Mark Duplass Quotes

For us, performance is everything. If we can get great actors in there who like us, and we really like, we feel pretty confident that we can make a movie work.

A lot of solo directors have a really strong creative producer with them. Jay and I have less of a need for that because we have each other.

We're just gonna keep making things and challenging ourselves to make them more cheaply and more renegade and more interesting. That's the only thing we might challenge ourselves to do in the age of so many movies and so many TV shows. We're aware that we're asking time of people to watch stuff, and that there's so much stuff to watch, so we're gonna try to offer you something unique. And it may not always succeed, but it will definitely be different.

We've done things that are faster at times, but it's definitely different when we direct all the episodes because it's like we have to write them all, then shoot them all, then edit them all. So we have to just get ahead on those scripts basically.

And, there are negatives and positives to it. Like, you know, just like a marriage, where you're like, "Well, this... you know, is the sex still as exciting as it was two years ago?"

When the initial little impulse comes it just tends to come. I wake up in the middle of the night, or I'll be swimming in the pool with my kids and just think, "Can't forget that one." Then there's the more organized side of the brain, which is when I choose to work on them. I've learned through a bunch of mentors how to demarcate the different times for your writing process. I keep multiple projects going at once and there's a time when no matter what you're doing, you have to stop and write it because it's coming.

I feel like, if I'm being honest with myself, my biggest skill set is as a writer 'cause I can do that quickly and I'm really grounded in story structure. Part of my success as an actor, is that I know story well. Part of my success as a director, is how well I know story. Same thing, as a producer. It all begins and ends with me as a story creator. But, I love doing it all.

If we have anything to offer, as filmmakers and as TV makers now, it's this ability to feel as close to a documentary as you can get in a narrative form.

A TV show is an open universe, whereas a film is more of a closed universe. No disrespect to movies, there's just a lot of artifice in closing out emotional storylines after 90 minutes.

If anybody normally has a 45 minute conference call about something, I'm 15 minutes late and then I'm out 15 minutes before everybody else, and I cut to the key information and I move on. I learned that from my dad and guys like Jason Blum, who know how to do that.

When you're writing a 25-minute episode that can be anything, sometimes you just start with a character, and you let them walk into the room. Then you let your instinct guide you. That's how we made art when we were 15 years old. And that's so fun to us.

There's no excuse not to make films on weekends with friends.

Somewhere in Time is in the top-five cheesiest movies ever made. Its super melodrama.

Going to the theater, spending tons of money, people are losing money doing that. I'm really interested in my kinds of movies being seen as many people as possible on a TV.

I mean, it really has a lot to do with who is actually physically doing a lot of talking. And we've just noticed that as we've evolved we're still making all the decisions from this, like, "cave."

"Repulsion" for me was a really big movie where I was like, "OK, technically there's nothing scary going on here but I'm kind of terrified." Something so tiny was devolving this whole world. I guess I've always been obsessed with what I call the "epically small" in cinema, and that's how one tiny, little weird thing can just explode everything.

As an actor, when you walk into a room to audition, you get five minutes with a casting director, who doesn't even look at you, most of the time.

Making movies that are really cheap and that can be owned and that you maintain your control of is really exciting.

I'll do any kind of movie, as long as it's a good version of it.

I have a Google alert for myself - it's pure vanity.

Most directors do work in pairs. There's usually some form of this, sometimes it literally comes down to you both show up in the morning and one of you is like, "I'm a little tired and overwhelmed today, so I might need you to just be a little step ahead of me and speak with more confidence because I'm not quite there." So, there's quite a bit of that in other teams.

We always joke now like, you know, the more experienced we get making stuff, we're like, "Never leave set without a shot of each of our lead characters driving in the car looking happy, looking moderately blank and looking sad." Because we know we're going to need these things.

We've shot with babies and kids and it was tough. It's not easy. It looks tangential, but it is not.

My wife and I have been together for many years and that, to me, is like endlessly fascinating and endlessly confusing how to sustain all of the excitement from the front of our relationship, valuing that versus the comfort and knowing that she knows all of my flaws and still loves me. It's great, but certainly not as exciting as it was day one.

Just being able to make exactly what I want with my brother and a lot of my best friend and to have a place like HBO that not only lets you do that, but supports you and puts up billboards in support of it, and really puts it out there for you. That's not something I get a lot in the independent film world where everybody's pinching pennies and nervous about whether it's going to make money or not.

I know, we can barely fit them in. That is a big challenge. Treating four lead characters equally, within a 30-minute format, is definitely challenging.

Obviously we know Bill Hader is funny and charming, but my question is, can he do raw humanity and naturalism? I think so.

I'm interested to see what happens to Spike Lee with limited resources, you know? I love Spike Lee's movies. But you know what? I kinda liked his movies when he used to scramble and fight more for them.

When you're improvising, it's fun to find something that you can lean on that is similar to your life experience. In my opinion, that's very helpful.

I really like Jason Blum a lot. We're friends, and while we make wildly disparate films, we share a philosophy about low-budget filmmaking, about taking chances on young filmmaking, taking risks and obliterating our salary so we can make something cheaply and if it wins everyone wins big.

We allow the actors to do whatever they need to do or say to accomplish the goals that they want to accomplish.

I like being nostalgic and maybe crying a little bit.

My wife and I are like twins and that is a great and a terrible thing for a marriage. It makes for the most comfortable thing in the world to be truly known and loved, but also makes for a lot of conflict and that's how we roll in my house.

I'm a narrative-minded actor. I'm thinking of the story. I'm not worried about whether the camera is on the right side of my face, or where the camera is. I'm just going for the story.

You know, I watched the original 'Same Time, Next Year' on DVD about ten times this year, and I cried all ten times.

It's kinda crazy to say, but the way Jay [Duplass] and I stay afloat, because we don't make particularly commercial fare that makes a lot of money, is that we make things cheaply and we make things small. We would kind of be afraid to go make a $100 million movie because you have to do certain things to it to have it make its money back.

I question every move. I'm constantly second-guessing myself.

I really believe in constantly trying to find and support new ways of watching independent art, because the old ways are not working as well.

We get to get into the nitty-gritty and the minutiae of the way they relate now, and that's really valuable. We just have to make sure we don't repeat ourselves and we plot this thing so it doesn't dead end too much, and so that's the challenge really. It's like, how do you keep those balls in the air and make it exciting still?

It's not so much less pressure, it's less work, which is really exciting to me. I'm just personally looking forward to being able to spend a little more time doing different things, so that's really great. Jay and I are writing a book this year which is really fun and so yeah, I am very excited to spend less crazy 12-hour days on set. Those were taxing times.

I am not afraid to admit, though slightly ashamed that I Google myself and I see people writing things about me and I get really proud and happy.

We work in this cave, and we speak to each other sort of subconsciously and with like, weird cues and tangential brother speak, but it really comes down to if you are the person who is moving amongst the actors and talking to people more, the other one can have a little more time to really watch.

A lot of it is found in the editing room and part of that is due to some of the improvisational tactics we employ on set. Part of it is that the shot goes a little bit long and they end up coming down to fit time.

I go to therapy once a week, that helps a lot. I have a really supportive family. I have two little kids, I'm married, I live close to my parents, my brother and his wife. I don't socialize a lot. I work and I have my kids, basically. I'm just, I would say, with all false modesty aside, I'm ruthlessly efficient with my time.

My favorite thing to do is put my headphones on and cruise around the old neighborhoods.

Well, I'll be honest with you, sometimes you don't know you're playing a moment that's going to be in a montage. Sometimes it's a scene that didn't work out the way you hoped it would be and ends up in a montage.

Everyone is having this experience right now, where your friend comes over and says, "Have you seen this?" And you're like, "No! Get off my back!" I can't watch everything, it's impossible. We have young kids, and we stay home on Friday nights, sometimes, you only have 23 minutes to watch something. This is that thing.

Jay [Duplass] and I normally just sit around and people watch, and we talk about things that are happening in our lives, or with people that we've met. That's the soup from which our movies usually come from.