A Quote by Jeffrey Skoll
When I started Participant, I felt that the movie business was ripe for a company that dealt with big issues in a systemic way. I was a little surprised that nobody had done it before. But to most people, entertainment is escapism.
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The whole first movie [Twilight] was pretty fun. I had never really done a movie like it, when there's such a big cast of people that are around about the same age. Everyone didn't really know what was going to happen with the movie, but there was a good energy. There was something which people were fighting for, in a way. They wanted it to be something special. None of us were really known then, as well. It felt like a big deal, at the time.
My mom is a script supervisor. It's like the family business. It never had that feeling of entertainment. It was always more like, "Eh, it's just a movie," with that crew mentality, which is, "We've done it before and we can do it again."
I think the songs I was writing after Aeroplane were full of a lot of undealt-with pain that was just a little too big... the issues seemed too large for me to confront intuitively through songwriting. I kept pushing it and pushing it. There are so many issues about being human and why people inflict pain on each other. There were seeds of all these things I hadn't dealt with. With just the personal issues, I felt I was in over my head, but then to write about it... To write you have to have at least a little bit of confidence you know what you're talking about.
People like to say, “Well, you’re a celebrity. You should really pick a cause.” I felt that’s like telling a doctor, “Well, you should focus on one area of the body.” Current issues, global issues, political issues, women’s issues—whatever one you want to talk about. It’s systemic, you know?
Rhythm and blues started even before phonograph records were being produced because black people entertained themselves. It wasn't done for money. It was done for entertainment. Most white people didn't know anything about this because prejudice kept them from ever seeing what was going on.
Every single bit of entertainment is escapism. It's because you are saying, "Let's see what this other person's life is like." And also it's beyond escapism, its entertainment and art as such can elevate the species. The entertainer supposedly is the muse. They're the ones who tell you what is wrong with society in a humorous way. They're the ones who do an expose about this or a documentary about that about the injustice of this. So it can be a very powerful medium.
People want fun and escapism at the moment. Look at the success of Guardians of the Galaxy. I think Nolan kick-started a very dark, bleak style of superhero escapism, and I think people have had enough of it.
I have never had illusions about the value of my individual contribution! I realized early that what a man or a woman does is built on what those who have gone before have done, that its real value depends on making the matter in hand a little clearer, a little sounder for those who come after. Nobody begins or ends anything. Each person is a link, weak or strong, in an endless chain. One of our gravest mistakes is persuading ourselves that nobody has passed this way before.
I had always felt that I was an observer, never a participant; that I was watching from behind a thick glass wall as people went about the business of living--and did it with such ease, with a skill that they took for granted and that I had never known.
Looking back, I do think one of the reasons 'Thirteen Reasons Why' has been so successful is not because it deals with serious issues but because I had a unique and interesting way to tell that story. I knew the issues were going to be dealt with in the book, but I felt my job was to write the story as entertainingly as possible.
My father being in the movie business, I thought being an actor would be great. But when I started singing to people in coffeehouses, you know, singing folk music and then, later, singing songs that I started to write myself, I felt more than an affinity for it. I felt a calling.
The magazine was being started by a company that had no experience in business magazine publishing. It was a little difficult to get people to sort of buy into it and to join the staff, but we did.
When you've dealt with real-life issues, dealing with business issues is not that hard.
They told me I'd have to be there for the entire shooting of the movie which was two and a half months and again, I was surprised. Most movies I'd worked on before took only a day or so, so I realized this was a pretty big deal. I got to the set and was involved in a very integral way, which was a fun experience to be a part of.
People can get information - on entertainment, politics, finance - much easier than before. That will change the way people do business, the way people live.
Jerusalem is a holy site for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Israelis and Palestinians both lay claim to it as their capital. Jerusalem is the most sensitive of all the issues that need to be addressed in order to achieve a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But Donald Trump determined an important aspect of the United States' position towards Jerusalem before any agreement. Most of the rest of the world feels that it ought not to be dealt with first, that it ought not to be dealt with separately, and that it ought not to be dealt with unilaterally.
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