Charlie Kaufman
Charlie Kaufman
Charles Stuart "Charlie" Kaufmanis an American screenwriter, producer, director, and lyricist. He wrote the films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He made his directorial debut with Synecdoche, New York, which was also well-received; film critic Roger Ebert named it "the best movie of the decade" in 2009. It was followed by Anomalisa...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth19 November 1958
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Charlie Kaufman quotes about
There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss; every relationship ends in one way or another.
The way I work is not the way that you work, and the whole point of any creative act is that. What I have to offer is me, what you have to offer is you, and if you offer yourself with authenticity and generosity I will be moved.
The only way to do something interesting is not care if you fail.
People will say things after a screening that it affects them in a certain way, which is why I don't like to explain what certain things are about. I want them to have that. It limits people's ability to understand something if I say it's "about this." That's happened to us a bunch on this.
I choose to write characters from the inside because I feel like that's the way I'm gonna get the most honest version of them.
Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.
I think everything I do is based on my experience in the world in one way or another.
I don't think the world objectively exists the way we think it exists. There's a constant sort of storytelling process.
There is so much crap in the world, both in show and other businesses, that I try to be vulnerable myself, in the hopes that there is some truth I can get to, that makes people feel less alone in the world.
As I'm writing, I start to see connections, and themes I didn't see, and that sparks other things. So then I go back and rewrite things or alter them. It's a combination of intuition and a lot of finessing. It becomes a combination of the rational and the irrational.
I often have a theme in mind when I'm starting. I know that I want everything to be in a world of, say, evolution, or guilt.
I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.
There are so many people who are making movies now who can't get any kind of distribution, so the market seems like it's flooded.
When I'm writing a script, before I can write dialogue or anything, I have two or three hundred pages of notes, which takes me a year. So, it's not like "what happens next." I've got things that I'm thinking about but I don't settle on them. And if I try to write dialogue before then, I can't. It's just garbage.