A Quote by Ru Freeman

Fiona McCrae is a really amazing editor. Really smart and very astute about what a story needs. — © Ru Freeman
Fiona McCrae is a really amazing editor. Really smart and very astute about what a story needs.
I always thought the editor should cut the film and so I'll come in and look at the movie. Just because that's the only way I can really see the ideas of the editor, it's really working together. Yes it's a hierarchy, yes I'm the boss, but I like to see and to think about the idea, and it's about us asking, 'do we have to say that?' and, 'how do we make it there?' So it's advising the editor, it's very give and take, it's very free, but in the end, it's wonderful once you get through the first couple of cuts.
I heard John Wells say something really smart, many years ago. He said, "Assume your audience is really intelligent. Assume that they are really smart, and tell your story that way." So, for me, it's about never assuming that they will go away because they're not entertained.
You could tell three things about Bill Gates pretty quickly. He was really smart. He was really competitive; he wanted to show you how smart he was. And he was really, really persistent.
It's really important to me not to be a snob about age division or about genre or whatever. The story needs to be what the story needs to be.
I was sent this thing called 10 Things I Hate About You, which I thought was really sweet and female-centric and kind of cute and smart, with a really smart script. So I auditioned for it and got it, and I'm really glad I did, because the movie has a life of its own.
Marilyn was a great actress, not a dumb blond bombshell. She was very smart, very astute and a good businesswoman.
The story, it's really important to The Ancient One that Doctor Strange does cut it because The Ancient One needs a successor, or certainly needs - you could say - a son. So The Ancient One is really invested in Doctor Strange, it's a very kind of primal relationship.
That's what was so amazing about 'Mulan.' Here is this story with all Chinese characters, and yet so many people related to her character and loved the story. So I really think as long as you have a good story that relates to a lot of people, it doesn't matter what ethnicity it is.
You have to appreciate the spiritual component of having an opportunity to do something as wondrous as writing. You should be practical and smart and you should have a good agent and you should work really, really hard. But you should also be filled with awe and gratitude about this amazing way to be in the world.
We read novels. We read hundreds of pages of words, when the story is good because we're willing to stay there. I hope the story is good. I'm going into this venture thinking that the audience is really smart and really wants to hear all the nuances of what we're saying.
Really smart people don't want to say stupid things, and they really don't want to be a part of a PR-engineered interview. People really do want to be smart, and they want smart questions. So, if you ask smart questions, there's no way you can't do well.
The Muslim women that I have met are super-powerful and amazing and smart and they are, they're not allowing themselves to be held back by the laws that exist. And you know, the Internet exists now, and mobile phones are freeing up stuff. I have a really good friend who's from Iran and a really good friend who's from Kuwait, and they talk about getting music on the black market and how that's such an intense, amazing experience. And how they value the music so much more, because it's such a risk to own it.
I think there's something really freeing about improv, that it's a collective, creative, in-the-moment piece. That's really exciting and really frustrating, because it's there and gone. There's an amazing interaction with the audience that happens because they are very much another scene partner.
Approaching my second novel was, admittedly, a bit of a struggle. But having an amazing team at Atheneum Books, especially my very patient, brilliant editor Namrata Tripathi, took a stressful situation and turned it into a really great learning experience for me.
I worked as an assistant editor, actually, for a few years. That was right when I was just starting to get out at night and do a lot of stand-up, improv, and sketch work in New York. It really is invaluable. I think it pounded into me an awareness of what an editor wants and needs, in terms of clarity of a moment, where and when to start and stop a line.
It's a very smart and heartfelt movie and that's why, I think, we're all drawn to it. We really showed up for this with this collective idea that it was really ambitious, but we felt we all really had something to gain from it.
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