I have also led you astray by talking of technique as if it were something that could be separated from the rest of the story. Technique can't operate at all, of course, except on believable material.
For me and my storytelling and the way that I embrace stories in the way that I embrace characters, I desperately needed to know that everything was okay.
I always have a contract with a character. Even when he's unappealing. The contract is to give him his due. To tell his story. And to keep his secrets.
Tolkien fans reacted so strongly to 'Lord Of The Rings' as a franchise because it stayed true; the heart of it was true to the book.
You really have to be careful with the clues you lay into the film - if they're too heavy-handed, or you've pandered to a slightly stupider audience, then you've spoiled it for the people who are even slightly smart.
Let the story lead you. If the story needs to be dark, let it go dark. If it's a sweet, good-for-the-world story, that's what it is.
The story [of Allied ] itself is the story I wrote, and that's what's great about Bob [Zemeckis ]. You have meetings, but it's meetings for clarity, not to change what they're saying or doing. He takes what's on the page and executes it so brilliantly.
One has to be honest to the story and choose actors accordingly.
If I can be dead honest with you, when I first see the script for a new episode of 'Endeavour,' if anything jars, I say, 'What's this? Has it got a place in our story?' And if it hasn't, it has to go.
…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they are lies of writing the most beautiful sentence in the world that has nothing to do with the story.
If a film is suitable for family viewing, it should remain so, and if a film has some adult content, it should remain so, and these genres should never be mixed and spoil the vision of the story teller.
You have to look for story. That's obvious. If that's not on the page, you can forget it. But I also read whatever character I'm being offered. And if you can cut them out without it affecting the story, then I say no straight away.
For me, I guess I feel like the notion of 'feel good' entertainment... I'm all for it, but I just think you really, really, really have to earn it. I'm not sure I have a lot of movies in me where I see a world that earns it.
I think that when I'm telling a story, I'm doing the best I can to tell the story as fully as I can, and if there are various fractures that happen in the story, then that's just the very thing that the story is as opposed to my looking for avenues of difference in one story. They just really do exist. For me, anyway.
I really believe that when you're playing a character that everything is contained in the script. If I'm pulling from things from my own life, then I think I'm being disingenuous to the character and the story.
In fiction writing ideas have to be handled extremely carefully. You can't let your characters just be mouthpieces for your ideas. They have to live and breathe on their own.
You can't sensationalize a story that is a heartfelt story.
But I feel that I have a responsibility to help the film and I have relations with the studio and with those who put up the money so that I can tell a story that I believe in.
Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.
Whether it's an FBI agent or a maid, if they want me to wear a pink tutu, I might have a few questions, but I'll wear it for the sake of the story.
You first and foremost need to be honest with the script because you don't want to do anything to screw up the basic fundamentals of the story. You don't want to create anything overly dramatic when you don't need to, and you don't want to create anything less dramatic than necessary, either.
I feel 'The Night Circus' has a complete story arc in one book. I like it as a single volume. It feels complete to me, and I wouldn't want to stretch it out into something it's not.
The script of 'Shogun' was so tight that you could not take a word out of a sentence, you could not take a sentence out of a scene, and you certainly couldn't take out a scene without putting ripples right through the back or the front of the overall story.
There's always a slight tension when you sell a book to Hollywood, especially a nonfiction book. The author wants his story told intact; the nonfiction author wants it told accurately.
I guess you can stay sort of true to the story; you don't have to artificially bring the character back from whatever doom you've designed for them, you can tell the story, I suppose, honestly.
