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William Monahan

William Monahan Quotes

Screenwriter

William Monahan, born on November 3, 1960, is an American screenwriter known for his profound insights into crime themes and his exquisite narrative skills. His works, including 'The Departed' and 'The Departed', have earned him an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

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Famous William Monahan Quotes

“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.”

People Knows Two Running Moving Responsibility Hundred Odd Enterprise Keep It Moving

Author:William Monahan

“Actors are players and if they're hot, or onto something, you let them go, or you and the actor can both get on to something. I always run out with lines as I think of them.”

Ifs Thinking Running Actors Lines Player Hot

Author:William Monahan

“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.”

Way Light Kids Film London Plus Flatness

Author:William Monahan

“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.”

States Film Grows Growing Up Grew Grew Up Performances Blow British London Artistic Sixty Seventies Bypass Bleach British Film

Author:William Monahan

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

Has Beens Matter London Tudors

Author:William Monahan

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

Ifs Writing Language Drama London English Language

Author:William Monahan

“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.”

Ifs Bits Boys Fame Hollywood Make Sense Sunset Pool Screenwriters Old Lady Boulevard Sunset Boulevard

Author:William Monahan

“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.”

People Needs Firsts Doe Two Stories Wanted Saws Sight London Love At First Sight Boulevard

Author:William Monahan

“When I was young I was only thinking of writing, and whatever was going on was unreal and comparatively unimportant.”

Thinking Writing Young Unreal Unimportant

Author:William Monahan

“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.”

Certain Class These Days Anxious Hobbies Tire Class System

Author:William Monahan

“I had a guy at the Groucho bar clawing at my arm nearly in tears saying that until he saw The Departed he thought Americans were the ones on TV. I didn't know you had accents. I didn't know you had a class system. I didn't know you were like us. To which the answer is, probably only where I grew up, but while we're at it don't watch television and think it's the United States of America.”

Thinking Knows States America Guy Answers United Class Watches United States Saws Television Tears Tvs Arms Grew Grew Up Bars Accents United States Of America Departed Class System

Author:William Monahan

“There's only one way to prep, so far as I know. You have your script, you hire the people you want, you find your locations and your setups, everybody shows up and you shoot the film.”

People Knows Way Want Shows Film Scripts One Way Location Preps Setups

Author:William Monahan

“I'm a guy whose first motion picture experience was seeing Ridley Scott glide past on a camera on a hundred and fifty million dollar film, and prep two movies, and there is no way to overstate that when you've worked with Ridley, it's like having been a quarterdeck lieutenant to Lord Nelson.”

Way Firsts Two Past Film Guy Lord Millions Seeing Hundred Cameras Dollars Fifty Million Dollars Nelson Motion Pictures Preps Lieutenants

Author:William Monahan

“Martin [Campbell] is very energetic and precise. He'll on the set like four hours early with a flashlight and I thought, well, I'll certainly try to be very neat about my script like Martin, which I wasn't, but I'm not going to do that bit with the 4AM and the flashlight. I'd love to be able to say I was nervous, but I wasn't. The only time I ever had anxiety it turned out to be asthma.”

Trying Wells Able Bits Hours Four Anxiety Scripts Nervous Precise Only Time Neat Energetic Asthma Flashlights

Author:William Monahan

“I hate doing anything in offices. I either want to be out in the world or in my own environment - and it should be your own environment that you work in.”

World Want Should Hate My Own Environment Office I Hate

Author:William Monahan

“You're not turning the picture over to a system or a process, you are the process, and the most important thing is to have things exactly as you want them.”

Want Important Process Important Things

Author:William Monahan

“I love editorial and sound and music, and I was working with the best people, so you learn a lot.”

People Sound Editorials Sound And Music

Author:William Monahan

“I think probably everybody works most on the beginning and the ending.”

Author:William Monahan

“Whatever you cut when there's no deadline isn't really a cut. You're just pushing colors around.”

Cutting Color Pushing Deadline

Author:William Monahan

“As a director, you're given a tremendous apparatus to work with, and very great talents are available to you.”

Given Talent Directors Available Great Talent

Author:William Monahan

“I need as much of the business of making a film to be in my own workspace. It really ought to be a bit more like doing a novel, alone, at first. I'm feeling my way.”

Way Needs Firsts Feelings Film Bits My Own Novel Ought My Way Workspace

Author:William Monahan

“As first time director, though, you're like a new officer coming up to be in charge of very serious veterans, and you're always going to have guys looking at each other for the first day until they realize you're not screwing around.”

Firsts Guy Realizing Serious Directors First Time Officers Veteran

Author:William Monahan

“When they see you get what you want and move on, quickly, you've done a contract with the crew from that point. In Britain if the sparks call you Guv on day two, you never need an award of any other kind.”

Ifs Want Needs Kind Two Done Moving What You Want Britain Awards Contracts Sparks Crew

Author:William Monahan

“You just have to know what you want and what you're doing and it leads to a kind of general well-being, which I think you sensed when you were there.”

Thinking Knows Want Wells Kind What You Want Well Being

Author:William Monahan

“I was always entirely about work, about getting where I am now. If I'm not working I'm thinking about it, though at some point I learned not to talk about it very much.”

Author:William Monahan

“I love audiences, but they're not there to drive the bus. Whenever you ask opinions or anticipate opinions you can get pretty terrible art, or non-art. You need a single guiding intelligence, even in a collaborative form.”

Needs Art Form Asks Opinion Audience Terrible Bus Anticipate

Author:William Monahan

“I'm not very precious at all, which I think people find surprising.”

People Thinking Surprising

Author:William Monahan

“You evolve in the ways in which you are precious. When you are the director, you are also continuing to write on the floor as you go along.”

Way Writing Directors Evolve Continuing

Author:William Monahan

“Saying directors don't write because they don't type is very wrong, it's like saying Dylan doesn't write music because he doesn't write notation.”

Writing Type Directors Music Is Dylan

Author:William Monahan

“If you decide to do Hamlet in a funny hat staged in a ruined factory, it doesn't make you Shakespeare.”

Ifs Hats Factories Ruined

Author:William Monahan

“For some reason, I seem to work well with actors. I love working with them.”

Wells Reason Seems Actors

Author:William Monahan

“The thing about movies is if somebody has an idea that works, it's in, and I say that as a screenwriter as well as a director.”

Ifs Wells Ideas Directors Working It Screenwriters

Author:William Monahan

“I'm not a precious text protector, or anything like that, you know, because it's a much more vital form than that. You have to rock.”

Knows Form Rocks Protector

Author:William Monahan

“If you change a location opportunistically, to gain a day on the schedule, which I did more than once, you have to re-rig everything creatively on the spot, and you not only have to be able to do that, but do it with great fluency to keep moving. I used to go apeshit when anything got changed in a film but you live and learn, and I have learned.”

Ifs Able Film Moving Used Changed Gains Spots I Have Learned Location Schedules Keep Moving Live And Learn Rigs Fluency You Live And Learn

Author:William Monahan

“I always write as I like to write, and I've been thinking about it because I honestly didn't realize how different my stuff is, until I started looking at other people's scripts as a producer.”

People Thinking Writing Different Stuff Realizing Scripts Honestly Producers

Author:William Monahan

“When I started writing screenplays, as early as I started writing anything, I hadn't seen any ordinary screenplays. I saw movies and figured out how I thought they should be written.”

Should Writing Saws Written Ordinary Screenplays Saw Movie

Author:William Monahan

“By the time someone gave me some samples of standard screenplays I was already beyond that stuff, because I was not only a tinkerer in ways to do things, I'd started from Dylan Thomas. As a screen dramatist he was a very intense visualist, with great timing and fluency.”

Way Stuff Standards Screens Intense Timing Dylan Screenplays Sample Fluency

Author:William Monahan

“If you see, as I do, in edited film, you're going to end up as a director.”

Ifs Ends Film Directors Edited

Author:William Monahan

“I came into screenwriting from an odd direction, because the first screenplay that I read was and is better as writing than the top one percent of literary novels.”

Writing Firsts Novel Percent Odd Screenplays Screenwriting

Author:William Monahan

“I never viewed screen drama as a vulgar form, or a lesser one, and I've never written it left-handed.”

Form Left Written Drama Screens Vulgar Left Handed

Author:William Monahan

“Novelists who get shitty about screenwriting invariably can't do it, or they can't hack it in the world of what's really, in truth, very bold and very public enterprise.”

World Novelists Enterprise Hacks Screenwriting

Author:William Monahan

“The old days of screenwriting, and myths about screenwriting, are maybe over. It's a literary form, if you can wake up to it.”

Ifs Form Wake Up Myth Over It Old Days Screenwriting

Author:William Monahan

“Even though a screenplay is performed only once, unlike other forms of drama, it's still a performance in itself, and unless it's a great performance, odds are that actors will not come, and a movie will never be made.”

Made Stills Form Actors Drama Performances Odds Screenplays Great Performance

Author:William Monahan

“I don't like scripts leaking. On the other hand, the more real attention a script gets, the better.”

Real Hands Attention Scripts

Author:William Monahan

“In reviewing films, people get quite liberal about saying "the script" this and "the script" that, when they've never read the script any more than they've read the latest report on Norwegian herring landings.”

People Film Scripts Reports Landing Norwegians Herring

Author:William Monahan

“I don't think Roger Ebert has ever mentioned a screenplay. He assigns every auctorial move to the director, which makes some sense since the director has run a one-off game, but if Hamlet were written last year and had been only performed once as a film, and it didn't come off well on screen for whatever reason, it would be gone forever as a literary work, and never would have been considered as one.”

Ifs Thinking Years Wells Has Beens Reason Would Be Running Lasts Film Moving Games Gone Forever Written Directors Screens Last Year Screenplays Roger Literary Works

Author:William Monahan

“I think that scripts should be published, but they are published, really, because when you're a screenwriter, your stuff ends up in samizdat form on thousands and thousands of desks and shelves across the industry.”

Thinking Should Ends Form Stuff Industry Scripts Desks Shelves Screenwriters

Author:William Monahan

“If you write a screenplay that gets circulated, you have a bigger readership than any literary novelist. And it's an educated audience as well.”

Ifs Writing Wells Audience Bigger Educated Novelists Screenplays Readership

Author:William Monahan

“Some reviewer might be out there saying, obviously Edge of Darkness didn't come off because of the script, blah blah blah, but everybody has read the script, except the journalist attacking it.”

Might Darkness Scripts Edges Journalist Attacking Reviewers Blah

Author:William Monahan

“In all honesty a gangster picture was the easiest kind of film for me to get made.”

Kind Made Film Honesty Gangsters

Author:William Monahan

About the Author

Born: November 3, 1960
Known for: Screenwriter
Quotes: 135

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