Latest Matthew Weiner Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• The other thing - and writers can say whatever they want - is casting. You need to find a person who can inhabit that role, who can not sugarcoat the bad stuff, and not be too hard on the good stuff, but who can come across as a three-dimensional human being with some depth and some thought about what they're doing. When you find James Gandolfini or Jon Hamm, someone who can inhabit this role but still has a natural humanity to them, no matter what they're doing? It's a gift.

  Matthew Weiner

  Humanity, Natural

  Source: www.avclub.com

• On the set, I visit the set for a lot of the rehearsals, and there's always a writer on set. And then I'm involved in post-production, very intensely involved in editing, and the sound mix and color timing. Really, I have about nine jobs.

  Matthew Weiner

  Timing

  Source: www.avclub.com

• You don't drink and smoke that much, and womanize that much, unless you really want to be punished, I think.

  Matthew Weiner

  Thinking, Drink

  Source: www.avclub.com

• But you know what, honestly? I'm not that interested in advertising. I think it's a great way... It's such a huge part of our culture. It's like saying, "Are you interested in hair?" It's such a part of our life, and it's such a reflection of how we feel about ourselves, and what we're interested in, and what we want to be.

  Matthew Weiner

  Reflection, Thinking, Culture

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Every single word that's on the screen, I oversee. There's nothing that's shot, I'm not involved in. The scripts go through multiple drafts, and I work with the writers on all these things. And I'm extremely involved in the writing process.

  Matthew Weiner

  Writing, Multiple, Single Word

  Source: www.avclub.com

• As far as casting, I'm there for every single person that's cast. Even if it's one word, I'm there for their auditions.

  Matthew Weiner

  Single Person

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I was never really that worried about being a member of the Sopranos crew. I think it looks kind of fun to not have to work, to not have to take crap from anybody. And then there's the reality check in there, which is that you do have to work, you do have to take crap from people, and you can fail, and all these other things.

  Matthew Weiner

  Fun, Thinking, Reality

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I know that telling the story, there are certain events I want to skip, and certain events I want to hit. The time passing allows for - if you're really following people's lives, and this isn't a cartoon - someone gets pregnant, a child will be born, etc. You really don't want to be locked into "Every episode is a month later." The show is very intense to make. There's always going to be some downtime between seasons, and to me, it really helps to come back to the next season in the reality of that world, and have almost as much time passed in their lives as has passed in yours.

  Matthew Weiner

  Children, Reality, Cartoon

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I'm a different writer now. You don't sit in a room with Sopranos creator David Chase and writer Terence Winter for four years and not learn something. And just watching the way the show was done, and watching the way that David encouraged the imagination.

  Matthew Weiner

  Winter, Imagination, Different

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I don't want to pretend like I'm clairvoyant or anything, but I had a tremendous sense of malaise about our political future. This is right around the millennium, right around 1999, when I wrote it. The Sopranos certainly reflected that; when I saw that on the air, I was like "Oh my God, I'm not alone." But it doesn't seem that the culture really caught up with that. George W. Bush won two elections... I'm not even trying to say this from a political standpoint. I think there is a resonance to the kind of glory of that period, and the foreboding of what happened.

  Matthew Weiner

  Thinking, Political, Trying

  Source: www.avclub.com

• You can do a lot with a commercial break - you can change days, you can suggest the passage of time. So sometimes that's a great thing artistically, to know that's going to be there. Obviously you'd always prefer that people see it straight through, and you don't want them to be taken out of it by advertising, but that's the reality of what's paying the bills here.

  Matthew Weiner

  Taken, Reality, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

• It's impossible for me, without getting a big wide shot of Manhattan, to convince people that it's another day. But if we go to a commercial and we come up and people are in different clothes, you know it's another day.

  Matthew Weiner

  People, Different, Impossible

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I have this amazing team that I trust. I completely go with their decisions on things. I don't have to go in and micromanage everything. And I think the other thing is, you start to sort of... I wouldn't say relax, because I've never relaxed. But I've tried to have more confidence in the things I like, or the things other people like. That's really the big thing in this job, to second-guess yourself all the time.

  Matthew Weiner

  Team, Thinking, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think there's a kind of elegance to it, to work within that framework where what you don't see is often more enticing.

  Matthew Weiner

  Thinking, Kind, Elegance

  Source: www.avclub.com

• My life philosophy and personality has been driven by the fact that I am incapable of really understanding the future, on some level. I am in this moment. I take risks because I really don't think that far ahead.

  Matthew Weiner

  Philosophy, Thinking, Personality

  Source: collider.com

• I am a competitive person, but it's so hard to do a show. Anybody who gets to the point where they get their show on the air, I wish them the best. It's too hard. I'd rather waste energy thinking good things on myself.

  Matthew Weiner

  Thinking, Wish, Energy

  Source: collider.com

• The chance to tell personal, language-specific, culturally specific stories is really flourishing on TV and I think it's just the nature of movies and international demands that you need to get a much bigger audience. TV is more like independent film was. The forms of adult drama and certain kinds of sophisticated comedy, there's no room for them in the tentpole movie universe.

  Matthew Weiner

  Drama, Independent, Thinking

  Source: www.esquire.com

• The weirdest thing with friends, the way you measure it is if you go without communicating for months at a time, you can sit down and within five seconds be right where you were. I know it's a cliché, but quality not quantity, and that bond will not disintegrate. It does need to be tended to but it won't go away. It's amazing, though - I'm here in New York where my best friend from college lives, and we see each other twice a year and we're right where we were and a lot of it's unspoken.

  Matthew Weiner

  College, Going Away, Quality

  Source: www.esquire.com

• My major goal is to take my bathrobe off before the kids get home from school.

  Matthew Weiner

  Home, School, Kids

  "Not My Job: 'Mad Men' Creator Matthew Weiner Gets Quizzed On Glad Men". "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" with Peter Sagal, www.npr.org. March 28, 2015.

• Super confident people with no problems and great marriages and great parenting are not good entertainment.

  Matthew Weiner

  People, Entertainment, Problem

  "Not My Job: 'Mad Men' Creator Matthew Weiner Gets Quizzed On Glad Men". "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" with Peter Sagal, www.npr.org. March 28, 2015.

• All human stories are interesting. You don't put a kid in a show because you need a device. They have a story, too.

  Matthew Weiner

  Kids, Interesting, Needs

  Source: collider.com

• Opinions can't be inaccurate.

  Matthew Weiner

  Opinion

  Source: collider.com

• I do find it sometimes that people project their own feelings on to the characters and I think that there is a certain amount of sexism - I mean the proprietary nature, for men and women.

  Matthew Weiner

  Character, Mean, Men

  Source: collider.com

• Hate is more interesting than love.

  Matthew Weiner

  Hate, Interesting

  Source: collider.com

• Success has a lot of things that go along with it and I haven't experienced any personal resentment. I can't control any of that and I try not to worry about it. I hope that's not the case, you know. Most of the writers that I know and artists that I know understand what was going on. I think there's just as many things going on in the awards process that have to do with the show having won a few times.

  Matthew Weiner

  Artist, Thinking, Awards

  Source: deadline.com