Top 55 Quotes & Sayings by Kurt Sutter
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American director Kurt Sutter.
Last updated on November 3, 2024.
I can be arrogant, I can be insufferable.
What happens on 'Mad Men' in terms of the acting and the writing and the directing, it's superior. And yes, it has tremendous cache and buzz because it's become iconic, but it also deserves all the kudos and the awards as well, because it's a beautiful show to look at.
The rumor is not true: I am allowed in the state of Texas.
Me personally, I'm a guy who it took a long time to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. I relate to a lot of that finding oneself a little later in the game, or being thrown a curve later in the game.
I'm way too hypersensitive.
The trap in Hamlet is he's the most passive of Shakespeare's characters. He's not a Richard III, not out there taking a lot of action. It's a lot of asides and soliloquies where he's wrapped in angst, and that's not a very interesting character.
I'm a storyteller... I haves a God-given gift that I can share with you and perhaps entertain you and bring you along for the ride... So when anybody tries to take that away from me, or impede that, I get defensive.
Unlike fiction, which you create before you go into production, with reality you kind of create it after everything is produced. The drama and the storytelling is really done in post.
I don't think or write from big ideals.
Never in the history of 'The Shield' was the word 'LAPD' ever mentioned. We would mention districts, like Wilshire and Hollenbeck and Marina, but Farmington was a fictitious district, and we never actually uttered the word 'LAPD.' So that was sort of the deal we made with them.
I've made a career writing about fictitious anti-heroes. To create these worlds, I've spent a lot of time with active members on both sides of the law. And if I had to pick the most interesting of the two, the choice is obvious - we all love the guys in black.
All the people who follow me on Twitter know my sense of humor. I sometimes forget the blogosphere will give it more weight than I intended.
I joke that I learned the essentials of storytelling from Hanna-Barbera, but I pretty much did. That kind of television is what enamored me as a kid, and that's what really got me hooked. You could say that's where it all began.
I know the book on me is I'm bombastic and over-the-top, but I think people who know me know that's a part of who I am, but it's not who I am.
The allegations against Harvey Weinstein are clearly deplorable. No matter how many great films he's bullied into production, or his guilt-induced contributions to left-minded ideals, this kind of intimidation and abuse of power is perverse and utterly unforgivable. Period.
Man's inhumanity to man is as old as humanity itself. Some people just do evil things. Most do not. A billion people have seen 'Batman' movies over the past 20 years, and they have been entertained and inspired. One man saw it as a sick entry point for mass murder. The one is tragic. The billion are not. I choose to write for the billion.
I navigate through the world with the excitement and determination of a child. That's why I'm an artist. I'd die without an outlet for expression. Unfortunately, more often than not, that childlike energy is the maturity level I bring to many circumstances.
My wife, Katey Sagal, has transformed herself from a sitcom cartoon to a dramatic powerhouse.
The lazy blogosphere has given up on journalism and now trolls Twitter for their on-the-record in-depth articles.
What I learned in 'Sons' is that I would come in with a blueprint of a season and how it would go, and I realized that the looser my grip was, the better it became because the story found itself. Things happened as I wanted them to in terms of the bigger mile markers, but the fun part was I never knew how we would get there.
I don't read a lot of fiction, but one of my favorite authors is William Kennedy; his books, to me, almost read like historical dramas because the mythologies are so detailed as he wove fiction with the factual history of Albany.
The stuff that I learned on 'Sons,' the education of how to tell stories, was part of that mythology. It's hard to look at it and go, 'Oh, if I knew this, I would have done it this way,' because the fact is I like to think that all that sort of unraveled as it was supposed to.
Here's the deal with 'Bastard.' I loved that show, and for me, it was such a palate cleanser, going from writing urban vernacular and crime to, essentially, iambic pentameter. I loved the mythology of that world based on history, but what it came down to was money.
I'm a guy who has problems with moderation. All or nothing. Binge and purge. Kill or be killed. Gray is not a color I wear well. I should be dead. I know that. I should not be successful. I know that too. My daily existence is a toss of the coin - one side, fear, the other side, gratitude.
One of my favorite movies is the old Depardieu film 'The Return Of Martin Guerre,' which is actually a true story and a book.
The whole Twitter phenomenon is really indicative of what's happening in this country. And I say this in condemnation of myself as much as anyone else - we are growing into a nation that has no time, desire or capacity for truth. All we can handle is 140 characters of knowledge.
I do not write political shows; I should not write political shows.
I knew from being on 'The Shield,' and having some experience in the financials of all of it, that after seven seasons, the production model changes and reverts back. It becomes a much more expensive show to do, and perhaps the economic feasibility of it somewhat goes away.
When I was doing research on the M.C.s and spending time with these cats, one of the things that struck me and made me realize that I could deliver this world to an audience was their really dark and acute sense of humor.
For me, money is about respect, and that is really important to me.
If there's any secret to my success, it's that I just hire people who are smarter and more talented than I am.
I've learned in most areas of my life, to bounce heated choices off other people. Co-workers, my agent, my wife, a sponsor, etc. A majority of the time, that keeps me on the right side of things.
Actors always feel more comfortable when there's an actor directing, in terms of vocabulary and breaking down a scene.
I've been riding motorcycles since my early 20s, and I loved the hipness of the subculture.
I wish I had tougher skin, but I don't.
I'm drawn to the classic antihero, the guy who's probably made a bunch of mistakes and really has the capacity to go either way. That's the most interesting type of character for me to watch, to see what decisions they'll make. There's a lot of gray area there for a writer to explore.
I'm not, like, a gregarious guy. I don't walk into a room and want to engage people. I'm just not wired that way. One on one, I'm fine.
I am a pile of reworked flaws weaved into a semi-functioning man.
I was really exposed to great old-time literature - the classics, the poetic realists like Strindberg and Ibsen and all those guys. I was really inspired by all those guys. That's when writing became a primary focus.
By the time I was a teenager, I weighed 400 pounds.
'Sons' was about working class white guys. And even though I didn't grow up in a motorcycle club, I grew up in a working-class, white-guy neighborhood.
You have to be driven by something greater than you, where you don't surrender, and you commit to something like that.
I like to take fictitious characters and circumstances and wedge them into a real world.
I'm a guy desperately in need of buffers. I have big feelings, big reactions, big emotions. All the things that serve me as an artist, but challenge me as a socially-responsible human being.
My dad was disappointed in me because I was obese, and he was a sports guy. As a result, I spent a lot of time in that basement. I could go down there and escape and be whatever I wanted to be. I had a huge fantasy life. It always involved vengeance.
I always have a sense of where I want to end each season, emotionally and relationship wise and with the theme, and I'm always able to hit that.
My production team doesn't like not knowing what anything is going to look like, but creatively, that's fun.
I love being able to stay real to the world.
I think there's a part of me that feels the need to hide a little bit behind a character.
What happens on “Mad Men” in terms of the acting and the writing and the directing, it’s superior. And yes, it has tremendous cache and buzz because it’s become iconic, but it also deserves all the kudos and the awards as well, because it’s a beautiful show to look at.
As an actor, I've been drawn to those characters that are further away from who I may be.
I started doing some more specific research on Wales in that period because I like the idea of being authentic to the territory, and with that came the knowledge that there was this great rebellion that was happening with the Marcher barons and conflict with the king. A lot of it wasn't documented by the English.
I have a loose blueprint of where I want the show to go. I stress, quite frankly to remind myself, that I hold onto that vision very loosely, so that I can be moving towards something, but I don't ever want to feel like I'm in a box that'll stop me from exploring a potential new direction.
I've always wanted to play with this idea - and I didn't want to leave it to the last season, but I wasn't quite sure when it was going to happen - of putting Jax [sons of Anarchy] at the head of the table and the ripple effect on the guys and the loyalties of it and where people land.
The great thing about having a serialized drama (like 'Sons of Anarchy') is that I'm allowed to bring up events and circumstances that have happened in the past in other episodes to show that this kind of violence doesn't happen in a vacuum. It has ramifications. It has repercussions. Whether it's a week from now or five years from now, you know it will play out. Nothing is ever tied up into a perfect knot.
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