A Quote by David Costabile

Friends of mine were the creators and executive producers of 'Damages,' people I knew from graduate school. — © David Costabile
Friends of mine were the creators and executive producers of 'Damages,' people I knew from graduate school.
Some friends of mine in the class ahead of me in college were auditioning for graduate school in New York, and then a few of them got into Juilliard, and it sort of opened my eyes. I didn't really know anything about it, but it opened my eyes to a possible next step after school, where I could just deepen my knowledge and also not be responsible for life and stay in school.
I loved it. I just thought I wanted to stay in college forever. I came to New York all by myself; I didn't have any friends there. But it was fine. I felt comfortable. I started thinking, 'Maybe graduate school?' I was really cool with people who were smart, who knew stuff. It's very romantic and stimulating.
I grew up pretty secular. I went to public school, and all the Jews that I knew, none of them were religious. While probably half of my friends were Jewish, they were all secular Jews. We went to Hebrew school, we knew we were Jewish, but it wasn't a major part of our existence.
I was really desperate. I don't know if you can remember back that far, but when I went to graduate school they didn't want females in graduate school. They were very open about it. They didn't mince their words. But then I got in and I got my degree.
When I was in high school in the early 1970s, we knew we were running out of oil; we knew that easy sources were being capped; we knew that diversifying would be much better; we knew that there were terrible dictators and horrible governments that we were enriching who hated us. We knew all that and we did really nothing.
I ended up going to public school in the first grade, and that's when I knew I had to be very strategic about my survival in school. I tried my best to be friends with people who were going to protect me.
If I wanted to be Rimbaud, what was I doing in graduate school? Trying to stay out of the army, of course. Graduate study gave me a draft deferment. But I also knew I lacked erudition and polish and was often sunk in forlorn reveries.
I always knew I'd go back to school. Modeling was a means to an end, making money for graduate school.
I knew I wanted to work in television because some friends of mine, when I went to high school - their fathers worked for, as a matter of fact, for NBC Sports at the time.
I knew some people at my school who were squatters, and my younger brother was a squatter. I knew those guys: those were the people who said the Russians were the good guys and the Americans were bad. But I was the guy who went to the disco.
Let me tell you about being executive producer. It is not a job, it's a title. Don't go around asking executive producers what they do because they don't do anything, alright?
So when it was my turn to start developing projects, I knew the writers I wanted to work with, and I had met every head of studio, every executive and a lot of producers. I started finding things, little crumbs off other people's tables that I would make my own.
I have to throw in on a personal note that I didn't like history when I was in high school. I didn't study history when I was in college, none at all, and only started to do graduate study when my children were going to graduate school. What first intrigued me was this desire to understand my family and put it in the context of American history. That makes history so appealing and so central to what I am trying to do.
We knew we were different, even from our elementary school days. We were the class clowns; we engaged with people differently. We knew there was something out there that was meant for us.
There was a time not long ago when stories about Internet crimes were a tough sell for TV newsmagazines. Executive producers were wary because images of people typing on keyboards and video of computer monitors did not make especially compelling TV, even when combined with emotional interviews with victims.
I was awkward in school. I didn't really fit in with any kind of crowd in school. I didn't have a lot of friends. But the friends I had were very close friends.
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