A Quote by William H. Macy

You can skim those stage directions and go right to the dialogue. You can almost read the movie in the same amount of time it will take you to see the movie. — © William H. Macy
You can skim those stage directions and go right to the dialogue. You can almost read the movie in the same amount of time it will take you to see the movie.
All modesty aside, I think I'm good at reading scripts. The way I read a script is as fast as I can, all in one sitting, and I don't read many of the stage directions. I only read enough stage directions to let me know where I am, because they're always so verbose and mostly horseshit. So I only read the dialogue, which allows me to see the movie in my mind's eye in real time.
Francis Ford Coppola did this early on. You tape a movie, like a radio show, and you have the narrator read all the stage directions. And then you go back like a few days later and then you listen to the movie. And it sort of plays in your mind like a film, like a first rough cut of a movie.
The way you write dialogue is the same whether you're writing for movies or TV or games. We use movie scriptwriting software to write the screenplays for our games, but naturally we have things in the script that you would never have in a movie script -- different branches and optional dialogue, for example. But still, when it comes to storytelling and dialogue, they are very much the same.
I never try to guess what anyone else will take from a movie. Every movie is such a different experience for each and every person. I don't like it when people try telling people what they should take from a movie. You should go see it with fresh eyes and see for themselves.
Every time I read a script, I see the movie in my head, and I try to see the best movie in my head because everybody interprets the movie differently.
If you make a movie about Elizabeth I, how much of the dialogue is her real words? Audiences know when they go see a movie that it is fiction.
You put a movie star or a bunch of movie stars in a movie, it doesn't mean people are gonna go see it. It's been proven time and time again.
I've met people who will go to a movie that I can't stand and they say that they saw that movie ten times. There's something they like and identified in that movie, and I don't see it.
You go to certain movies where everything will be right and you will be invested in the story, but a movie like 'The Room' affects you instantly, and you are left with asking questions. You're almost like a part of the movie, as its not doing what it's supposed to do, and you become one with the film, and you say what you want.
'The Sopranos,' for instance, is arguably the best cable show of all time. They could have made a movie, but that show ended so perfectly, it would almost be a disadvantage to make a movie like that. Then again, if you made a 'Sopranos' movie, people would be lined around the block to go see it.
There is a movie called “Fargo” playing right now. It is a masterpiece. Go see it. If you, under any circumstances, see “Little Indian, Big City,” I will never let you read one of my reviews again.
Any time you take a movie to stage, you can't do the same thing; it's not gonna work.
The only lie I really remember from my adolescence was when I was in sixth grade and I was dropped off with a couple of friends at the movie theater to go see a movie, I can't remember which one it was, and we went to go see this movie instead that was rated R. That was sort of a defining moment, that was probably the first time I had ever lied to my parents about something.
People say, 'If you open a movie online at the same time as in movie theatres, no one is going to go to the movies.' That's just not true. People love to go out and have a shared experience; they always will.
The second half [of Valley of Violence], you're with the guys that you should hate, but when you start seeing what their real lives are, you're like, "I do hate you, but at the same time, all right - maybe take it down a notch." The complications of all that are what's so interesting to me, those esoteric details - that's what people will hopefully take away from the movie.
There are people I'm drawn to that you just can't do a tiny, no-budget movie with. I would like to pursue some of that stuff, to see if I could do a movie with some of those people. And I don't really write scripts myself, but if I read a script I thought was really great, I would totally be up for doing a more traditional movie. It's just that I don't exist in that world. right now.
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