Mitchell Hurwitz Quotes
-
Chance favors the well prepared. The more stuff you throw in, the more chances you have of looking like, 'I did that.'
→ -
What you'll gain is the macro story. You'll get a good command of that. And what you might lose is some of the fun of it.
→ -
I think of there being two conditions that creative people go through. I think it's fear and curiosity.
→ -
The TV industry works in this crazy system where everybody's trying to get the same actors at the same time.
→ -
If you've never watched people watch television, I don't recommend it. It's not an exciting thing to do.
→ -
One of the things I liked about bringing this show back was that it gives people something to look forward to. In doing the show, I was very aware that some people will watch it all in one night, but there is enough that it will be fun to re-watch. Hopefully, people will be laughing a lot.
→ -
I had a cookie business there, with my brother, when we were growing up, called the Chip Yard, and that became the inspiration for the banana stand. My father said that he wanted us to develop a work ethic, so we'd sit there selling cookies, all day.
→ -
We mapped out the whole movie, and then worked backwards from that to do these shows. It might not be a movie. It might be something else.
→ -
People have outs for numbers of episodes, usually, written into their contract. Some studios will say, "We're going to let Julia Louis-Dreyfus off of Veep to do three episodes, but not three episodes of the same show." But, that's all business affairs, so I'm talking over my head here.
→ -
I think it actually makes more sense for a new audience than the old show did because we're focusing on one character at a time. It's all conjecture why somebody didn't watch, but one of the theories was that there was just so much information, even in the trailers and promos, of all these different people.
→ -
I always liked magic. I was always embarrassed by liking magic because I liked the fact that they're just lying.
→ -
As somebody who wanted to be creative, growing up, I remember always thinking that the thing I had going against me was Orange County because it seemed like all of the comedy was coming out of New York, and it still is, to a certain extent.
→ -
But, you have to watch them in order. That's very important because, as it turns out, stories have to be told in order. It's like reading a novel. There are times when it's tiring. And then, you get hooked and it's a page-turner, and you really want to keep reading. I do think there will be some fatigue that sets in.
→ -
One of the best ways into the business is to get a job with a production, which you can do by cold-calling or by getting your résumé out there, and also through contacts. That's where nepotism really helps.
→ -
Television is so much about continuing to work with people.
→ -
I will tell you that we're all human beings, and we all care about what people think of us. But in general, their outlook is, "We're not looking at opening night numbers. We're not looking at opening night box office. We want this to be part of the reason you come to our service."
→ -
I have this identity for myself as a writer and the only thing that can happen is that I chip away from it.
→ -
We figured the interesting question for them is, "Where has the family been since 2006, since the last time we saw them?" So, part of the time, we had to spend answering that question. Then, inevitably, it goes up to a point of crisis, in everyone's show. There was just no getting around that it was about 2006-2012.
→ -
I could vomit, right this moment. I literally could vomit on cue. Yes. Here's the truth of that. We didn't have a big audience, obviously, when we made the show. Very early on, we made a decision that we were going to try to give the fans and the people that were loyal to us something that they felt was special.
→ -
It's very easy I think when you're a creative person to wait for the right thing and to start getting self-conscious about how you are going to express what you do and what's special about you. I would say in general, a lot of times the answer is that you just dive into something and you find your own voice through that process.
→ -
It's much easier to say negative things in a review.
→ -
I remember being asked when I was in high school what do I want to do when I grow up and the answer is so indicative - I would like to have been a successful playwright.
→ -
Character is what someone does, much more than who they are. I can be sarcastic or I can be fearful, but it doesn't really matter until there's a story - until someone comes in and holds us hostage.
→ -
I don't know how that budget would have been worked out, but that was the initial idea. Obviously, we couldn't have had a show with nine expensive actors in it. It was very nice that they were even interested in doing that. But, I was so proud of what we'd done that I couldn't think of a compelling reason to do a lesser version of it.
→ -
Even on the old show, we would maybe not all be in the scene. Sometimes there would be a penthouse scene and everyone would get together. But, even in that context, it would be because somebody was missing.
→ -
We started gearing our content more to what makes us laugh and stories we wanted to tell, and we had to decide, early on, to not be precious about it.
→ -
I always feel funny when I don't reveal things, especially to you [the press], who have supported us so much and are really the big reason we're here. But, we hold back information about the plot because we want to reward the fans for sticking with us, and that's so much fun. That's the funnest part of it.
→ -
The revolution is here. It's established that Netflix is a place where you can get premium content. It's a whole new world. It's very interesting. We'll be discovering it together. It's going to be interesting because they don't have a lot to compare it to.
→ -
We started writing the shows in order, and then very quickly had to jump to, "Oh, we got Tony Hale today and Jessica [Walter." We've got to jump ahead and write that stuff that's in Jessica's show. Fortunately, we knew the story, but it was challenging.
→ -
Netflix will know everything. Netflix will know when a person stops watching it. They have all of their algorithms and will know that this person watched five minutes of a show and then stopped. They can tell by the behavior and the time of day that they are going to come back to it, based on their history.
→
Related Authors
-
Maria Bamford Comedian -
Tony Hale Actor -
Will Arnett Actor -
David Cross Actor -
James Lipton Writer -
Jeffrey Tambor Actor -
David Nevins Television producer -
Jessica Walter Actress -
Peter Serafinowicz Actor -
Carl Sagan Astronomer -
Portia de Rossi Actress -
Dan Harmon Writer -
Alia Shawkat Actress -
Ron Howard Film director -
Brian Grazer Film Producer -
Jason Bateman Actor -
Michael Cera Actor