Michael Arndt Quotes

The predictable thing about 'The Good Wife' is how unpredictable 'The Good Wife' is.

The greatest thing about 'New Girl' is that you never can predict what is next!

I hate when you see a film and after one scene you know what's going to happen and you can predict the whole story.

A reversal is just anything that's a surprise. It's a way of keeping the audience interested.

Every 20 minutes you've got to have a bump, you've got to have a change in course, you've got to unsettle the audience. It can't be too predictable so something has to happen. I think that was something that Hitchcock did very well too. You couldn't let an audience feel too settled in.

The key is to constantly keep the audience surprised. If they feel like something is going to happen, or they think from an educational standpoint that something is about to happen because of all the moving parts, it is your job to break that expectation and show the audience something different.

My desire as a storyteller is to always catch the readers off guard; to give them something they aren't expecting, and take them in a direction that is satisfying in the here and non.

What was so lovely about 'O.J.' and 'This Is Us' to a certain extent is that I got a chance to surprise people.

I never look at twists as a way to trick the audience. Obviously, I think a good story has surprises and unexpected turns, and you always want to do that with an audience. But it has nothing to do with conning them or making them believe so strongly in one thing and then kind of going the other way.

I think most films are too predictable. They follow familiar patterns. I suppose audiences like to know where they stand but I like films that take me by surprise, take unexpected turns and twists.

The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.

History, as it comes into our daily lives, is charged with surprise and shock.

I'm obsessed with giving the audience something they don't see coming.

'Homeland' does have that ability to tear the rug out from under you.

I'm so tired of stories starting, 'Maud Jones was walking her dog down Broadway.' You've got to go over to the back page somewhere to finally find out the damn dog was run over by a truck. Get the thing told, for heaven's sake. Everybody doesn't have to be an O. Henry.

The danger of serialization is that you almost get into a monotone - where they all have the same beat and pace, and it's all one long thing - and when you can kind of do this interesting mixture of episodic and serialization, you can kind of take the audience on a more interesting journey.

It's so great in the theater when everyone catches up on the truth.

When people start to think they're figuring out 'The Vampire Diaries,' it switches on you.

I've also shot plenty of films with very small audiences - 'The Sun Also Rises.' I love that film, but I didn't capture the imagination of the audience. I don't know why.

Pataas' will be an out and out commercial entertainer and there will a mind game. Audiences can't expect what will happen next.

We expect surprises. There has to be surprises.

One of the wonderful things about 'Power' and why fans often say it makes their heart race is it's set up like a horror film because the audience is, like, four or five steps ahead of the characters.

If we can continue to tell stories where fans don't know what will happen next, I think that will be a plus in this 'Divas Revolution.'

You see, when I go on stage I perform with just a guitar and you have to have very strong material to hold an audience from getting bored or restless. One strong way of doing that is the story because everybody will listen to a story.

You got to have an emotional connect with the audience who watch you.