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" To battle the odds - loss of interest, no funding, discouragement - requires someone who doesn't give up. "
Craig Zadan
Battle
Loss
Odds
Related Quotes:
" When we did 'Chicago' and we announced Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, and Queen Latifah, everybody went crazy and said, 'What are they doing? What are they thinking?' And, now, you look at the movie, and you see that we chose the people that we wanted for that movie, and we were so proud of all of them. "
Craig Zadan
People
Queen
Proud
" 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.' "
Craig Zadan
Say
Doing
Commitment
" I was captivated by Stephanie Mills. "
Craig Zadan
Mills
Captivated
" It was very, very difficult to be a student in the drama department and also review my professors' school shows. I got a lot of pressure from them to quit the paper and concentrate on studying dramatic literature. "
Craig Zadan
Studying
Quit
Pressure
" It's expensive to produce musicals on television. "
Craig Zadan
Musicals
Expensive
Television
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
You
Yes
Back
" We zero in on family as a theme because it makes the movies emotionally available to a universal audience. "
Craig Zadan
Audience
Family
Movies
" When you work on a passion project, there's always the chance that you'll get your heart broken. "
Craig Zadan
Passion
Chance
Broken
" What usually happens on the Oscar telecast is that as soon as best picture is announced, everyone is up out of their seats and running off to their parties. "
Craig Zadan
Best
Everyone
Off
" 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.' "
Craig Zadan
Time
Said
Ideas
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
Look
Great
Desire
" We have a particular philosophy in the casting room that we don't really tell the actors - the actors tell us. "
Craig Zadan
Philosophy
Casting
Us
" A lot of people feel that 'Music Man' is a good movie musical. "
Craig Zadan
Music
Movie
Man
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
Sports
America
Future
" The future for us is not to go bigger but to go different. "
Craig Zadan
Go
Different
Bigger
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
People
Say
Three
" Carrie Underwood clearly drove 'The Sound of Music.' For 'Peter Pan,' we had terrific actors but not stars, and we did not do nearly as well. "
Craig Zadan
Sound
Stars
Clearly
" Basically, we had the idea of doing this production of 'Steel Magnolias,' and we spoke to Queen Latifah about it, and she got excited. "
Craig Zadan
Steel
Excited
Got
" 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.' "
Craig Zadan
Doing
Experience
Best
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
Good Things
Drive
Good
" If anything's going to go wrong, it'd go wrong during 'Peter Pan,' not 'The Sound of Music.' "
Craig Zadan
Go
Wrong
Sound
" He's perfect for anything. I would hire Hugh Jackman to come to my house and have dinner. "
Craig Zadan
Dinner
Perfect
House
" We'd never do 'The Sound of Music' because the movie was perfect. "
Craig Zadan
Music
Perfect
Never
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
You
Life
Play
" The truth of the matter is - when we look at things - every movie we do - no matter what the subject matter is - we go to the universal theme of family. We always go to that because if the movie is about family, then any audience can relate to it. "
Craig Zadan
Look
Truth
Family
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
Death
Live
Look
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
Movies
Chicago
Doing
" I don't understand how other producers who have no experience making a musical jump in and produce one. "
Craig Zadan
Experience
Other
Understand
" Neil and I are most thrilled that we were able to bring musical theatre to the enormous audience that 'The Sound of Music' reached. "
Craig Zadan
Theatre
Audience
Bring
" 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. "
Craig Zadan
Think
Dream
People