Paul Haggis
Paul Haggis
Paul Edward Haggisis a Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as screenwriter and producer for consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners, 2004's Million Dollar Baby and 2005's Crash, the latter of which he also directed...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth10 March 1953
CityLondon, Canada
CountryCanada
characters knowledge
You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.
near normal
In Scientology, in the Ethics Conditions, as you go down from Normal through Doubt, then you get to Enemy, and, finally, near the bottom, there is Treason.
guiding success
My one guiding rule for success in the film world would be, be careful of your friends.
amongst family furniture hollywood home hours kid moved night support ten three various work worked
I moved to Hollywood when I was 22. I was married. I had a kid right away. And I had worked as a furniture mover amongst various other jobs, and I'd work eight, ten hours a day to support my family - and I'd come home and write for two hours a night or two and a half, or three hours a night.
conditions genuinely good great helping interested majority people planet
The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on this planet and helping others.
bad good life loved writer wrote
I made a very good living as a bad writer. I wrote a lot of comedies, 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' while all my friends were doing the good shows, like 'Cheers,' but I loved it because I got to be a working writer in Hollywood.
writing thinking answers
I don't think writers should write about answers. I think writers should write about questions.
writing matter projects
Always write from your gut, no matter what the project is.
sometimes bunch multiple
We never did just one take. Multiple takes. Many. I did a bunch. Sometimes I do one take. Sometimes I did 20.
writing contradiction humans
What I love about writing is the contradictions we all embody as human beings.
character worst asks
Usually the characters are where I start. Then I continually ask myself, 'What's the worst thing that could happen to this character?'
two murder-mysteries relax
I like taking genres and subverting them. I did that with In the Valley of Elah. I said, Okay, this is just a murder mystery. Relax. And then, two thirds of the way through, I broke every convention of a murder mystery.
writing answers trouble
I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.
crash feels
We crash into each other just so we can feel something