Dialogue Adjustment Quotes

I don't do a lot of rehearsal. I don't like rehearsals. I rehearse the day or morning. I spend one hour and a half with all the actors, and we go over the scenes, and we change it and change the dialogue, and we do a lot of things to it, but prior to shooting, I don't really rehearse.

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

I will admit I am a little bit of a line fudger. I will change the line a bit to make it feel better in my mouth. That is something they'll allow you to do on 'Veep' unless it's a particular joke where they're like, 'No, it just sounds better like this.' But with a lot of network shows, the script is law; you cannot change it all.

Almost every scene, I re-think as I'm about to start drawing it, and at least half of the time I'm changing dialogue or whatever, or adding scenes or different things.

Because of the way that I work with the actors and because a scene is not in this rigid and literal interpretation of something written, I can constantly change stuff, which means I can get a scene absolutely perfect, and then when we go to shoot it, the requirements of the shot mean it would be useful to extend the dialogue or take a line out or swap things around. So the camera doesn't serve the action. The action serves the camera. That's important. So it becomes more and more organic and integrated.

As an actor, I know immediately if I'm saying a word that doesn't feel right coming out of my mouth, and I know how to change it. But as a director watching something, or even as a writer reading a script, sometimes it's not always clear what needs to be fixed.

Revising a screenplay is much more frustrating than revising a song because you have to read through the entire work again while you are changing stuff. It is a lot easier to edit a song.

We write and write and write until we think, 'If we have to shoot this script, we'll be happy, and it's going to be a great movie.' I meet with all the actors two weeks before, and I ask them, 'What lines don't work? What is uncomfortable for you? What jokes do you think aren't good? If you're not getting it, here's what the joke is.' You fix it.

Making comic adaptations means making a lot of choices - you need to adjust the pacing, the dialogue, and in this case, a lot of the cultural references.