“So when we are seen, expressed, and healed through our stories, we give that gift to the world. We move from giving the gift to the world to being the gift because we show others that they can be seen, expressed, and healed. And that changes us from a bunch of...
“We want our lives to be boring. We want the art to be exciting. And you get that by finding the beginning and the middle of the end is just sight and sound. How about make every single sight and every single sound palpably, measurably move the story...
“There’s the kind of note that you get from somebody that’s paying you, and there’s the kind of notes that you’re getting somebody that’s not paying you. So the ones that are not paying you, you listen to. If you get the note from...
“Harry Dean Stanton… he lived on Mulholland Drive. His neighbors were Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando. He and Marlon Brando became very close friends. Everybody knew about Harry Dean’s philosophy of, there is no individual… we’re all...
“With your drafts, be ruthless. What do you need? What can you toss away? And then read everything out loud. Because the way you read it versus the way it sounds… it’s a different experience and you catch things that you wouldn’t catch when you...