Television Limitations Quotes

People say I owe a lot to television. The fact is I was a star long before television. What TV made me is unemployed.

One of the problems with episodic television of any color is that everything has got to be okay at the end of the episode so it can start again next week.

I think the more web video there is, the more press you'll get, as well as all the people who want to tell stories that haven't been told before but can't do that on TV because different stories are a risk.

I like television, but there's not as much freedom as there is in film or theatre, and I always felt that there is a certain pressure in being able to put out a product, but it's OK.

I sure can't do television. The screen is only 24 inches. How are they ever gonna get someone like me in that little box?

If you could make telly as good as radio, it would be amazing - audio can do things so easily that television can't.

I've always felt that improv looks and feels more clever when you're there to experience it live than when you have the degree of separation that television creates. Television raises expectations.

Every time I watched my acting on 'Dynasty,' I cringed. Creatively, I felt stifled.

There's a lot that you can do in television that you can't do with a film, theoretically. At the time, the only possibility was to do a movie.

Sometimes I think on television, you use maybe a tenth of what you are able to do. So it's nice to go, 'Well, I'm gonna take two months and reinvest in acting and storytelling.' You don't get to do that on television.

I have a great job writing for 'The Office,' but, really, all television writers do is dream of one day writing movies. I'll put it this way: At the Oscars the most famous person in the room is, like, Angelina Jolie. At the Emmys the huge exciting celebrity is Bethenny Frankel. You get what I mean.

The one worry that I always have with TV is that it's such a long commitment. You sign on to be there for a good amount of time, and then you can't go and do films and things like that.

I don't think television really captures the speed and the power of skating.

Television has a real problem. They have no page two.

TV taste is an aftertaste. Whatever gets on the tube is always a foregone conclusion, a fait accompli. That is, any new ideas or social changes have already been fought for in the real world of the streets, or in the bedroom or even the law courts long before they reach the screen. By the time you see it on prime time, it's usually all over and done with, whatever it was. Television by definition is not avant garde. It is often reactionary and always sentimental.

We're very good at telling what happens and showing people while it happens... But sometimes television fails to take the time to say 'Why did it happen? What does it mean?' - To step back a little bit.

I took a break from TV for about three-four years. During that time, I had to let go of some of the best shows that were offered to me, as I wanted to focus on films. It was believed that if you are seen too much on TV, you won't get films.

I am sort of proud that I think radio has become a dominant influence in shaping public opinion. Good radio paints the picture for the audience. The audience has to be actively involved. Sometimes, in television, you can get lulled into sleep watching the picture, not listening to what you're hearing.

Now, you always know there's going to be some compromise when you're doing something for television, and especially network television.

You have a shelf-life on TV.