John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanley
John Patrick Shanleyis an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre and film director. His play Doubt: A Parable won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play. He won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his film Moonstruck...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth3 October 1950
CountryUnited States of America
alone asked asks father finally home man travel
When I finally went to Ireland, I had to go. It was 1993. My father was finally too old to travel alone, and he asked me to take him home. When an old man asks you to take him home, you have to do it.
believe farm felt heard ireland people visited
When I visited Ireland with my father and heard the people on the farm talking, I couldn't believe the gift of language they had. I felt very untalented.
born brothers cattle country early farm grew irish kelly music shepherds stayed surrounded till
I'm Irish as hell: Kelly on one side, Shanley on the other. My father had been born on a farm in the Irish Midlands. He and his brothers had been shepherds there, cattle and sheep, back in the early 1920s. I grew up surrounded by brogues and Irish music, but stayed away from the old country till I was over 40. I just couldn't own being Irish.
began though until wrote
It wasn't until I was 35 or 36, when I wrote 'Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,' that I began to get some notoriety, though I only made $5,000.
business given life whenever
I've done very well in the film business. Whenever I have wanted something, the film business has given it to me. I'm very fortunate. My big problem in life has always been, 'What do I want?'
names dear-god bigs
dear god, whose name i do not know. thank you for my life. i forgot... how BIG... thank you. thank you for my life.
couple reading eye
All plays stem from personal experience. I was reading psychoanalytic lit for a couple of years, obsessively, in depth, and I got involved in analyzing everyone around me. . . . Eventually, all my friends' eyes began to glaze over when I started talking this way, and I got the hint that there might be something comical in it.
writing people house
If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks. You need a great script.
doubt
I have doubts! I have such doubts!
interesting challenges trying
Trying to lead an interesting life, a fruitful life, is a big challenge.
writing thinking people
When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. Thats what writing a screenplay is.
enough monogamy bulbs
Monogamy is like a 40-watt bulb. It works, but its not enough.
I'd like to thank everybody who ever punched or kissed me in my life and everybody who I ever punched or kissed.
nice winning lunch
Winning the Pulitzer is a really mellow, fabulous thing. You don't sit and wait for them to open an envelope. You already know you won, and you have a nice lunch. Oscars are more stressful. I had to sit for three hours and wait for my category. I had to fly to Los Angeles. For the Pulitzer I just had to go up to Columbia. But, while the president of Columbia gave me the Pulitzer, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck gave me the Oscar, so that was better.