Latest Charlie Kaufman Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• When I found myself in that situation - that actors are like children, I tried to be successful. And when it worked and I figured out how to communicate that things were good - or at least okay - then I felt pleased.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Children, Successful, Situation

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There is a lot of management going on with directing. Maybe that was the biggest surprise-just the amount of tending that I had to do. The different personalities . . . It's not my way, and it's never been my function before as a writer. I tend to be a moody and somewhat withdrawn person, and I felt very clearly that I had to throw that away because that wasn't allowed here - there were other people who were going to be filling that role. Sometimes it became exhausting, especially around the eleventh hour of the day.

  Charlie Kaufman

  People, Personality, Different

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I have a lot of anxiety about medical things for example. I don't think I'm particularly good at it, but I'd had the practice when I went into shooting Synecdoche. It can be somewhat gratifying, too, because I don't have that relationship with other adults where I need to comfort them or they come to me for that.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Thinking, Anxiety, Comfort

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I'm not working on anything. I was trying to write something new . . . I guess the goal for me now, at least at this point, is to try to direct again.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Goal, Trying

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think now that I've tried directing, I'm not interested in doing adaptations anymore. I could do an adaptation of someone else's work that I would write, but the idea of taking someone else's material entirely doesn't interest me. One of the things that I found really helpful, at least in my mind - and I've never discussed this with the actors or with the people I work with - is that being a neophyte in directing, I feel like I have a kind of authority simply because I'm the writer as well.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• If I were doing somebody else's script or I adapted a book by Philip Roth, on set there could be a million different interpretations of the material and people could argue with me. Certainly on Synecdoche, New York we had discussions and arguments, but I felt like I had authority because I'm a writer.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Book, People, Different

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Directing was a big learning experience for me because I had to deal with every aspect of everything-all this constant decision-making, with people asking you questions at every moment, and you have to have answers for them all.

  Charlie Kaufman

  People, Moments, Learning Experience

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I have a background in theater, so I have experience with actors. I like actors - I used to be one.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays. It's more that I wanted to see what it would be like if I didn't have to collaborate with anybody, to have a sense of purity of the thing from beginning to end. I liked doing it. It's really different from writing. Directing is a more pragmatic experience, where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There is so much crap in the world, both in show and other businesses, that I try to be vulnerable myself, in the hopes that there is some truth I can get to, that makes people feel less alone in the world.

  Charlie Kaufman

  People, Trying, World

  "Interview: Charlie Kaufman is Animated About 'Anomalisa'". Interview with Patrick McD, www.hollywoodchicago.com. January 7, 2016.

• I try to present something that is true so I don't further destroy the world with my contribution to it.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Trying, World, Contribution

  "Interview: Charlie Kaufman is Animated About 'Anomalisa'". Interview with Patrick McD, www.hollywoodchicago.com. January 7, 2016.

• My point of view comes more from the literature I've read and the comedy of the era. When I was a kid, coming across National Lampoon Magazine, that was a big thing. I suddenly felt like there were other people that felt the way I did, and there was a way of expressing and communicating this worldview.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Kids, Views, People

  "Interview: Charlie Kaufman is Animated About 'Anomalisa'". Interview with Patrick McD, www.hollywoodchicago.com. January 7, 2016.

• I just try to be honest, because I think that's part of my job description as a writer.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Jobs, Thinking, Trying

  "Interview: Charlie Kaufman is Animated About 'Anomalisa'". Interview with Patrick McD, www.hollywoodchicago.com. January 7, 2016.

• Story ideas, but it's also musing on stuff that I'm thinking about. This leads me to this and this leads me to this. They're kind of random and haphazard. Often I can't find anything. Somehow, by doing that, even though I don't necessarily refer to them in a specific way, I have some sort of architecture in my head.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Thinking, Ideas, Stories

  "Exploring Things: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson On 'Anomalisa'". Interview with Brian Tallerico, www.rogerebert.com. December 29, 2015.

• There's a point I can get to where I start writing character and then through the dialogue, after all of this preparation, the thing starts to feel like it's a character developing through the dialogue. A lot of character traits do come from writing dialogue, but I have to be ready to do it.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Character, Preparation

  "Exploring Things: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson On 'Anomalisa'". Interview with Brian Tallerico, www.rogerebert.com. December 29, 2015.

• People will say things after a screening that it affects them in a certain way, which is why I don't like to explain what certain things are about. I want them to have that. It limits people's ability to understand something if I say it's "about this." That's happened to us a bunch on this.

  Charlie Kaufman

  People, Want, Way

  "Exploring Things: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson On 'Anomalisa'". Interview with Brian Tallerico, www.rogerebert.com. December 29, 2015.

• When I'm writing a script, before I can write dialogue or anything, I have two or three hundred pages of notes, which takes me a year. So, it's not like "what happens next." I've got things that I'm thinking about but I don't settle on them. And if I try to write dialogue before then, I can't. It's just garbage.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Thinking, Years

  "Exploring Things: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson On 'Anomalisa'". Interview with Brian Tallerico, www.rogerebert.com. December 29, 2015.

• There are so many people who are making movies now who can’t get any kind of distribution, so the market seems like it’s flooded.

  Charlie Kaufman

  People, Kind, Distribution

  "Charlie Kaufman Talks About 'Anomalisa' And The Depressing Reasons There Haven’t Been More Charlie Kaufman Movies". Interview with Mike Ryan, uproxx.com. November 12, 2015.

• I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Writing, Directors, Actors

  "Charlie Kaufman Talks About 'Anomalisa' And The Depressing Reasons There Haven’t Been More Charlie Kaufman Movies". Interview with Mike Ryan, uproxx.com. November 12, 2015.

• I think everything I do is based on my experience in the world in one way or another.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Thinking, World, Way

  "Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson on the soulful stop-motion of Anomalisa". Interview with A.A. Dowd, www.avclub.com. December 14, 2015.

• I don't think I've had a lonely moment in my life.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Lonely, Thinking, Moments

  "Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson on the soulful stop-motion of Anomalisa". Interview with A.A. Dowd, www.avclub.com. December 14, 2015.

• And also the idea of not making it apparent that it's different from the rest of the film, even though there are visual differences, the audience is supposed to think that they are with him when he wakes up in the morning.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Morning, Thinking, Ideas

  "Immersed in Movies: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson Talk ‘Anomalisa’ and Adult Stop-Motion". Interview with Bill Desowitz, blogs.indiewire.com. November 16, 2015.

• You get a kind of surreal feeling and also it allows you to focus on the things we want you to focus on in a new way - the stuff that's very small and mundane that happens in a person's life when they're in a hotel room. There's more interest because you're seeing a puppet do things that you're very familiar with that you might not notice if it was a human doing it.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Focus, Feelings, Puppets

  "Immersed in Movies: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson Talk ‘Anomalisa’ and Adult Stop-Motion". Interview with Bill Desowitz, blogs.indiewire.com. November 16, 2015.

• And then to see the whole movie, you're pretty much waiting until the end of production. And the major lifting in terms of editing and all that stuff is done before you shoot the movie. That's an unusual way to work.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Editing, Waiting, Done

  "Immersed in Movies: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson Talk ‘Anomalisa’ and Adult Stop-Motion". Interview with Bill Desowitz, blogs.indiewire.com. November 16, 2015.

• The biggest thing that I came across, right off the bat, was that you can't shoot this like a regular movie with multiple takes. You have to, because it's such a protracted process, break it down to the frame and pretty much get one shot.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Bats, Break, Process

  "Immersed in Movies: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson Talk ‘Anomalisa’ and Adult Stop-Motion". Interview with Bill Desowitz, blogs.indiewire.com. November 16, 2015.