be a movie star, it's a lot of compromise and also a lot of headaches. You can't do what you want. You become a prisoner of your fame. This happened to me in France and I don't want it.

Genre might certainly increase some of your narrative freedoms, but it also diminishes others. That's the nature of genre.

We need a more complex understanding of writers working under authoritarian or repressive regimes. Something to replace this simpleminded, Cold War-ish equation in which the dissident in exile is seen as a bold figure, and those who choose to work with restrictions on their freedom are considered patsies for repressive governments. Let's not forget that most writers in history have lived under nondemocratic regimes: Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Goethe didn't actually enjoy constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of speech.

I always figure there are novels and short stories, and in those, I'm God. No one tells me what to do. I don't have to lose a page, or cut anything, it's just mine. Then there are other things where you're up against realities.

Yeah, there's a tendency to get pigeonholed in Hollywood.

I think, especially when you're on TV, once you become associated with one genre or the other, it's near impossible to break into the other one, even if you have experience with both.

I wanted to do my artistic work, and in Iran you have censorship. It was difficult for me to do the work I wanted to do.

Talking Heads, for me and Chris, was a very personal thing that we shared with a lot of people. In a way, I'm glad it's over, because it allows us to move beyond the restrictions that followed.

The theater's much the most difficult kind of writing for me, the most naked kind, you're so entirely restricted.... I find myself stuck with these characters who are either sitting or standing, and they've either got to walk out of a door, or come in through a door, and that's about all they can do.

One of the biggest dangers in Hollywood is becoming typed.

There are certain types of genres that are impossible in China. Ghost stories, something too graphic, too violent, and of course if it's too political. Other than that, it will be fine.

I've come up with another formulation about style: that it's essentially a manifestation of a certain habitual set of limitations. It's what a composer does NOT do that defines a style.

The spirit of poetry, like all other living powers, must of necessity circumscribe itself by rules, were it only to unite power with beauty.