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" If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff. "
David Benioff
Editing
Design
You
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" It is actually a lot harder to sit down and write from A to Z. But for me at least, it's the only way I can do it, at this point, with any moderate success. "
David Benioff
Success
Down
I Can
" The reality is, 'Game of Thrones' has been a successful show for HBO, which has put us in a position to come and pitch another show and get them excited about it. And that's what helped get us here. "
David Benioff
Show
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Here
" I don't like extremely long movies. I tend to get a bit impatient. There are definitely exceptions, like 'Lawrence of Arabia,' but for the most part, I feel that movies should usually be shorter and not longer. "
David Benioff
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I Feel
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" Some of my happiest childhood memories are going to the movies with my dad and seeing whatever was out that week. In 1977, when I was 7, it was 'Star Wars.' That was a life-changer. "
David Benioff
Childhood
Memories
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" I don't type my sentences on an arena's pitch, surrounded by thousands of cheering or booing fans - I don't feel pressure to please a crowd. "
David Benioff
Feel
Surrounded
Pressure
" With screenplays, it's all about being as concise as possible. If you have a scene that's set in a bar, you just have to write, 'Interior: Bar.' "
David Benioff
Just
Write
You
" We have amazing stunt performers and in Miguel Sapochnik, a director who's so good at spending hours and hours and hours on every shot beforehand, so that he knows exactly what he wants when he gets to the battlefield on the day. We only shoot ten-hour days, so you have to pack a lot into those ten hours. "
David Benioff
You
Good
Director
" 'Game Of Thrones' was too big a canvas for a movie, but 'Dirty White Boys' is like a great old Western: there's so much compression, and it's so pressurized, it demands to be told in one sitting. "
David Benioff
Canvas
Great
White
" Movies that are subtitled don't usually do as well in American theatres. "
David Benioff
Well
Movies
American
" 'Troy' is an adaptation of the Trojan War myth in its entirety, not 'The Iliad' alone. 'The Iliad' begins with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon over the slave girl Briseis nine years into the war. The equivalent scene occurs halfway through my script. "
David Benioff
Girl
Over
Alone
" I've never flown a kite. "
David Benioff
Kite
Flown
Never
" McCullers is one of those rare writers who remembers what childhood is like. Not incidents, which anyone can recall, but states of mind, which are so difficult to recreate. "
David Benioff
Difficult
Rare
Like
" A certain luxury when you get to writing a novel is to have the space to have your characters just banter. "
David Benioff
Your
You
Writing
" I was a huge fantasy geek growing up. I was the dungeon master in my D&D game. "
David Benioff
Growing
Fantasy
Up
" Fiction novels, that's my game. "
David Benioff
Game
Fiction
Novels
" And I didn't grow up wanting to be a director. I grew up wanting to be a writer, so for me, that was always the goal - to be a novelist, not a screenwriter. And I think, again, if I didn't have the novels, maybe I'd be much more frustrated by not having directed yet. "
David Benioff
Think
Me
Grow Up
" Simon Critchley's 'The Book of Dead Philosophers' - it's a quick thumbnail sketches of philosophers through the ages. "
David Benioff
Dead
Book
Quick
" For every Book of Job, there's a Book of Leviticus, featuring some of the most boring prose ever written. But if you were stranded on a desert island, what book would better reward long study? And has there ever been a more beautiful distillation of existential philosophy than the Book of Ecclesiastes? "
David Benioff
Job
Long
Book
" I love reading novels, and I love going to movies, but I kind of hate going to an adaptation of a novel, and it starts off with a voiceover. "
David Benioff
Love
Movies
Reading
" It's always easiest for me as a writer if I know I have a great ending. It can make everything else work. If you don't have a good ending, it's the hardest things in the world to come up with one. I always loved the ending of 'The Kite Runner,' and the scenes that are most faithful to the book are the last few scenes. "
David Benioff
World
Ending
Book
" Sometimes I get jealous when I'm reading a great book by a younger writer. But 'White Tiger' is so good, I almost forgot to hate Aravind Adiga. "
David Benioff
Tiger
Book
Reading
" You just do the best you can and hope people see the potential in it. "
David Benioff
People
Best
Hope
" It's crazy enough to be the person crawling through the bushes in Northern Ireland with a telescopic lens taking pictures - there are crazy people out there. But the idea that people want to go to sites and find out those spoilers... it's like if there was a website called Last Pages of Great Books, would you read that? "
David Benioff
Great
You
People
" Every adaptation requires that the screenwriter make difficult choices - and in particular, difficult cuts. "
David Benioff
Adaptation
Choices
Difficult
" I like having my own story remain my story. "
David Benioff
Story
Having
Like
" If you bill something as a memoir, you're implying that everything in it is true. "
David Benioff
You
Everything
Memoir
" It would be far less interesting, after 'The Empire Strikes Back,' to have an hour-long movie in between 'Empire' and 'Return of the Jedi,' where Luke is training. It's so much cooler to cut from end of 'Empire' to beginning of 'Return,' where he's become the Jedi. "
David Benioff
Beginning
End
Training
" Just the notion of falling for someone, that involves weakness. "
David Benioff
Someone
Weakness
Notion
" Despite his dodgy politics, Yeats remains an inspiration for his genius and the simple fact that the older he got, the better he wrote. "
David Benioff
Fact
Better
Politics
" My favorite food in the world is hard shell crabs from Maryland. "
David Benioff
Shell
Food
Hard