A Quote by James Salter

Lots of scripts are written and not made, even scripts that people want to make. — © James Salter
Lots of scripts are written and not made, even scripts that people want to make.
The scripts of 'The Wire' are fantastic - the scripts of 'Breaking Bad,' the scripts of 'Mad Men,' the scripts of 'The Sopranos,' the scripts of 'Battlestar Galactica.' You could keep going on. They're incredibly well written.
I didn't want to be seen as just a guy on a list. I'm interested in good scripts, scripts that are about something, scripts that move your acting along.
I write scripts, I read scripts, I meet people who chat about their scripts. So honestly, I don't feel bad if I don't act in a film, as long as people are making great films.
I want to aspire to something like what Denzel Washington does, which is try to find scripts written for white actors - or Jodie Foster, who reads scripts for male actors.
I wrote lots of scripts that never got made and they were terrible. I thought they were good at the time. You can't write two scripts and expect your career to take off. Keep writing. Be you. Be original. A lot of people go for a genre, which is fine if you can do that really well, but we all have such layered histories. We all come from a unique background. Write about your past, write about you. Or make stuff up, but make it about something that really matters.
A lot of scripts are written with an eye on what will be popular or what will titillate or what this actor can do well. I don't think those kinds of scripts ever work.
In 1990 there were about 300 scripts being written demanding the release of Nelson Mandela. And suddenly we watched Mandela walking out of prison. So those scripts had to be destroyed.
had two smaller scripts that I had written with full black casts. And people loved the scripts, but nobody would fund them. Those roles and stories are out there. But unless you have the money to finance movies on your own, you're beholden to others, and that is a very big limiting factor.
There are many great writers out there and, actually, great scripts. The problem is - and this is what I've always felt, even when I got out of school and started reading scripts - the really smart, character-driven stuff tends to be smaller films, and they just don't get made.
Different kind of cinema is being created, people are coming up with different kind of scripts, they are able to come up with scripts that work with the audiences and also scripts which will have something to say to the audience, which is a heart-warming thing.
I was really surprised to see how critical the Malayali audiences are. It is really overwhelming that people genuinely want good scripts and do not miss a chance to applaud good scripts.
Tupac Shakur is something that, of course I want to make the Tupac movie, I love Tupac, but when that movie was announced, we didn't even have a script yet. It was just being written. People announce things too soon. If you go to any filmmaker - Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Ben Affleck, Michael Mann - you go in their offices and there are scripts everywhere and there's about four or five of them you really want to make.
I see so few scripts just because, for whatever reason, there just aren't that many good scripts with a young, teenaged girl. So it's always been sporadic. People don't know what to do when writing a story with teens that takes place now - they think you have to make a bunch of references to Facebook.
A lot of times, scripts are written so the character is all one way. Even with 'Bringing Out the Dead,' the character was written a little more generic.
I think there's something strange about writing a script I've written many, many scripts - dozens and dozens of scripts - and every time I start one, I think to myself: 'why in the world do I think I know how to do this?'
You learn, even at 'S.N.L.,' that the funniest scripts a lot of the time were written with the actor, because they know what makes people laugh. It's always going to be better if they own it.
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