J.H. Wyman Quotes

My favorite novels allow me to imagine the characters afterward and what happened, and that I've witnessed a really great story, where the world goes on.

I believe in the human spirit. And usually the people who are following me - my fans and things like that - are like-minded people, in that regard. They like to hear about people being in pain, but that are okay, and people feeling like they can't go on, but then they find a reason to go on. How do you marry someone and love them, and then they die? How does that happen? Why are we on this journey? They want to talk about things, and they want to understand. So, this is the perfect vehicle for that.

I would much rather have somebody say, "You know what? I just didn't like what you were doing," then say, "They didn't know what they were doing." I know what I'm doing. If it's going to be bad, or if it's great, it's me, in either case.

A lot of people plan for failure, but they don't plan for success, and that's a big problem, especially in the TV world 'cause you're trying to find out what your show is.

Never in my career have I got the support for what I'm doing, any more than I have on Fringe.

Blade Runner' is one of my favorite films.

What's a hero if not for its journey.

Blade Runner is one of my favorite films. But, so many thing influenced me that aren't science fiction because they were just good drama. I grew up watching a lot of French cinema. I was in love with The English Patient, and movies that are very romantic in nature and have a positive message. That's a large part of my fingerprint.

What was so great about Lost was that it came to the front door as a drama that was straight-up and really gave you the sci-fi underneath it all. It backed into sci-fi show, at least in my opinion. As soon as they got hooked, they were like, "Okay, I'm there."

I just have a different impression of the human race. I think we're really resilient. I think there are a lot of cynical people out there right now, and probably for good reason. But I think that ever cynic is really a damaged romantic, and they really, really, really want things to be good. And if that's the case, I don't need to tell a story that says, "Humanity, look what you've done. Now you can't go out. There's no sun. Look how you've wrecked the world." That's not me. That's not my job.

It's so funny because, when the other world was being hatched and conceived, I just kept hearing, "Don't do that! That's a huge mistake! People love your characters. Why go to these new ones?" And I was like, "No, we can do this! I'm invested. Why wouldn't they be?"

It's a sci-fi show on network television, and everybody knows that it's an amazing feat that we've been on for so many years. The fans, the press and everyone has been so incredibly kind and so incredibly supportive that we feel like it's a success, in any way, shape or form. It's an expensive canvas.

Fortunately, I have an amazing partner that allows us to do these different things, who will be directing an episode himself soon, I'm sure. But, it's amazing. I love directing and I think that it allowed me to get closer to the actors and actually work with them on a level that I haven't before, and really get down there with them. I would jump at the chance to do it, anytime I could.

I want to feel that my characters evolved into a place that they deserved, that was sometimes unexpected, but where I would feel satiated that logically they have come to a conclusion that makes me feel satisfied.

Another part of the challenge was to bring back things that you've forgotten about and maybe some things you haven't forgotten about, recontextualize them and have the series make sense.

I grew up watching a lot of French cinema.

The way that I work is that I try to work in metaphors, and you can't write a metaphor unless you know where you're going, so I always think about the future.

I want to talk about hope. Are we going to be completely lambasted by things we don't see coming? Yeah. Is it going to damage the human race and hurt us? Probably many times. Are we going to get over it? Absolutely. Are we going to move through it? Yes.

The whole message of the piece was that possessions are transient. You don't know if you are going to be able to have time with somebody, so you better be careful.

It took me a long time to get to a position where I can feel that, with my art, I'm capable of saying what I need to say, and once I finish it, I can sit back and say, "It's done, and I'm okay with that. People can judge it good or bad, and it doesn't matter. I'm okay with it because I said something I needed to say." That's a really hard place to get, as an artist.

I fell in love with the possibilities of telling the story in the future, and married that quickly.

First of all, directing was the most incredible experience. When you run a television show, directing is something that not many people actually get the time to do because you're so consumed with everything that's going on. You can't just disappear.

Fortunately, at the end of every season, we close the chapter and start anew. That's the language of the series now, so it can organically come to a conclusion that we love.

The heart is an organ of fire and you can't stop it from feeling or connecting.

Once people start to realize the consistency of quality that is coming, they'll start to open up their minds a little more and say, "Wow, this is great. I'm going to tune into this." It's not just for the geeks and the people that are into it. It's actually really fascinating. That's my take on it.

There are a lot of shows that have secrets and string people along and use the secrets of the narrative engine to keep people coming back every week. I don't know if those programs even have an answer. I don't know how they build their shows.

You don't know what's coming for you in life, and you don't know what's around the corner. When you're in a great deal of pain, you're only imagining your world the way it is.

Jeff always says, "In the cinema, everybody goes to sci-fi. Those are the biggest movies. But, in television, nobody wants to touch it with a barge pole." It's strange. I think it's because maybe there's a legacy of television shows that depicted sci-fi in a certain way that turns off a lot of viewers, so maybe there's a negative connotation.

I think that any show that doesn't have huge ratings, that's what you're always up against. Meanwhile, conversations are ongoing. Everything is running the way that things usually run, in these types of situations. I guess we'll find out, like everybody else. But, we don't fret about it because, really, it's out of our control. We can only step back and do our work, and therein lies the serenity. We're hoping for the best and just doing what we love.

No love story worth telling is easy. The hills and valleys that make a relationship, in my opinion, is really a dynamic worth watching.

I'm not interested in leaving it open-ended. That would just cause me frustration. I wouldn't be satisfied. What's really cool about Fringe, and one of the things we did do right, was that the way we chose to tell the story was that, with every season, there was a closure and then a new chapter. That allowed us to actually make the closure.

So, I can live with people saying, "I didn't like it." But I can't live with people saying, "There just seems to be no plan here," 'cause there is a plan. And a lot of people fall into that, where they don't know what their show is yet. Their pilot gets picked up, and they have to figure it out. I would hate to be in that situation.

You realize that everything is a moving budget, and sometimes you've got to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, to make it happen.

The God-honest truth is that Jeff and I just do what we do. You have no control. We didn't have control last year, or the year before either, or the year before that. We can only do what we do, which is to make the show that we love, continue to follow the path for the stories that we want to tell, tell great and compelling stories, week-to-week, that interest our fans, and really hope for the best.

Life is painful sometimes. It touches everyone, so you may as well try to look for other answers and find peace. So, it is difficult to write those types of things because nobody wants to tell sad stories. I think that I'll always tell stories about human hope. I would love to be able to tell somebody, "It's okay. It's all right. Be a good person." That's what my job is, in life.

Sometimes something you thought wouldn't really be as big as it was blows up into something else.

We can't say anything, but just remember that, on Fringe, nothing is as it seems. There's always a little more to the story behind the story. He's definitely a large part, going forward. A lot of things will come full circle.

You just have to learn to get really good at choosing your moments and making sure that your story isn't overwhelmed by the effects, and that your emotional storyline is what's driving the train.

One thing Fringe has is no shortage of ideas. There are so many jumping off points that we could use and have thought about. I just wouldn't want to pull a trick like that on the viewers. I really want to reward them. I honestly and sincerely feel that it's the most miraculous fan base I've ever seen, so I just want to make sure I use every fiber of my body to deliver for them what I think is going to be satisfying for their loyalty.

The future that I see celebrates those types of like-minded ideals and ideas. I don't know what's coming, but I know that we're not going to get knocked out so easy.

People get nervous when things move to Friday. Friday has become a landscape where shows just don't do very well as business for the network.

I'm consistently telling stories about the value of the human condition and connectedness and things like that.

What's a hero, if not for its journey. I think you're going to recontextualize what saving the world means, and I think that you will be satisfied with the stakes. That's all I can say about that.