David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mametis an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and film director. As a playwright, Mamet has won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Rossand Speed-the-Plow. Mamet first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976, The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. His play Race opened on Broadway on December 6, 2009...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth30 November 1947
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
The proclamation and repetition of first principles is a constant feature of life in our democracy. Active adherence to these principles, however, has always been considered un-American. We recipients of the boon of liberty have always been ready, when faced with discomfort, to discard any and all first principles of liberty, and, further, to indict those who do not freely join with us in happily arrogating those principles.
I'm not saying Mike was like that in real life. Although he was and is.
I look back upon my Liberal political beliefs with a sort of wonder - as another exercise in self-involvement - rewarding myself for some superiority I could not logically describe.
I'm afraid of only two things: being lazy and being cowardly. I get up early in the morning and go to work. I love to write.
You get rich through luck. You get rich through crime. You get rich through fulfilling the needs of another. You can be as greedy as you like. If you can’t do one of those three things, you ain’t going to get any money.
Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?
When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.
A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.
Forget narrative, backstory, characterisation, exposition, all of that. Just make the audience want to know what happens next.
Train yourself for a profession that does not exist.
People may or may not say what they mean... but they always say something designed to get what they want.
Encounter: Doubt, Shame, Humiliation. It will finally be worth it. Acting is more about courage than anything else.
There's no such thing as talent; you just have to work hard enough.
The greater the intellect, the more ease in its misdirection.