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" 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. "

Craig Zadan

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The future for us is not to go bigger but to go different. "

Craig Zadan

Different

Bigger

" 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. "

" 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.' "

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

" 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

" 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.' "

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

" It is very, very important that people understand that you can tell different kinds of stories, and they do, related to gay and lesbian issues - especially when you know the people behind them. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" I don't think we're going to break the law in terms of what you can or can't do on TV. We're looking to do something edgy, different, and special. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "