Danny Strong Quotes

I don't think writing stops until the film is out. In the edit, it's another draft. [The script] is the food for set, and then the set is food for the edit, and the edit is food for the screen. It's constant, and this is just the first stage of it.

Since I began making movies, I've always looked for screenwriters instead of going through the long and painful process of writing.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

Mr. Disney and his staff were constantly scouting for great stories to bring to life on film.

I grew up on film sets but more around the process of making films. I saw a lot of the editing process and the writing process, which takes years. That really affected me growing up, that side of it.

For me, writing is a part of directing. It's the first stage of directing.

My approach to making movies is different than other people, because I just write a lot of screenplays. I'm constantly writing screenplays.

I have a couple ideas that I'm banging on for a film. It's strange, you make a movie and, all of a sudden, your agents are calling you and saying, "Hey, I know these guys with some money who are looking to finance something." You're like, "Oh, god, now I've gotta come up with something really amazing."

Every film starts with the script.

You know, my problem with most screenwriting is it is a blueprint. It's like they're afraid to write the damn thing. And I'm a writer. That's what I do. I want it to be written. I want it to work on the page first and foremost. So when I'm writing the script, I'm not thinking about the viewer watching the movie. I'm thinking about the reader reading the script.

When I am writing I don't set a certain number of pages. I do know that the further into a script I get the faster it goes. As soon as you start making decisions you start cutting off all of the other possibilities of things that could happen. So with every decision that you make you are removing a whole bunch of other possibilities of where that story can go or what that character can do. So when I get maybe 2/3's of the way through I can see very clearly where it is going to go.

I love rewriting because that is where and how you discover the story. It's like you have this skeleton, and you get to put flesh on it and hair and clothes and really wonderful jewelry.

Not that I've always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don't come out-but I've gotten to work with really good story editors and stuff like that.

I have stories that I'd like to maybe one day consider directing, but you need a lot of time to write and put it together.

I wrote 'All is Lost' while editing 'Margin Call'. I did that long before I knew if I was ever going to get to make another movie.

It's a whole other way of working when you work in films: You know exactly the arc of your character.

I spent a long time working in the movies to figure out that kind of acting and also how to write and produce for the screen.

My dad always produces, and I would always sit in producers' meetings with him. I like the whole thing of putting a movie together. I think that's very exciting.

In the case of 'Blood Stone,' the producers, EON, Michael Wilson, Barbara Broccoli, David Wilson and Gregg Wilson, had an idea for a story and had a lot of it done. And I came in, worked with them, fleshed it out.

Every day, I learn something new. I think one of the most exciting things for a writer is to work on a TV show. It's like a novel. You have a really long time to develop and learn about the characters, and you can just really keep digging in deeper, every week.

I sat down to take a break from writing a book and wrote a spec feature that would end up being the movie 'Lies & Alibis' with Steve Coogan.

I start with characters, and then I start writing, and then, if I'm lucky, things start to happen.

Every Pixar film, when we start developing the story, it takes about four years to make one of our films.

I've never had to pitch a movie to a studio. I usually just let people read the script, then I cast it. I always think pitching is for baseball.

I've been in the game long enough to know what elements you have to package together to get a movie into production.