William Monahan Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• If I can give a young author any advice, whatsoever, never let anyone announce the film sale of your first novel. Film rights are sold to almost every novel, but it shouldn't be the lead story in your first engagement with the press. Then you end up getting reviews like "a novel made for the screen" and things like that.

  William Monahan

  Rights, Giving, Advice

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• Doing crime films...maybe it's to some extent a matter of taste. Certainly my first novel had a criminal element and was about the similarity of criminals and artists. Pretextually, it was sort of a money bag thriller. But it was aggressively not what it seemed to be. It was kind of Duchamps.

  William Monahan

  Artist, Criminals, Bags

  Source: collider.com

  5 Copy quote

• A criminal has a kind of freedom by definition that the ordinary citizen doesn't have. The criminal's able to realize himself in ways not available to the general population, if you want to put it that way. They're interesting and unpredictable. Characters always have to break some sort of bound or other to be interesting. It also helps if they're paradoxical.

  William Monahan

  Character, Interesting, Criminals

  Source: collider.com

  5 Copy quote

• I cut London Boulevard pretty aggressively, but I liked the transitions and the elliptical feel that I got. It's not an exceptionally easy film to follow. You have to know that the paparazzo looks like Mark David Chapman. He hasn't got an expositional sign on him.

  William Monahan

  Cutting, Transition, Looks

  Source: collider.com

  5 Copy quote

• When I was a kid in London there was just something about the light and there's something about the way London went onto film in those days, whether it was Technicolor or Technicolor plus the flatness of the light, or whatever.

  William Monahan

  Kids, Light, London

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• It's been very much in the blood since I started imagining films or shooting with 8mm when I was a kid. I made some films and thought about films, but then I went into writing. Becket is something that's definitely on the cards. We have to see where that fits in the schedule, because it's a big picture and I have a lot of writing obligations at the moment. I'm wary of anything with a budget over a certain amount.

  William Monahan

  Writing, Kids, Blood

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• When I'm shooting, as much as writing, I see edited footage in my mind, so I work that way, and it's economical.

  William Monahan

  Writing, Mind, Shooting

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I shoot very little film. If you just do coverage you're shooting any number of potential films instead of just one, and I was shooting just one specific film. Film is cheap but time is expensive.

  William Monahan

  Numbers, Shooting, Littles

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I don't move until an actor is happy, but it was very important to me as a so-called "first time director" to keep the machine moving. It was especially important to me to keep it moving and not be some kind of precious writer-director.

  William Monahan

  Moving, Important, Directors

  Source: collider.com

  5 Copy quote

• Because you're running an enterprise with two hundred-odd people, and it's really your responsibility to keep it moving quickly. So you have to know what you're doing, do it, and move on.

  William Monahan

  Running, Moving, Responsibility

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I was particularly anxious that I shoot the tires out of the class system. All it is these days is a hobby of certain masochists, and certain sadists.

  William Monahan

  Class, Hobbies, Tire

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• London exists normally in a state of bleach bypass. There's the artistic context of "Blow Up" and "Performance" and all the Sixties and Seventies British films that I grew up on, because I did very much grow up on British films.

  William Monahan

  Growing Up, Blow, London

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• London matters to me because it's the center of what I do for a living and has been since Tudor times.

  William Monahan

  Tudors, London, Matter

  Source: collider.com

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• I write drama in the English language. If I wasn't working in London I'd be doing something wrong.

  William Monahan

  Drama, Writing, London

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I've always been a bit repelled by "Sunset Boulevard", which is wrong about almost everything it touches, whether it's fame, Hollywood, screenwriters, or old ladies. Sunset Boulevard would only make sense to me if it was about John Gilbert and the pool boy.

  William Monahan

  Sunset, Boys, Hollywood

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I wanted to do London Boulevard because I saw the potential of a story about two people who need each other desperately, who love at first sight, as one does, and above all a story in which no one is what they appear to be.

  William Monahan

  Sight, Two, People

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• The era I love most is the Federal period, just after the Revolution and the formation of the United States. The birth of America as a nation coincided with the Romantic era and I've always been thoroughly into the Romantics and I've always been thoroughly into America, particularly at the time when it was a brand new idea, when it was something brand new in the world. It was a very exciting time in the world because of the birth of America

  William Monahan

  Ideas, America, United States

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I have a library room with four desks in it. On one of them is a spec, on one of them is a present work, on one of them is reading for a future work, on another desk is a novel I'm not doing until I'm a hundred and fifty, and things like that. But, contractually speaking, you just do one at a time when it's on and paid and live. You do your real day on one project and the rest is just literary life. Or intrusions.

  William Monahan

  Real, Reading, Library

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I have no reason as a director to have films go up in versions that I don't like. My only experience of film after ten years is honestly that if a picture doesn't get second-guessed you're looking at four Oscars, and if a picture does get second-guessed, you're not. I've got an advanced degree in that lesson.

  William Monahan

  Years, Directors, Degrees

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• There's always a great hue and cry when you sign onto a "remake," and that's always been sort of annoying me and freaking me out. This profession that we're in is drama. What drama has been since the beginning is, you restage plays with new casts, or a writer will take a new run at an old story.

  William Monahan

  Running, Drama, Play

  Source: collider.com

  7 Copy quote

• As far as executing work is concerned, you do it all in order. You do it in contractual order. There's no overlap, it's just continuation of your ordinary work. You move from one project into another.

  William Monahan

  Moving, Order, Ordinary

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• Yeah, well I can't see a situation where I wouldn't at least re-write as a director something I was going to direct. At the moment, I wouldn't direct anything that I hadn't written. I can now say, as everybody else says, that it all depends on the script.

  William Monahan

  Writing, Directors, Scripts

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I learned from Ridley [Scott] how to come out of the trailer at a fast walk and make your decisions and keep it going. We were very much on time and under budget, as they say. That was a very important thing for me and very satisfactory.

  William Monahan

  Decision, Important, Walks

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• I don't think you need $35 million bucks to make a movie. I think what people should do is make a lot more movies for a lot less money. You can really do it.

  William Monahan

  Thinking, People, Needs

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

• My gratitude to Ridley [Scott] isn't anything new. I named one of my kids after him. But he's a very important person to me.

  William Monahan

  Gratitude, Kids, Important

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

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