John Wells
John Wells
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionProducer
Date of Birth28 May 1956
CountryUnited States of America
arrogance continue great horrible looking
One of the great things and one of the horrible things about the American character is this extraordinary optimism and arrogance that everything will continue to be great and keep looking up.
became carnegie design directing
I was a directing student and a production design student at Carnegie Mellon. I went in as a production design student and became a directing student.
companies demonize leads reasons stock
You can demonize Goldman Sachs all you want, and I'm sure there are reasons to do it. But the real pressure is all of us pressuring the companies for stock returns, and that leads to all kinds of decisions.
fortunate received
I was very fortunate in all of my career in television to have a lot of things that received a lot of awards recognition.
family grew humor none painless power
I grew up in a family that was very barbed and difficult, and there was a lot of humor. None of it was painless humor. All of it was at someone else's expense. It was kind of always about power.
material requires
You have to have wonderful actors for material, particularly difficult material that requires complicated performances.
experience
My experience has been that actors always want to be directed.
five hope people producing
Producing small films, you usually have four or five people you want, and you hope one of them will say they'll do it.
anyone direct hard harder meryl people telling worked works
People say to me, 'Well, how do you direct Meryl Streep?' You're not wandering over to Meryl telling her how to act. She's an extraordinary talent and unbelievably hard working; she works harder than anyone I have ever worked with before.
disabled generally humor lives
As people, we're generally optimistic, no matter how disabled our lives are, and we find the humor in the darkest situations.
definitely
A show like 'True Detective' is definitely a drama.
exact family role suddenly
As an adult, you think of yourself as being someone else when you're away from your family, but when you come back to your family, you suddenly find yourself back in the exact same role that you always had in your family as a child and as a teenager.
came groups happening stories worked
I'm interested in working with groups of actors to tell complicated stories about what's happening to people, and that's because I came out of the theatre where I worked in ensembles, and I really loved that.
If you don't have nerves and a little trepidation about any new project, then I don't think you're really alive.