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.

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

You don't write for actors. Actors come for characters you've made up.

All of a sudden I pulled up short and harked back to Ridley [Scott] holding up the script in Manhattan, at the St. Regis breakfast room, and saying, "It's very visual, isn't it," and realized it was the key to my whole life since then.

I don't think the latest Star Wars pictures have any artistic intentions, but the original picture opened up epic science fiction.

On historical you take the known facts, dramatize them, and then stitch them together by invention. It's a projective thing.

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