Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is as director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work invites tampering, while polished, mature work seals its integrity.
If I had a script that I was ready to shoot tomorrow, I'd work on it every day until we got into production as soon as possible, but I don't have that script yet, so I'm trying to find and support writers, really young writers and hopefully come across a story that I wanna tell one day.
First, you need to write the script, re-work on lots of things. First draft, second draft, once the final script is ready then you visualize which actors fits the role in that the particular script they've written.
I was so grateful to work on 'Bunheads.' We had so much material, and everything was so rapid-fire, and I developed - through theater too, I developed a really great work ethic. I think preparing for both of them is just that - you come to set ready to go, ready to play. You know your lines. You're ready to work.
It takes a year for us to generate a script that is ready to shoot. There are maybe 20 drafts of a script. And, each time, someone saying 'I don't really love this,' we discuss it for 15 minutes.
When you're in the editing room, as a director, you get the opportunity to look at your work. As a writer, you can rewrite. But as an actor, unless you're watching playback, you really rely on the director to help you.
Those writers that have zero say in their movie adaptations have zero say because they sell it. If you don't sell it, and you do it yourself, and you wait until the screenplay is ready, you don't have to worry about that.
I'm very happy where I am, with the comradery with the incredible actors, producers and writers [of The Strain]. I am ready and very excited to work here. There is a potential here. Even though survival here is hard, work is hard and commitment is harder, the potential for where you can go can bring you further. This is the country that is possible. That's not possible in Europe.
I write first drafts by hand, often out of the house somewhere, and then, when I've got a draft, type it up and let it sit, sometimes for a long time, and then when I'm ready, I work on revision.
Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don't work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work.
I don't work for the commercial success of the film. I work to satisfy my producers who give me the money. I work to satisfy the director who has written a script for me. Of course, I have to satisfy the actor in me, but I want to satisfy them first.
Getting ready to wrestle is like getting ready for a car crash. Getting ready to work with Brock Lesnar is like knowing you're going to get hit by a bus and the bus is going to back over you. If I'm going to work 'WrestleMania,' 16 weeks out I have to start training like I'm Mayweather getting ready for a fight.
It depends what competition you are in. When you go to the big meets it's all about who touches in first. You've got to get into that race and into that frame of mind so that you're ready to race and you're ready to work hard and finish first.
I know there are other writers who sit down religiously every morning, they take their espresso, they put a clean sheet of paper there and they sit looking at that paper until they've finished or covered at least a number of those pages. No, I'm not like that. I have to be ready. It has to gestate it for quite a while and then it's ready to burst forth.
My writing process is very feedback based - I listen to the audience. I try to understand what's connecting, what's not connecting... and then rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite. Chris Gethard and I have been on the road a lot together. When we get on the bus at night, we talk about the jokes that didn't work and the joke possibilities that could work. I think this is a little different from other writers.
Are you ready to fight for good jobs and and a solid level playing field? Are you ready to prove to another generation of Americans that we can build a better country and a newer world? Joe Biden is ready. Barack Obama is ready. I am ready. You're ready.
You work on an idea, your first interpretation is very raw and you work it and you work it and it gets polished and polished. It gets to a certain level and then it comes down off that peak.