I can only get to a certain point as I write and then I have individual conversations with everyone that I cast. I always do a rewrite based on the conversations.
— Sam Levinson
I was very sensitive, so when sensitivity has no place to go, it’s often turned into anger or frustration.
Sometimes you can just have a dialogue with an actor beforehand and shape the performance then, but other actors need more guidance on the set.
As a child I’m sure I was no different from any other human being struggling to navigate the difficulties and complexities of their childhood and adolescent years. I feel it’s a time when all of us need an escape, a place where we can leave the world behind and just disappear. For me, it was film.
To put it simply, I’m not interested in making comfortable films, and I don’t want to crush the audience’s imagination. I want them to feel like they might have missed something.
I always wanted to write and direct films for as long as I can remember.
I’ve always wanted to write, I’ve always wanted to direct. The conscious decision was always to not be an actor.
I'm writing, I'm directing, I'm editing, I'm mixing, I'm showrunning. There is a certain point where it's like, the work is the work.
But we’re not this one stupid thing we said three years ago, or ten years ago, or even last week. We seem to judge people as if they are.
We as a country, our lust for entertainment has sort of superseded our sense of self-preservation.
I don’t really plan too much ahead when I write, because otherwise, I get kind of bored.
I tend not to approach things intellectually at first. Maybe after the fact i can look at it and see ultimately what it’s doing. I start with the characters and their inner lives.
I am always curious to sit down with the actor who’s playing the part after the casting process and get to know them, get to understand their life a little bit more.
I remember John Waters’s 'Pink Flamingos,' that was the film where I realized you could do anything you want - there were no boundaries.
I don’t design stories to fit some political ideology. I design stories about characters who I love and care about, while trying to make sense of an increasingly mad and toxic and insane world.
For me, there’s far too many close-ups in film. They’re a television technique.
If you keep your heart open you can meet people who change your life.
The way that I deal with actors as a director is I just talk to them forever before we even arrive on set.
I don’t want to make a comfortable film. I’m not interested in that. I’m not interested in answering people’s questions; I’m interested in posing questions. I’m interested in sparking a conversation between two people about what something means. That’s enough for me, as a writer and as a director.
I was never interested in acting on film or in television, but I was always more inclined to writing and directing, and the exploration of character.
So I think it's important to just keep in mind that the work doesn't end when the scene ends. You want to check on someone to make sure everyone’s good, and also create an environment where everyone is rooting for one another.
Anything can be taken out of context and anything you say or do is not necessarily an accurate reflection of who you are in your totality. There are small moments of your life that when taken into account with the rest of your life start to paint a picture.
When 60 - 70 percent of all interpersonal conversations and relationships exist through text messaging or social media, it’s hard to get advice from a parent who didn’t grow up in that world.
If you look at 'Network' or any kind of satire, it’s fundamentally unemotional in some ways.
Sobriety has a way of allowing a person to begin to realize that the things that you do have consequences for the people that love you.
I think what’s different about this time is that at least pre-Internet there were more similarities between one generation and the next. And now, I think that gap has grown in a very significant way.
Do I think that, when we’re teaching a book at school, should we go through a myriad list of trigger warnings? No. But I understand why people desire it.
I can’t wake up every day and not thank Sundance. They’re a great beacon of light for any independent film. Just to have a film that you made shown on a screen for an audience in a theater is beyond me, so I owe them everything in the world.
When we go to the cinema, we bring all of our preconceptions of actors with us.
If you’re working in close-ups, then an actor is only able to act with his head. I like an actor to act with their entire body.
I feel very strongly as a writer and as a director it is not my job to crush the audience’s imagination.
I looked at theater, in the sense that theater is unmanipulated. If I want to pay more attention to one character on stage than another, I can. I think there’s not enough theater in film and not enough film in theater, in a way.
I don't even like getting my picture taken because I feel terrible about the way I look. I'm so self-conscious about things.
I studied method acting for four years and I'm a big believer in the idea that it's not about the actual experience itself. You don't have to go through exactly what this character has gone through.
Everything is spectacle. Everything is entertainment, whether it’s shame, invasion of privacy, abuse, no matter what it is it’s become almost a sporting event. It’s like the new Roman Coliseum in a way.
I don’t really outline. I just kind of know where I’m going in my head, so I’ll write and discover it for myself. Or I’ll just write an entire episode and throw it out because I land on an idea and realize that’s where I should jump off from.
And the nature of split screen is a disconnect: It’s a line between two characters, two images, two realities.
I spent the majority of my teenage years in hospitals, rehabs and halfway houses.
There’s always certain actors that are interested in certain things and other actors who aren’t.
