James L. Brooks Quotes

You become so obsessed, and that’s not a bad thing for a movie. Serve it with that sense that it’s the whole world.

What does it mean for an actor to make a part his own? It means that he takes on what you had intended and starts to put in his own stuff so that it becomes something that could only happen if he played it.

Tone is up for grabs in what we do – what’s the tone of the scene.

Media reporting denied privacy to anybody doing what I do for a living. It was no longer possible to work on your picture in privacy.

Kids in general make things fresh and alive and they have this great appreciation for, Holy mackerel, we’re making a movie!

I’ve done it with Broadcast News-where there was no finish line, there was no agenda that I had to move all the characters to this point, that I was sort of open to what happens.

I’m big on research.

I value comedy. I value somebody who can be funny.

I think you have a pact with an audience in every picture, and I think the pact is to try and be truthful and to be real.

I love romantic comedy, but I think you have to have another idea that you’re chasing along with romantic comedy.

I have a lot of nightmares.

I had a marketing idea that everybody hated, decency is s*xy.

Great things that can happen when you’re doing a movie.