James L. Brooks
James L. Brooks
James Lawrence "Jim" Brooksis an American director, producer and screenwriter. Growing up in North Bergen, New Jersey, Brooks endured a fractured family life and passed the time by reading and writing. After dropping out of New York University, he got a job as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the CBS News broadcasts. He moved to Los Angeles in 1965 to work on David L. Wolper's documentaries. After being laid off he met producer Allan Burns who...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Producer
Date of Birth9 May 1940
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I think television keeps on being a place where writers can go, and if they're successful, they can have their way, and they can have creative freedom.
I always think that the deal, once I do the script, sort of the experience I go through writing, which is everything you can imagine, but I always think it's the one thing I can do when I'm directing is say is that it's all about the actors, that I can say, 'We're all here to serve the actors.'
I don't know whether I have ideas all the time. I think I'm curious about things all the time; I think I'm always curious, and I think I'm always interested in whatever passes by, and I know I tend to think about things, and I tend to talk about things, and sometimes that takes root and gives me something to chase.
Screenwriting is no more complicated than old French torture chambers, I think. It's about as simple as that.
I took some time out for life.
It never stops, accepting that fact is difficult. I took some time out for life.
You become so obsessed, and that's not a bad thing for a movie. Serve it with that sense that it's the whole world.
I spent two years telling studio heads that it wasn't a cancer picture. I hate cancer pictures. I don't want to see a cancer picture. There is only one thing worth saying about cancer, and that is that there are human beings in cancer wards.
When you produce and direct your own film you havethe somewhat consoling feeling that the producer will kill for you.
I have a lot of nightmares.
Dagwood Bumstead was a great unrecognized hero of American literature. He showed up every day, he got knocked down every day, he never got to eat his sandwich every day, the dog jumped on him every day, his wife was giving him a hard time and he showed up every day.
I've done it with Broadcast News-where there was no finish line, there was no agenda that I had to move all the characters to this point, that I was sort of open to what happens.
Great things that can happen when you're doing a movie.
Things get very distorted when you do a movie, weirdly so.