A Quote by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

I did a network show in the U.S. before, and I loved it, but you have eight days to shoot an episode, and it's just a ridiculous pace. — © Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
I did a network show in the U.S. before, and I loved it, but you have eight days to shoot an episode, and it's just a ridiculous pace.
I've been on my share of network dramas and comedies, and the problem sometimes in a network is they have a single-minded focus on making the show true to whatever genre it is. If you're on a drama, it better be procedural, it better fulfill all the demands of a procedural show, and you better keep those episodes independent, so if I'm watching the show in seven years as its syndicated on some other cable network, I don't have to know what happened before or after the episode. If you're on a comedy, everything has to be funny and wacky and zany.
'CSI' was an amazing experience, which, looking back, I was very lucky to get. They shoot an entire episode in eight days, so everything has to be totally slick and professional.
I was in Sweden for 10 days. They put me on the front page of the daily papers eight days in a row. I did nothing to warrant any of the attention. It was ridiculous!
I was in Sweden for 10 days. They put me on the front page of the daily papers eight days in a row. I did nothing to warrant any of the attention. It was ridiculous.
Most fight sequences on a television show, probably any action adventure show that you know of, if you asked them how long they probably spend, [it's] one or two days doing the fight. Where we were spending eight days concurrently with an episode doing our fight sequences.
When we came to the network, it was a very interesting time where Portlandia had just come on the air and had been very, very successful. I think people had Portlandia-sized expectations for Comedy Bang! Bang!, especially after the first episode was sampled by quite a large number of people. I remember getting the ratings after the first episode, and the network was over the moon about it. And then the second episode tanked so hard. Like, no one watched it. It was a resounding, "Hey, a bunch of people tried your show, and they all hate it!"
In features, we're languid: we shoot one or two scenes over, like, three days. In TV, the pace is so different. You're shooting ten scenes a day, going way into the future or way back into the past. It's complete madness, and I'm just trying to keep up with this really electric pace.
As a network, they're not the network that usually picks things up after the first episode airs. They definitely have a methodology that they follow. But they're very happy with the show [Into the Badlands]and they're very excited with how it's performed.
A sitcom, you rehearse for four days of the week and then you shoot it all in one night in front of a studio audience. It's like a play every week, you just shoot it over a seven or eight-day period with a single camera. I enjoy this format of show much more. I'm a feature guy. I like making movies. So the four camera thing I didn't love it that much. I found myself slightly out of my element.
In film, it's up to the director to tell the story in whatever way he sees fit, and however you fit into that ultimate vision is where you fit in. So what you did on that stage, on that set, may not be what you ultimately see when you see the final product. And TV works so fast, it works so fast, it's just about product. The average TV show, one episode shoots eight, 10 days. That's it. You get three or four takes for a scene, and then it's over. But people do it for the money.
On a soap opera, you'll do an episode and a half a day, and in prime time television, you're hustling to get an episode done in eight days. That's a little bit frustrating sometimes. But there's also something exhilarating about it. It's kind of like live theater in a way, where you get one crack at it.
I'm ashamed to say this, but I watched every episode of 'Starsky and Hutch' as a kid. I loved that show, but now I think it's stupid - they'd have a car chase for no reason, then Paul Michael Glaser would shoot the car and it would blow up.
I am a creator of TV shows. 'Lifestyle' ran for 14 years... that was pleasurable. We also had 'Runaway' for eight years. We did two years of a show called 'The Start of Something Big', and we did a network series called 'Fame, Fortune and Romance.'
Television moves so fast. A series moves at such a rapid pace and things are changing, episode to episode, where you're going, "Wait, why am I doing this? This last episode, you told me I was doing this." You're shooting at a moving target.
I respect the hell out of everyone who does a network show. That is a marathon. It's so many episodes, and it can be a meat grinder. Anyone making a network show, and on top of that making a very good network show, that's an insane feat of Herculean endurance and fortitude.
I'm so proud of this show and I'm really stoked that fans were so enthusiastic about the show so quickly. I mean, I got recognized for 'Arrow' at the airport when I was headed to Vancouver to shoot the second episode. That was kind of crazy.
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