The theme of 'A Christmas Story' is that you can count on Christmas - that everybody has a Christmas story. Everybody has that time in the holiday season that they remember.
Marc Platt
Stephen Sondheim is calculus for actors. The words are witty and brilliant and profound but complicated.
What makes 'A Christmas Story' universal, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, is that you recognize that family... It's ultimately about a family being glued together for the holiday season.
Winning an Oscar attracts the attention of directors and other actors and creates a boost in salary, particularly for someone like Halle Berry. For an established star like Denzel Washington, the benefits are less tangible.
My personal challenge is always balance. My life has a lot of compartments to it, and I care about each of them deeply. So I wake up each day thinking, 'How am I going to balance today?'
One of the secrets of 'A Christmas Story' is that it's a relatable story. They feel like our family.
I was always interested in storytelling, particularly in theater and film. I liked creative things. My mom and dad are wonderful people, but both are tone deaf, so I don't know where the gene came from.
The film world is always looking for great source material, and Broadway has traditionally and historically been a place to go.
I don't think anyone can ever predict a phenomenon. It's not something you can bank on.
'Wicked' has been one of the biggest hits in Los Angeles theatre history, and we are thrilled that theatergoers here have embraced the musical and welcomed us so heartily.
There were 100 intellectual reasons not to pursue 'Wicked.' There were times where it was very challenging, where the mind said, 'This is maybe too challenging,' but the heart willed it. The heart willed it to succeed.
Good direction is often based on the ability to communicate.
Producers should have the courage of their convictions. See your project through to its fruition. Seek help and be generous enough to take on collaborators and not be territorial as you're learning.
I saw 'Into the Woods' maybe 26 times in various incarnations. I'm very familiar with it.
The character we've always thought of as the Wicked Witch of the West is a green girl who's actually very good, misunderstood, and trying to make her way in the world. She's an outsider looking in, wanting to be loved. That's a universal experience that everyone's felt at some point in their lives.
I think too many people in Hollywood perhaps fail to make a distinction between the political side of Israel and the notion of the country. And they can be separate things.
As a producer, when you get to work with a filmmaker who is joyful about making films, you want to do it again and again.
As much as I love storytelling, I've always been drawn to talent.
Watching familiar characters take unexpected turns is very appealing.
'Defying Gravity' is a big, theatrical, grand gesture. In film, how do you match that?
The notion of someone who is fitting in or trying to become part of a larger family... It's hard to separate that from my own Jewish roots.
When I first started in the business, it was hardly ever done. But today, it almost feels like studios go out and preview movies knowing full well that they're going to use the information they get to go back and reshoot.
I always believe that a good story will find its audience and that it will attract different kinds of elements of creative people who will make it more compelling.
'A Christmas Carol' and 'It's a Wonderful Life,' are movies we love with magic in them.
There's certain people you want to see in comedies; there's certain people you just want to see in dramas. Not that there aren't individuals who do both, but it's not everyone.
I loved being a film executive. But something was always missing for me. I always had the feeling that I was looking over my shoulder - what's going on on Broadway?
I do love being amongst creative people and facilitating that and being inspired by people. I get very bored with just competence and require inspiration all around me.
Some of the metaphors you find in 'Wicked' - how those in power can exploit fear in others to maintain their power - I think, as Jews, we've seen that historically on more than one occasion.
I want my projects to be great, of course. The talent has to come from a diverse pool. Because that's the world we live in.
As a producer, it's your job to bang on the table and convince studio heads why great movies should be made.
It was just the DNA of my family. Giving back didn't feel like an entitlement; it was an obligation.
James McAvoy is not an action star.
In any adaptation, the challenge is to take the essence of the original source of the material, be faithful to it to a point, but to also recognize that you're telling a story in a very different medium. It has to exist on its own, and it has to offer something unique to that experience.
I do love storytelling.
Even in a manuscript form, 'The Girl on the Train' sort of leapt off the pages as a contemporary suspense drama-slash-thriller. It has all the mechanics of a thriller, but at the heart of it was a great character study.
You've got Marvel films, sequels, franchise movies, so much noise out there. You're trying to brand your entertainment. The musical is its own brand.
We're all human beings; people make mistakes.
I have a certain kind of a taste for what will make a good movie or a good play or theater.
Repression is the enemy of civilization - so keep dreaming, because the dreams we dream today will provide the love, the compassion, and the humanity that will narrate the stories of our lives tomorrow.
Thankfully, as much as Hollywood is interested in brands, I think people are still looking for originality and freshness.
Music has a way of getting inside all of us and lifting us up.
Musicals have long given voice to outsiders and speak of experiences in our culture and environment.
Good movies beget other good movies. So when a movie captures the imagination and hearts of people around the world, it's going to have a positive influence on similar genres getting made.
We always love actors taking unexpected turns.
It's hard to get an inner dialogue in a film. It's not cinematic. But in a musical, the character can just turn to the audience and sing.
That's what makes live TV exciting - the unknown!
Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed about working in the theater.
The further you get up the corporate ladder, the farther you get from the actual filmmaking process.
I have creative ADD.
I do remember feeling, 'I don't ever want to feel impotent in terms of what I can control in a business in which you can have very little control.' And that motivated me to go to law school - that, and my parents saying, 'Go to law school before you do anything.'
