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" With a film, you have to pare down and take stuff out and squish it all down into a 110 page script. "
Melissa Rosenberg
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Take
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" I love that as a theme for women: Stop standing by! You've got to make stuff happen! You've got to create your own world because if you let other people do it, they're going to just screw you. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Love
People
You
" Because I work in television, I always knew that I loved working with writers. It's very collaborative. You're always in a room full of writers. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Television
You
Work
" I find Jessica Jones a much more interesting character to write for than Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is so noble and heroic, and I don't find that as interesting as one who's really damaged and flawed and has post-traumatic stress disorder. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Woman
Interesting
Character
" When I'm stuck in my writing, the world is amiss. If I'm eating a sandwich, it's an unsettled sandwich. If I'm in the shower, it's an incorrect shower. It's profoundly uncomfortable. But it's what keeps me pushing. "
Melissa Rosenberg
World
Writing
Sandwich
" With 'Twilight,' you have these massive tomes that you have to condense. With 'Penoza,' we had an eight episode Dutch series that, just for the pilot alone, I condensed three episodes. So, there's a lot of filling in and a ton of invention that has to happen to fill out eight episodes. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Pilot
Three
Twilight
" I think stories do have an ending. I think they need to have an ending eventually because that is a story: a beginning, middle and end. If you draw out the end too long, I think storytelling can get tired. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Ending
Beginning
Think
" I think going into 'New Moon,' I knew the characters better. I knew the world better and I knew the actors who would be playing these roles. I had a sense of their rhythms and tones. 'Twilight' I was writing in a vacuum. We hadn't cast it yet. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Better
Writing
World
" My humor tends to be a little more edgy than is appropriate for 'Twilight,' although I got some in there. That was fun! There's just a tonal difference. For me, storytelling is storytelling. But, I do like writing for grown ups. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Storytelling
Me
Humor
" TV is the place for writers to live. This is where you have creative control and you're constantly writing. 'Twilight' had almost a TV schedule to it. I was constantly working on these projects. There was not a whole lot of lull but I've gone onto other feature projects that's like, 'Okay, I'll get back to you on notes.' "
Melissa Rosenberg
Writing
Creative
Place
" I got so lucky on my 'Red Widow' cast. It was just the universe looking out for me that I got those actors. It's a big ensemble cast, a very international cast. I don't know how that happened. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Lucky
Red
Know
" Well, the medium of film is so different than a book that just by bringing it into visual storytelling is to change it up. I think in a book, in any book, you can have a reactive character. Some of the great novels of all time have had that, but in a film you can't do that. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Character
Great
Time
" I don't assume, because I can write screenplays, that I know how to write a novel. It's a very different world. There's a craft involved in storytelling, and it's a different kind of craft. But yes, someday I will do that. It just might be awhile. "
Melissa Rosenberg
World
Know
Storytelling
" To me, to spend all the time and energy and face all those creative challenges that you would spend for a two hour movie, you're inventing a world, you're inventing characters. If they're interesting enough, they should be compelling enough to go for five more episodes. How incredibly frustrating would it be to just do one movie? "
Melissa Rosenberg
World
Face
Challenges
" I have been working in television for quite a long time. In television, the writer is the constant, and the director is rotated in and out. I am very use to dealing with people's methods. And perspectives. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Television
Long
I Am
" What I want is to be the highest grossing screenwriter, or to have some other woman be the highest grossing screenwriter, instead of being number nine on the list. That's my goal. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Number
Goal
Want
" Well, I think one of the problems with 'Birds of Prey' was there were too many cooks in that kitchen. The studio, the producers, the network, all had very different visions of what that should be. They should have just let Laeta Kalogridis control that. Instead they decided to try to get their hands in the mix. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Birds
Control
Think
" I'm not saying that 'Twilight' is, you know, some brilliant Oscar-winner, it's not 'Dr. Zhivago.' It's not trying to be. Because it is a female fantasy. I would argue that it's actually a universal fantasy. Which is, the fantasy being to be loved and cherished for exactly who you are. "
Melissa Rosenberg
You
Saying
Loved
" So what 'Twilight' does is show how women/girls can drive box office and they can support a tent pole movie. They're an extremely passionate fan base. This coincided with the 13 year old boys starting to stay home and play video games and work on their home media stuff. They're no longer going to theaters in droves. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Work
Support
Drive
" With 'Darkly Dreaming Dexter,' we as a group of writers had to take a rather thin novel and spread it out over the course of 12 episodes, and not only 12 episodes, but lay in story for everyone that's going to take you through five years. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Everyone
Going
Over
" I am involved with 'Write Girl,' which is such a great organization, because they go into inner city schools and work with underprivileged girls to pair them up with other writers. And it gets them learning to express themselves and become familiar with their own voice. They have a 100% success ratio getting those girls into college. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Work
Girl
Success
" When you're writing you're constantly fighting demons to sit down and do what you do. If you listen to the voices outside your head, in addition to the ones inside your head, you'll never get anything done. There's enough inner strife. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Writing
Fighting
Enough
" With any sci-fi fantasy storytelling, you must have rules be very clear, otherwise you lose people, like 'OK, they can fly; now they can't fly.' "
Melissa Rosenberg
People
Fantasy
Fly
" It doesn't matter if you're the smartest person in the room: If you're not someone who people want to be around, you won't get far. Likewise for helping those in line behind you. I take seriously my role as a mentor to young female filmmakers - I make sure my time is tithed. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Time
Seriously
People
" Directing doesn't appeal to me. I'm much more in the world of ideas. My husband is a director, and I understand what it takes to direct. It's a skill set where you have to be able to talk to actors and understand them, and I don't. It's a very different way of being in the world, and I much prefer writing and producing. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Ideas
You
Writing
" My plan is, I'm in the process of creating a production company called Tall Girls productions. I want to be doing both film and television. I'll never leave television. I just love working in it too much. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Television
Plan
Love
" I stay off the Internet, because I'm very sensitive to commentary. There could be 10 comments of 'Fabulous job!' and one 'She's horrible!' and it completely throws me. "
Melissa Rosenberg
She
Fabulous
Internet
" Bill Condon, I must say, may have been one of the best professional experiences of my life, collaborating with him. He, himself, is an Academy Award winning screenwriter. He is a storyteller first and foremost, so we speak the same language. We approach things always from the story. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Say
My Life
Winning
" The number of vacations me and my husband have canceled... if you really want a job, book a non-refundable vacation. But obviously we're blessed too. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Book
Job
You
" Studios, because they are investing a great deal of money in movies, they want a guarantee that when they hire somebody that person can deliver for them. Everything is fear based, so they pigeonhole people. But I've written everything, from Westerns to sci-fi to dramedy, I've done it all. "
Melissa Rosenberg
Movies
Money
Done
" In 'Twilight,' you're setting up the world. You're introducing the world, and I was also writing in a vacuum because I didn't know who the actors were going to be. Now you're going to 'New Moon' and 'Eclipse,' and I could write specifically to them in my mind. So it becomes a more comfortable world. "
Melissa Rosenberg
World
Mind
Know