A Quote by Mohamedou Ould Slahi
But the problem is that you cannot just admit to something you haven't done; you need to deliver the details, which you can't when you haven't done anything. It's not just, Yes, I did!' No, it doesn't work that way: you have to make up a complete story that makes sense to the dumbest dummies.
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I'm never a person who likes anything I've done. It's just the way it is. Twenty years later, I can look at something I did, and I'm still thinking, 'You know, that could have been better if you had done it this way or that way.
Sometimes I catch myself doing something that I've already done. The more I've done, the more that's likely to happen. Then I just throw it away. I wait until I've got the right way of getting a thing done, which means my songwriting proceeds at a very slow pace. But it's the only way I can really work.
All the other candidates are making speeches about how much they have done for their country, which is ridiculous. I haven't done anything yet, and I think it's just common sense to send me to Washington and make me do my share.
In a way, after you're done directing there is a sense of amnesia that washes over you, you can't exactly remember how you did things. It's a zone, just like an athlete, when they can't remember what they did, but somehow got it done.
It’s not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done. You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. I always wished I had done more with my work; I wished I had written more books. I used to beat myself up over it. Now I see that never did any good. Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you.
I can work a lot faster when I'm writing a screenplay than when I'm writing a play because, if I'm having a problem with a scene or something, I can just be writing it in a way where there's no dialogue, or find a way to make sound do the work that I want to do or a close-up do the work that I need to do.
I know I haven't done it. I've done a couple of films, which were intended to go straight up. Thankfully they didn't. So now, I think that's what I need to do. I just need to grow as an actor.
If one of my heroes comes to me and says, 'Do you want to work on something?' I just say, 'Yes.' I don't ask for details; I don't expect to get paid anything. I just love working with my heroes.
Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story.
You can't just think that you will get a job for no good reason... And I think that the other part is you have to work your way up, you know I did a lot of Xeroxing and getting coffee...I always did what I was asked to do. I delivered. People knew that I would get things done and get them done well. And that is a big part of our resumes, are based on being responsible and being willing to do what needed to be done.
No matter which way you do it you need to make something happen and get a song that makes you feel a certain way, whether that's making you tap your foot or beat someone up or whatever you're doing, you just need some passion about it.
If you say actors have a social responsibility to do things, you are right, in a way. It's a wishful decision. But if it's done out of force, I don't think it will accomplish anything. Everybody starts counting how much work they have done and see if they have done their due for the week. That is not social service. You need to go way beyond that.
I like to receive money for my work. But I can pass that up this time. I like to have people know my work is done by me. But I can pass that up. I like to have tenants made happy by my work. But that doesn't matter too much. The only thing that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the work itself. My work done my way. Peter, there's nothing in the world that you can offer me, except this. Offer me this and you can have anything I've got to give. My work done my way. A private, personal, selfish, egotistical motivation. That's the only way I function. That's all I am.
Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.
The way I write, I need to tell the true story. I can't just make a story up. So I have to let the things happen to me and allow myself to work through my thoughts.
When we know something that needs to be done but isn't currently getting done, we often say, I just need more discipline. Actually, we need the habit of doing it. And we need just enough discipline to build the habit.
