I like dialogue that is slightly more brittle than life. I have always admired and wished to write one of those 1940s film scripts where every line is written with a sharpness and economy that is frankly artificial.
All your life, you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.
One feels that the past stays the way you left it, whereas the present is in constant movement; it's unstable all around you.
I was so thrilled being a reporter, because it gave you the kind of access to people that you wouldn't ever get to meet.
I think theater ought to be theatrical.
Schepisi is the sort of director who could, would, and frequently did phone me whenever he came across a textual problem.
