Everything I've wanted to turn into a film becomes something new and different when it becomes a movie... Each time I work with an author, I say to them, 'A book and a movie are different things.'
I know when it comes to TV, the writer is king, but to me, the filmmaker is king.
Novels are very different than films and I love to see someone else's imagining of my story.
Prior to being in 'Carousel,' I had only seen the movie. So, when I read the script, I felt like it was a lot deeper than the movie portrayed it to be.
All I can say is that I am not one of those writers who want 100% of their book in the film. I recognize that film is a different medium and the filmmaker must have the right to bring some new elements to the table, provided the soul of the book is preserved.
Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.
I think that there's no doubt that to work in film is a bit more of a creative journey. It's not that I don't put the same time or heart into something that's on television.
. . usually, the biggest problems of adapting plays into screenplays is that they stick too close to the play, and I think film is a completely different medium. I think a novel is much closer to a film.
It's hard to see a film that's been made from a book that you really loved because it's such a different experience.
When you read a play, the words speak to you. When you read a script, there's no way you can tell if that's the way that movie will turn out.
Well, the medium of film is so different than a book that just by bringing it into visual storytelling is to change it up. I think in a book, in any book, you can have a reactive character. Some of the great novels of all time have had that, but in a film you can't do that.
Always remember, there's no point trying to be faithful to the book because film and writing are just two completely different things. Any film stands on its own, apart from whether it's based on a novel.
I make different choices in regards to the stories I want to be a part of. In my mind, it's a totally different medium. Commercials are little skits, and movies are stories; I became a little more picky in my choices for stories that I wanted to be involved in.
On screen, everyone stares at your face, but on stage, you can basically play anybody.
There's a way in which filmmaking is a director's medium and television is a writer's medium, so even as TV gets more cinematic, it's still guided by the writer.
The language of prose is very different than the language of cinema, so the movie has to successfully translate what was in the book.
Sometimes I have a great day of filming and sometimes the theater strikes me better. It just depends.
If you are making a script based on a book it can be frustrating going back to the source novel, because you're turning the story into a totally different thing; the narrative of film is different from that of a book.
A lot of films that have been adapted from books stop serving you because they become different. I mean, they are different entities in themselves, but artistically, what you're trying to achieve with a film is so very different to what you're trying to achieve with a book, and the way when you write a script is so very different on paper to how it seems on a screen.
How you carry a story in pictures is different than how you do it in text.
I admit TV is a far cry from the films that I started my career with, like 'Ek Doctor Ki Maut.' It's like reading Chekov and then going on to a comic strip.
Movies are different from books and you need to be open to go into that difference.
In film, a lot of the time you're not as engaged, it is all being given to you, and you're accepting it as it comes in, but in comics, as a reader, you are going to have to work, your imagination needs to do an awful lot.
I don't really look at the skillset of being an actor as different in each medium. It asks a different thing of you as an actor, but for me, I draw upon the same skillset. It's just a different tuning of your tools as to who you're doing it for, whether you're doing it for an intimate camera or an audience of 2,000 people.
All TV can do is capture the spirit of a book because the medium is so utterly different. But I'm very grateful for the readers that Masterpiece Theatre has undoubtedly brought me.
