Rod Serling
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serlingwas an American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, and narrator known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science-fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen, and helped form television industry standards. He was known as the "angry young man" of Hollywood, clashing with television executives and sponsors over a wide range of issues including censorship, racism, and war...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth25 December 1924
CitySyracuse, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Ideas are born from what is smelled, heard, seen, experienced, felt, emotionalized.
I'm frequently surprised, sometimes bugged off, and sometimes happy, depending on the actor. It's a fact of life that just as often as not an actor can breathe life into a line as he can destroy it by misinterpretation, and I've been blessed frequently by having good actors.
How can you put out a meaningful drama when every fifteen minutes proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper? No dramatic art form should be dictated and controlled by men whose training and instincts are cut of an entirely different cloth. The fact remains that these gentlemen sell consumer goods, not an art form.
You're looking at a species of flimsy little two-legged animals with extremely small heads whose name is Man...Very tiny undeveloped brain; comes from primitive planet named Earth. Calls himself 'Samuel Conrad'. And he will remain here in his cage with the running water and the electricity and the central heat- as long as he lives. Samuel Conrad has found the Twilight Zone.
Imagination... its limits are only those of the mind itself.
The writer's no different. When he's rejected, that paper is rejected, in a sense, a sizeable fragment of the writer is rejected as well. It's a piece of himself that's being turned down.
Apparently on the screen I look tall, ageless, and damned close to omniscient-delivering jeopardy-laden warnings through gritted teeth. But when people see me on the street, they say 'by God, this kid is 5 foot 5, he's got a broken nose, and looks about as foreboding as a bank teller on a lunch break.'
Writing is a demanding profession and a selfish one. And because it is selfish and demanding, because it is compulsive and exacting, I didn't embrace it. I succumbed to it.
There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.
Do I want to start my own production company? No, I doubt it. I'm too old for that. I don't want to start anything.
You unlock the door with the key of imagination.
If in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human spirit.
I find dictating in the mass media particularly good because you're writing for voice anyway; you're writing for people to say a line and, consequently, saying a line through a machine is quite a valid test for the validity of what you're saying.
The Chancellor, the late Chancellor, was only partly correct, he was obsolete. But so was the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under 'M' for mankind... in the Twilight Zone.