Theodore Melfi Quotes

Casting directors don't necessarily want a more recognizable commercial face. Sometimes, they want a lesser known person.

I don't want to only make the movies that studios will greenlight.

I think movies are overdeveloped in Hollywood. There's a big benefit to not overdeveloping and not being so precious about what you're doing. I think you lose a kind of vitality if you develop something into the ground.

I had heard all sorts of stories about Woody Allen's directing - directorial approach. And some of them turned out to be myth, but one of them was that he doesn't rehearse, and another was that he doesn't really direct. If he doesn't like it... he cuts it out of the movie or even replaces you. And he doesn't talk to you.

'Dil Chahta Hai' was too raw. We only thought about the film. We never thought where the film was going to go. We wanted to make a film on our own terms.

I never planned my movies. I never selected subjects to win the National Award. I did films that made the masses happy.

I made 'True Detective' like it was going to be the only thing I ever made for television. So put in everything and the kitchen sink. Everything.

I admire James Franco. I admire somebody like Jack Nicholson. Anyone who just does movies for the sake of making movies and takes big risks.

I generally get challenged; I haven't been typecast, which is really, really, nice. It's not something that every actor gets, really. It's luxury. Most actors are capable of it, but they aren't afforded the opportunity to express their variety.

Our film industry as well as the audiences are now open to unconventional pairings and subjects, which has aided my journey greatly.

I just feel like with independent movies... they're really free to do whatever they want. They're not afraid to make a statement about anything, and there's not a huge studio behind them making sure that everything is wholesome and politically correct and all that.

We need more extreme movies in Sweden. Personal projects that are necessarily made for a bigger audience. I think it creates a creative lock-up to have the audience as a goal.

It's hard to get a film, you know, you need a very special film to be able to get that experimental. But, I would love to see that happen. I would love the opportunity to be more experimental than I am.

Plan B is really a little garage band of three people, and our mandate has been to help get difficult material, that might not otherwise get made, to the screen and to work with directors we respect.

I was a little concerned that a lot of people thought I wrote Merchant Ivory movies. I also thought if I was ever going to write something strange and difficult, that was the time.

Sometimes you find that there is better material in small and more independent movies. There's more risk-taking.

We need less perfect but more free films.

There's a kind of a fundamental irresponsibility in playwriting, and the strength of playwriting comes from that irresponsibility.

There's a creative freedom with being under the radar. But I guess if you're too under the radar, you get canceled?

First of all, I never make a movie for awards consideration.

I don't think Paul Thomas Anderson has a standard approach to anything.

Directors only have instinct to work out of, because there is no formula. Formulas don't work. Actually, if you follow a formula, you will probably end up with a bad movie.

It's fun when the writers take risk regardless of the reaction that it might get, and that's fun for an actor. You're able to not just play one thing all the time.

With 'The Crazy Ones,' we were really encouraged to improv and go off script.

The avant-garde theater is fun; it is free-swinging, bold, iconoclastic, and often wildly, wildly funny. If you will approach it with childlike innocence - putting your standard responses aside, for they do not apply - if you will approach it on its own terms, I think you will be in for a liberating surprise.