Marc Guggenheim Quotes

It's hard, really, to make any physical movement that hasn't been done in another film. If you grab someone's hand, it doesn't mean you're referencing other films with grabbing hands...

Some of my characters are a mixture of various aspects of people I have met. others are pure invention.

There's this pet phrase about writing that is bandied around particularly in workshops about "finding your own voice as a poet", which I suppose means that you come out from under the direct influence of other poets and have perhaps found a way to combine those influences so that it appears to be your own voice. But I think you could also put it a different way. You, quote, find your voice, unquote, when you are able to invent this one character who resembles you, obviously, and probably is more like you than anyone else on earth, but is not the equivalent to you.

And he said that he wrote the Bond character based on the character of David Niven. That's how he saw Bond.

I'm one of those guys a lot of people watch, imitate, and then make it seem like they were the ones who did it first.

You have to search for the best writer - I'm not saying I'm the one, but it's a bad idea to just find the person who is a copycat of Stieg Larsson.

There was no one in particular I really tried to copy.

It is quite annoying that we have to change the sound we invented just to avoid sounding like people who simply copy us, but... it is flattering and of course challenging.

People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn't copy my style from anybody.

Yeah, even a black comedy. Where it's a little eerie. I'd love to do that. But there are about three really fabulous ones on the air now and I don't know if I can do any better than that. I'd like to sort of forge new ground.

My songs are like cheap Neil Young copies.

I always start from scratch with a character - they're never based on anyone else. You get ideas of what people look like, and I'm a great people watcher. You can draw inspiration from people.

It's intimidating any time to have a piece of art that someone else created, and that person says, 'Let's see what you created based on what I created.'

I've never purposefully based a character on any one person I know, but I'm certain there are amalgamations that exist.

I have always chosen subjects which are little different, and not subjects that you see. That challenges me and the actors who work in the project.

The thing about covers that's relatively important to remember is that it doesn't matter how good an artist you are: if you don't have good ideas, the covers don't stand out.

'The Simpsons' is a tough act to follow, so I thought it was best not to do what they do.

I never really modeled my game after anybody.

You make up a character, there's always gonna be parts of you that, like it or not, shine through.

Everyone always gets a little irritated by imitators, but mostly I'm flattered. What if you never did anything anyone wanted to copy?

I always talk about if you want to be an artist, you have to be authentic because people can tell bullshit a mile away. There is nothing wrong with creating a character, standing behind that character, and that being an authentic performance piece, because that's a piece of art as well. But if you want to be an artist in any form, you have to know to come with it.

Keanu and I were in New York, I was prepping John Wick 2. And when Keanu [Reeves], [writer] Derek Kolstad, and myself sat down and wrote the character, it was completely, one hundred percent based on Laurence Fishburne. Like, in my head I saw this guy.

It's a tremendous challenge, because there have been so many characters created over the years. Every time you think you come up with a great name, you find out somebody has already done it. Dreaming up the stories isn't that hard, but coming up with a good title is the toughest part.

When something original works, then everyone wants to copy it. But if you're trying to do something that no one's ever seen before it's frightening.

It's always an interesting challenge to see if you can create a character that's got emotion.