If you have a great script and great dialogue, you don't need to improvise.
It's very rare you get a great script just handed to you, or sent to you, by someone you don't know.
A great script might come my way, and I could be in the middle of music. So, it's a huge choice that I have to make - if I'm going to go do a movie or if I'm going to turn it down - because it could be an opportunity that could send my career through the roof, and you never know.
I do think comedy needs to be a living thing, but I think without a great script and fully realized characters, you cannot keep it living. Otherwise, it just becomes long and rambling, indulgent. So I think you need both, frankly.
It's not about the script: it's about who the director is and who the other people in the cast are. Because you can look at a great script and execute it in a very sophomoric way, and you can look at an OK script, and you can execute it in a very sophisticated way and come out with something really good.
In the U.S., it's like, you start with a great script, and then on set - not everybody, but definitely in the Apatow group - you go off, and you're improvising on camera. So while you're on camera, you're saying things that no one else has ever heard before during the actual take.
I would always rather do a mediocre script with a great filmmaker than a great script with a mediocre filmmaker.
If it was a great script and a great character, I would love to do a romantic comedy.
When you're starting out, you know, you have to do something on a very limited budget. You're not going to be able to have great actors, and you're most likely not going to have a great script.
Siva is one of the best writers in the industry, and 'Srimanthudu' is a great script.
It could be a great script but the director is not the right person for me to work for at this time. So there are a lot of elements that come into play and a lot of variables, but more than anything it's got to be a great script and a great character.
Producing is a way of finding a great script that nobody's making, and believing in it, and doing what you can to get it made. It lets you work with your friends, people you really love to do something with.
Yes, TV is the dominant medium in Pakistan, but it was a conscious decision to have an Indian film as my first release. Being launched in an Indian film with a great script, character, and music is half the battle won. The rest is destiny.
Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right actor to act with. And then my job is almost done, with a great script, obviously.
I don't see how it's a risky thing to take a great part with a great director and a great script. That, to me, is not really a dangerous, risky proposition. It's actually a really good choice.
I'm not really a director for hire. You read these scripts and go, 'This is a really great script, but Paul Greengrass would make this so much better than me.' I usually say, 'I know who would be good for this. It's not me.'
What I hope in my ideal world is that with each project, I'll either get to work with a really great script that would force me to grow, or work with a really great actor who will make me better.
At the end of the day, my bread and butter comes from films, so I have to work in films that may not have a great script, but give me a fat pay cheque.
'Liberace's a great film. It's a great piece of material. I have a great script and it's a great score.
Talent is a combination of perfect comic timing, diction, modulation, great script writing and most importantly, an invincible will, if you may call it so.
