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" Neil and I are most thrilled that we were able to bring musical theatre to the enormous audience that 'The Sound of Music' reached. "

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" I would say that, first of all, if you have the honor of being chosen to produce the Oscars, you usually get only one crack at it. We were the first people in sixteen years to do it three times in a row, and it was one of the most profound experiences you could ever imagine. "

" The people with mean things to say, say them. At the end of the day, the mean things and the good things only drive viewership. So what do you want? You want the ratings. "

" We're finding that the casting of 'A Few Good Men' is different from the musicals because the kind of actors that you need to do it are movie actors, basically. "

" I don't understand how other producers who have no experience making a musical jump in and produce one. "

" We have a great musical sequence in episode five of 'Smash' called 'Let's Be Bad,' and it probably is the closest to 'Chicago' that I think any of us have ever experienced. "

" When you work on a passion project, there's always the chance that you'll get your heart broken. "

" When we went to Judy Davis and said, 'We want you to play Judy Garland in the mini-series 'Life With Judy Garland,' she was shocked, but we just had an instinct about her. "

" A lot of people feel that 'Music Man' is a good movie musical. "

" Live TV is the future. It's the only way you can beat the DVRing of America. Everything is DVRed, and no one watches stuff when it's on. Awards shows and sports are watched when they're broadcast. "

" Neil and I had the greatest experience of our lives doing 'Chicago' with Latifah. Then we had the second best experience of our lives doing 'Hairspray.' "

" If anything's going to go wrong, it'd go wrong during 'Peter Pan,' not 'The Sound of Music.' "

" People think, 'Oh, you're doing 'The Wiz' because 'Empire' is such a big hit.' The truth is, staging this musical has been a dream of ours since the '90s, but the rights were tied up. It's just coincidental that, this year, when we were choosing a new musical, the rights were cleared. "

" We'd go to studios with ideas to do movie musicals and they'd literally kick us out. They said, 'Audiences aren't interested in movie musicals. You're wasting our time.' "

" We zero in on family as a theme because it makes the movies emotionally available to a universal audience. "

" I was captivated by Stephanie Mills. "

" It's expensive to produce musicals on television. "

" Basically, we had the idea of doing this production of 'Steel Magnolias,' and we spoke to Queen Latifah about it, and she got excited. "

" We called the head of CBS and said, 'We know how network television feels about musicals. Would you even consider doing 'Gypsy?'' He said, 'If I did say yes, you'd have to have a big movie star who does not do TV.' I told him that, in our fantasy world, we'd like Bette Midler. He said, 'Get Bette Midler, and you have an on-the-air commitment.' "

" We'd never do 'The Sound of Music' because the movie was perfect. "

" He's perfect for anything. I would hire Hugh Jackman to come to my house and have dinner. "

" We've spoken to a lot of friends who are stars who could be great, and they say to us, 'Look, if you were doing a movie musical, and we could pre-record and lip-synch, sure. But live? So if we hit a bad note it's there for posterity? We're not going to go out there without a safety net.' People are scared to death of that. "

" Neil and I share a desire for great quality in our work. If we are offered projects, look at projects, or consider projects that don't have that quality, then we don't do them. "

" To battle the odds - loss of interest, no funding, discouragement - requires someone who doesn't give up. "

" In the past, once a movie musical was made, it was believed that you were left with that version, good or bad, for posterity. "

" Some filmmakers set out to re-create the theater experience they got on Broadway. They kept everything the same. They shot the original casts. We reinvent the whole thing, look at it solely as a movie. We pretend that nobody saw 'Chicago' or 'Hairspray.' "

" We couldn't even contemplate doing 'Hairspray' without a live audience. "

" We wanted to take on social and political and LGBTQ stories which no one at the upper level of the entertainment industry ever really wants to do. So you have to fight, and you have to persuade, and you have to manipulate the studios and the networks. And you have to go back - over and over again - until they say yes. "

" There were no TV musicals until we did Bette Midler 'Gypsy,' and the success of that opened the door for us to do the rest. "

" I think we sublimated our Broadway desires by doing theater in Hollywood - not on stage but by doing the movies of 'Chicago' and 'Hairspray' and also musicals on TV. We did Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella' and 'Gypsy' and 'Annie.' Even 'Smash' was like doing theater. "

" It rests in the hands of 'Dreamgirls' and 'Hairspray.' If they're successful, we'll be back on track - people will continue to greenlight musicals. If they don't work, then you're going to see everyone go back to the way it was before 'Chicago.' "