A Quote by Yorgos Lanthimos

It's hard for me to find a script that's perfectly suited to me, so even if it's a good script, I'll still have to work on it with someone and shape it, making it the film that I want to make. So in that respect, I prefer to do the stuff that I've generated anyway.
With a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. That is what makes a real movie. The script must be something that has the power to do this.
When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script.
A script is just a script. A good script can be a bad movie, so easily. It's the process that makes it good. You need a good script, don't get me wrong, but you need all those other things to make a good movie. You really do.
Frankly speaking, it's only the script that matters to me the most. If I like the script, then I just commit to myself and go ahead with it. But I also look at the commitment and confidence of the director of the film because it's him who will shape the film.
Before, I was writing a script to make a movie. At a certain point, I became A Writer in Film and Television. So I got TV deals to write stuff, film deals to write stuff. But it's dangerous. I got into the WGA, and I became kind of, you know, a slave! They just pay you to write a script, and it's hard to make the movies.
For me, the work begins with a rough cut of the film. I can't do much with the script. I've tried to write music to a script prior to seeing the film, but I've found it turns out to be a waste of time.
In film you have the script months ahead of time often, for a good film, but in television it seems like you might not get the script until a week or two weeks before you've got to film it. It's a little weird, but also quite challenging. It reminds me of repertory theatre.
To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script.
They sent me the script, and I was dubious at first. I said, 'Lost in Space? They're reviving that? They tried to do that with the film, and it didn't work.' And then I read the script, and I actually liked it.
Finding one good script is a huge challenge. So I do a film whose script comes and grabs me. Once I finish that, I look forward to the next movie.
You can have an amazing director and terrible script, and the film's not going to be great. But if you have the most incredible script and an okay director, you could still get a really good film.
The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.'
The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good... I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.'
What I learned is that I should probably read a screenplay every once in a while before I said 'yes'. You could make bad film out of a good script, but you're never going to make a good film out of a bad script.
I've seen it personally that people have a natural sensibility to Arabic script. I don't know it if it's because of the shape, I don't know what it is in this script that makes it so universal. But even if you don't understand it, you still have this feeling; you can feel the piece of art in front of you.
When I was writing the script, I knew didn't want to make a sports movie. I was very clear that I wanted to make a sibling rivalry story. So when I was writing the script, the football was getting in the way of the drama. One day, I saw Michael Haneke's Funny Games, which is probably the most violent film I've ever seen - but the violence is off camera. When I finished watching the film, I said, 'Hey, that's what I have to do.' Haneke gave me this solution.
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