Tony Gilroy's Quotes

The screenwriters I know share a few personality traits and one of them is anxiety.

When I start something, I know people I am working with, it's a project they're interested in.

You can't teach someone to be imaginative.

You change or you hide your head in the sand.

Corporations are like countries now, there's a king, there are serfs, there's a court, basically everything but moats. They're feudal societies, and there are good ones and bad ones.

I like movies that pop, that have a little bit of candy on, that freedom to have a little bit of extra fun, but are rooted in real behaviour. Rooted in cause and effect, never violating reality.

I wanted to try before I got too old to try to do a big movie and I'd been looking for something to do that was interesting enough to spend those two years of my life on.

The main thing for me is I really like strong endings. If there's a strong ending, you can take more time in the beginning, your first act can be really quite different.

The writing is really hard. You're alone. It really pulls it out of you. You pull it out of your head. But when you're a director, you're shopping - you're picking this actor, you're picking this scene. It's like the most intense kinetic high-speed shopping of all time. You sit in a chair and it will all come rushing at you like a wind tunnel.

I love the idea of spies in love. How would it work between two people who were so programmed to lie and be suspicious, who have a whole life based on pretence?

A reversal is just anything that's a surprise. It's a way of keeping the audience interested.

Ambiguity depletes as your budget rises.

Developing films with directors, developing films with actors, is a poor percentage play for a screenwriter.

Different people work different ways.

Everyone I know who used to be in the intelligence community is moving into the corporate world.

Fear changes everything. We're animals, and when we get afraid we act like animals. I'm not exempt from that.

I can't imagine directing from someone else's script.

I don't like to be crazy on different levels all of the time.

I don't remember writing anything until I wrote my college application.

I have written a bunch of scripts that have not gotten produced, much more so early in my career than later.

I like emotions, but I really don't like sentimentality, and I don't like when things break their spell.

I like knowing where I am in action sequences if I'm supposed to.

I never really like it when other writers talk about coming in behind people and rewriting.

I prefer writing originals.

I spend a lot of time in a sort of free state when I'm writing in the beginning and sketching.

I think what I've recognized over the years is that I'm very, very bingey, extremely bingey when it comes to writing.