Patrick Whitesell Quotes

I'm a reader. I found out that, whether you're a studio head or a director, you must read your own material. You can't rely on readers.

It doesn't help anybody to put out a bad script.

I read a lot of script. In my opinion, most of them aren't good or aren't about people.

Some of the material out there - I don't want to say that it's all bad - but there's a lot of bad stuff out there. You just continue reading scripts, and eventually you find something you connect with.

I think a good script is a rare thing, and I think no matter who you are you have to fight for the good ones.

Sometimes reading scripts is terrible.

If there's something really, really bothering me about a script, then I'll say something, but otherwise I find my answers in the script.

My easiest judgment for a script is 'do I want to keep reading it?'

When you have a good script you're almost in more trouble than when you have a terrible script.

I find that when you read a script, or rewrite something, or look at something that's been gone over, you can tell, like rings on a tree, by how bad it is, how long it's been in development.

Good scripts have always been, I think, hard to find. Good storytelling, good writing - it's just not easy. I have made it a point that - if I'm going to put the energy into doing this work - I will wait until I find something I'm really happy with.

For all the hundreds of scripts that are out there, there's not that many that are amazing.

When you get scripts and you really enjoy reading them, you know it's a good project.

When you start out as an actor, you read a script thinking of it at its best. But that's not usually the case in general, and usually what you have to do is you have to read a script and think of it at its worst. You read it going, "OK, how bad could this be?" first and foremost. You cannot make a good film out of a bad script. You can make a bad film out of a good script, but you can't make a good film out of a bad script.

I have a tendency to say yes to a script or no to a script. Not yes based on a rewrite.

I fancy myself at being pretty good at understanding a script and finding the weaknesses, and then making them more radical than they are. People tend to listen to me.

I read every script from beginning to end, and I read every draft that I can. I like the show, I like the character, and I want to protect both of those things.

I wasn't involved, except to the degree that they sent me drafts of the script as the writer turned them in. They asked me at one point to write a memo about what I thought of it.

Obviously, if Woody Allen calls and says he wants you to read a script, of course you read it.

I've received some English-speaking scripts, but I was not interested in them.

Normally, when I read a script, I read 30 pages, and then go have a cup of tea and come back. And then, I read 20 pages and go make a phone call, and then go back to it.

You read a million scripts during pilot season, and most of them are not very good, so the good ones really shine.

Of course you want to be good and you want to do the best you can, but I am inspired by great writing. If there's something about the script, that's what I go for, although I know that that doesn't always translate because sometimes it's about the vision of the director.

I get a trickling few scripts that I'm lucky enough that some of them are great. I don't get loads of scripts.

A director should cast a person who fits into their script.