Television has certain imperatives that CNN had the luxury of ignoring for a long period of time. CNN could take the position that the news would be the star, because in most of the programming day, they were the only all-news operation on the air.
I have real TV studios. If I have an idea, I can go shoot it. I can experiment. If I choose to air it or not, it's at my discretion. I don't have to do it to somebody else's time frame.
Everyone talks about reality TV and that there are no roles left. That's false. Years ago, there were three networks. Now there are 20 cable networks and so many ways for films to be exhibited. It's an exciting time for actors, writers, directors, an...
In theater, you're allowed to take your time and sit in a role for a month before you have to share it with anybody. In film and TV, you have to just kind of show up and be ready to do that, which, to me, is very strange and crazy.
In a film you only get two hours to do this big arc and so you have to pick and choose your moments carefully, but with television you get to take your time and just take it episode by episode and discover new things.
We did not have a television while I was growing up, and so I read voraciously. My earliest memory of being utterly transfixed by a book was Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle in Time.'
Eight o'clock is hard no matter what network you're on because people have to make a decision to sit down and start watching TV. Every other time slot is a time slot that happens after someone's watching something else.
I didn't come from a background where I saw a lot of loving couples. All my aunts and uncles were either split up or fighting all the time. The only healthy relationships I saw were on TV.
If you take the '70s with Blaxploitation pictures, there was a proliferation of black-content films and motion pictures, television, stage plays and so forth at a time when Hollywood was in trouble financially, and it was cheaper to do black films to...
I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time.
Having done film, TV and theatre, the nicest final bit of the jigsaw is to do live comedy, because you can talk to the audience. It feels really natural to be able to laugh with them, but at the same time still be within the framework of a play.
How do you do something where you're able to be specific and edgy enough to compete with what the cable networks are doing and, at the same time, appeal to a broader audience? That's the line that everyone in network television is trying to tread.
When I'm on TV, I'm often talking to a conservative host. I may have another conservative arguing with me. You've got very limited time, and you're using 'sound-bite' type language.
After winning the Oscar, I was committed to do 'Fried Green Tomatoes,' but I didn't know what the next thing would be after that. It was a scary time. But the advantage of TV is the regular work. All you need is a hit series, I guess.
When I've done TV and film, when it's offered to me, I loved doing it, and I would do it again, but the ins and outs of auditioning is - that's time away from my kids.
You know, when people talk about filmmaking and the techniques of filmmaking, we use them all the time in network television news in order to make our stories simpler, tighter and more understandable to the general public.
At that time I was making the largest salary known on television and I didn't want to see it die because those were the years paying off when I wasn't making anything.
I honestly think that in five years time, television will be watched on computer screens anyway and you'll be doing multiple things. You'll be 'IMing' while you're watching a show and checking the news.
When The Simpsons came around, there really was nothing else like it on TV. It's hard to imagine, but when Fox first took the plunge with it, it was considered controversial to put animation on prime time.
One episode of 'Game of Thrones' is equivalent to my film 'Centurion' in budget and scope. 'Centurion' has a longer running time, but that's kind of the only difference, and I think people now, if they want drama, they watch TV.
When I was born in 1920, the auto was only 20 years old. Radio didn't exist. TV didn't exist. I was born at just the right time to write about all of these things.
