For the broadcast business to be successful, viewers need to be not merely interested in our political melodramas, they have to be in an absolute state about them - emotionally invested in the outcome and frightened not to watch what happens next.
I often put any project I write in a different decade just to roll the thought around in my head. There's a thriller I've written that I think would be nice to set in the '70s or '80s, just to take cell phones away from the movie. There's nothing like the piercing ring of an old-school telephone to really scare an audience.
I think it's sort of rare in TV shows or movies to see people being vulnerable. That's sort of scary to an audience.
We're so afraid to lose the audience. Let the audience go.
The first monster that an audience has to be scared of is the filmmaker. They have to feel in the presence of someone not confined by the normal rules of propriety and decency.
The last thing you want to do when you are about to film a scene is think, 'Oh my God, so many people are going to watch this.'
I still get very scared when I step in front of a live audience.
I used to throw up before I went on stage, every time. Even though it's only 200 people in the audience, and a movie like RoboCop is going to be seen by many, many people, I know I'd be much more nervous doing a play than being on set shooting.
The stage always terrified me. The live audience is just one thing I bewilderingly look back on and say, 'How did I ever participate in that?'
I can never remember being afraid of an audience. If the audience could do better, they'd be up here on stage and I'd be out there watching them.
When I first started out, I was really, really scared when I performed before an audience. I'd look over their heads.
I think people in Hollywood are afraid of sentiment because they think audiences will reject it.
I can deal with having a terrible night on stage in front a bunch of Glaswegians but not a bunch of Glaswegians and my mum and dad.
With stand-up you can just be yourself on stage. And ideally, you can't see the crowd most of the time - it's just lights in your face. But I still have had terrible stage fright.
Well I think I'm of the view that Fox has a monopoly position... I think Fox has tremendous power from that point of view, but there's also the sense of fearing their audience.
The stage is like a cage of light. People are no longer afraid of you - they are the ones out there in the dark, watching.
