When I was a kid, among the other embarrassing things I would do, and there's a list of stupid things, but I would make these dumb comedy tapes. I would often make prank phone calls, but I would also do it with friends.
— J. J. Abrams
As a director/writer/producer, all you ever want is to work with actors who make you look better, who make the work you do seem as good as it can be and even better than it is.
To me the interesting main character is never the one without flaws.
All I know is that I've made some big screw-ups, and I've done some things that have done all right. I just keep trying to learn from the mistakes I've made.
It's a leap of faith doing any serialised storytelling.
We live in an age of instant knowledge. And there's almost a sense of entitlement to that.
When I was a kid, it was a huge insult to be a geek. Now it's a point of pride in a weird way.
When I was a little kid - and even still - I loved magic tricks. When I saw how movies got made - at least had a glimpse when I went on the Universal Studios tour with my grandfather, I remember feeling like this was another means by which I could do magic.
I am lucky, I'm the first to admit that.
I have nothing against 3-D in theory. But I've also never run to the movies because something's in 3-D.
When I was a kid going into the movies, you weren't force-fed information everywhere you looked about what the movie was going to be.
I love movies with spectacle but spectacle can be a performance, it doesn't have to be a creature.
What's a bigger mystery box than a movie theater? You go to the theater, you're just so excited to see anything - the moment the lights go down is often the best part.
Obviously with the Internet and increased access to other means of watching shows, the audience has dispersed and is all over the place and that is a challenge.
We're living at a time where if you do a Google search for a 'show, review and network,' you'll get 'The New York Times' and Pete Billingsley from a town you've never heard of on the same results page. It's kind of democratizing the process so that everyone has access to a distribution system to express themselves.
I think when you're 10 years old, it's too much to see something with the threat of death in every episode. Kids are better left naive about certain things.
With three kids you are just trying to survive. You can't be fastidious.
I feel like obviously the standard for what TV looks like changes all the time.
I don't think I have a signature.
I hate to look at the stuff I've written and consider what it means or why I do it.
When there's an authentic mystery, as opposed to just a question being asked, that's what makes you lean forward.
Making movies was more a reaction to not being chosen for sports. Other kids were out there playing at whatever; I was off making something blow up and filming it, or making a mould of my sister's head using alginating plaster.
I'm not trying to be coy or manipulative or Machiavellian, I want to spark people's imaginations.
When you work on something that combines both the spectacular and the relatable, the hyperreal and the real, it suddenly can become supernatural. The hypothetical and the theoretical can become literal.
My work isn't any more important than anything else in the family.
I've had the same friends since I was in kindergarten.
I love working with the right actor, and if the right actor happens to be unknown, that should be allowed, too, I think.
Whenever a toddler sees a pile of blocks, he wants to tear it down.
I hope to make movies that are so small they don't need to make anything to be profitable.
I don't try and write strong female characters or strong male characters, I just try and write, hopefully, strong characters and sometimes they happen to be female.
I try to work on shows that I would want to watch.
When you go to commercial, you want something to call the viewers back, and if you don't have a decent act out, the audience probably won't be there in the numbers you want when the show returns.
Robotics are beginning to cross that line from absolutely primitive motion to motion that resembles animal or human behavior.
I love the idea of anthropomorphizing machines. I love the idea of taking technology and giving it a personality.
You can never guess or assume what anyone is going to think.
I find that it's hard to fully examine one's life and not have faith be part of the discussion.
I think you have a passion and an obsession for something when it's not necessarily ubiquitous.
Pitching is always a weird, difficult thing.
I'd love to do a movie where the monster is human, where the issue is not otherworldly, or horror or science fiction.
You know, we've got to this place, where you go to a movie for one particular surgical fix. So, it's like, I want the pulse-pounding action, or the insane falling-off-my-seat comedy, or the devastating, heart-breaking drama.
I'm obsessed with things that are distinctly analogue.
My mother is the coolest, most amazing person I know.
I mean, my dad's a television producer, and I knew I could get a job as an assistant or a reader with one of his friends, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.
There's nothing wrong with doing sequels, they're just easier to sell.
Stories in which the destruction of society occurs are explorations of social fears and issues that filmmakers, novelists, playwrights, painters have been examining for a long time.
I've never done Twitter.
The Internet now provides an immediate and very clear consensus of what it is that the audience is experiencing. It's something that you should never let lead you, and yet at the same time, you should never ignore it.
I'm literally open to any medium that will have me.
Ratings have changed, viewer habits have changed and the options for the audience have grown enormously, but I don't think how you tell a story is fundamentally different.
I believe in anything that will engage the audience and make the story more effective.
