Danny Boyle Quotes

It's fun to improvise, but I still think it's better to have a great script, you know, like a Charlie Kaufman script.

I like to say good dialogue is a million times easier to memorize than bad dialogue - difficult good dialogue, even if it's difficult. Aaron Sorkin dialogue is easier to memorize, even though it's wildly complicated.

Writing film scripts is the hardest thing in the world. A script has to go to five or six drafts, and you need the feedback of other people and to keep coming back with a fresh eye, honing it down.

I am lucky enough to have Aaron Sorkin write what I have to say.

I write plays instinctively. I don't like writing movie scripts.

Once you see the entertainment world from both sides, you really get a greater understanding of how it all operates. As an actor going into screenwriting, I was able to understand what type of dialogue feels natural and what an actor could actually say.

If you want to be a screenwriter, take an acting class to get a sense of what you're asking actors to do. Learning other skills will help you communicate with people and respect what they do.

You want to have the experience. As far as the creative side, the more I do this, the more I know that it's all about the writing. You got on a film sometimes and it's sort of half-written, and they expect and think that the actor's job is to bring the extra part and the good part. It's not. We're good at saying what other people have written, but for the majority of it, that's about it, comedians aside. It's all in the writing. Whether that's dialogue or character, or whatever, it doesn't matter. As long as they've done something special, than you can do something special.

I'm a huge David Lindsay-Abaire fan. If I could write, I would want to write like him.

I'm not saying I'm a writer, but I've been in movies for a long time, and I think I could write a script for a movie.

I grew up doing theatre and spent a long time as a playwright. I still think very visually when I write.

Writing a TV show is totally different than writing features, or just, what I started doing is writing features. You write a little bit more organically. You start from the beginning to the end, beginning, middle and end.

I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.

Sometimes I find it tiresome to write actions and describe the scene in a very intricate way so that every crew member understands where we are going - that I can find a little bit long and tiresome. But dialogue is just all my life. There's no way I could ever be challenged, not challenged, but I'm always so happy to write dialogue.

Every creator sets up their world differently. That's what's so amazing about someone like Aaron Sorkin and his writing.

The few times I've tried to write original screenplays, it's a difficult process because I just don't feel like I know the characters the way I know them after the year or two it takes to write a novel.

It's hard writing screenplays.

My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world. I always had a mind for characters and dialogue, and my head was filled with that stuff, so it seemed like a good place to start.

I haven't really tried to write a movie. It's tough to get into that mode.

Frank called me one day and said, 'I have an idea for a movie, why don't you come over and I'll tell you?' So I went over and we sat down and he said, 'This picture starts in heaven'. That shook me.

I'd love to work with Aaron Sorkin on something. Just the way he writes, he has no fear in writing people that are fiercely intelligent, and I love that.

What always leads me in terms of my movies are characters.

The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it's all in the story.

There are no great scripts - just great films.

A good script and perfect casting, that's 90 percent of the work.