Kenneth Lonergan Quotations

Filmmaking, like any other art, is a very profound means of human communication; beyond the professional pleasure of succeeding or the pain of failing, you do want your film to be seen, to communicate itself to other people.

I still haven't quite caught on to the idea of writing without dialogue. I like writing dialogue, and there's nothing wrong with dialogue in movies.

Little kids grow up discovering the world that's shown to them and then when you become a teenager, it kind of shrinks a little bit. I think when you get past that point, one of the important things is that you see there is more to the world than yourself.

Teenagers all think their life is a movie. If you break up with someone or you have a fight, you walk around with movie scores playing in your head. You sort of see yourself suffering as you're suffering. There's a lot of melodrama attached to the real events of your life.

There's something about the impact of a big screen that means something to me, even though I realize almost every film is fated to be seen for a year in theaters, and then forever after on television.

I feel like if you can describe something fully and accurately, then people will be able to see it themselves - they don't need be told what to.

I grew up going to the movies, not watching them on television, so I'm still a bit resistant to TV as a medium.

I was nearly a teen-ager before I stopped assuming that everyone I met was Jewish.

It's not a character flaw to become an adult.

I wrote a play once called 'Lobby Hero,' which I thought turned out very well, but there's no final version of it. I published the one we produced, but there are seven other versions with different variations sitting in my desk at home.

I'm always struck when I go somewhere I've never been before, especially if it's in my home town, by just how different the atmosphere can be, and how disorienting it can be - especially if there's any kind of trouble.

I trust my judgment when I think it's boring, dull, tepid and not interesting. That's important to listen to. And the same on the set. That's a little easier because you can see it in front of you and you can just see how great they are and you know you have something wonderful when they do something wonderful.

Some actors really like to do only a few, some like Casey [Affleck] will do as many takes as there is electrical power. At some point, you'll say, "Listen, I think it's really good." And he'll say, "You sure? You sure? There's not some other way we should try it?"

When you have people like Casey [Affleck] and Michelle Williams and they want to do more takes you don't say, "Sorry, that's it." And I also don't like to say, "It's fine, it's great." Unless it's clearly there.

I like to let the actors work the way they want to.

I actually think storyboards are great. I don't draw well enough to do them myself. I've only used storyboards a couple of times.

There's a few people who I've accumulated over the years who I really trust to show a first cut to and to be helpful rather than unhelpful.

I often find myself writing about people taking care of each other, or trying to. And often seem to write about situations that are too big for the characters.

You can shoot a film in New York without seeing the Empire State Building. Or Starbucks...although the latter is much less realistic.