Sometimes the best thing you could do is a real bad film... you could improvise all over the place and probably only improve the script.
Marketing is such a key issue; in fact, the marketing department is often involved in the approval of scripts now.
I used to be a rabid reader, but now it's scripts or nothing - network television is quite relentless, and you can't drop the ball.
With TV, the pace is so fast, the scripts are coming at you, the directors are firing things at you, it's breathtaking.
Often jobs are un-turndownable even before you read the script. You go, 'Well, I have to do that.'
Alexander Payne's very specific. His scripts are always complete when you start working on them.
At this point, I'm happy to be part of something special. As an actor I liked to choose scripts that I'm passionate about.
Every script I've written and every series I've produced have expressed the things I most deeply believe.
For years I was doing the excruciating weightlifting of writing scripts - but then I stayed thin and someone else got all the muscles.
When I get cast, I always flip to the end of the script to see if my character gets beaten up or killed.
I generally edit quite heavily. In general, there aren't many scenes that are sitting where they sat in the script in the final form.
For every three scripts that you get through, one will be made, and that doesn't even necessarily mean that they're going to cast you in it.
Together with script writers Syd green and Dick Hills, we worked on the comedy ideas for this series.
The most frustrating thing is picking up a script and loving the roles in it except the female ones... It's really annoying and something I've striven to change in the industry.
It all starts with the script: it's not worth taking myself away from my family if I don't have something I'm really passionate about.
I don't have a stack of scripts that, when I get home, studios are clamoring, saying, 'Has Bob read ours yet?'
I never put down a bad script and I never walk out of a bad movie because I'm always hopeful things will change.
The fun stuff comes when someone is not so strict on sticking to the script. You're allowed the spontaneity, and great moments can happen.
The first thing that attracts me to any script is the writing. If I find myself becoming lost in a good yarn, then I feel certain that others will, too.
It feels very, very good to make a film freely, to work without having to wait years for script approval, without looking over your shoulder.
I've rewritten a lot of the scripts I've done. 'Little Shop Of Horrors' was a complete rewrite, but I didn't touch the dialogue. Essentially, I'm a very good editor.
