Thomas Lennon famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

Who is writing these screenwriting books? Not actually writing for the studios in Hollywood. These are people that have one or a half of a credit on maybe one movie, or none. So they're all theoretical.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Book #Writing #People
Books are great for if you want to work on the craft of writing for yourself, or, you know, to write novels or indie films, stuff like that.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Book #Writing #Crafts
I don't think you can teach someone how to come up with good characters or a story.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Character #Thinking #Stories
People kept passing our [ with Robert Ben Garant] script around, and suddenly we had this reputation as screenwriters, which we're not - we're sketch comedy guys.
-- Thomas Lennon

#People #Guy #Scripts
I never thought I would write the way that I write for the studios now, which is like, not little novels, but be someone who literally is more like, you know, sometimes I guess we describe, we're more Salieri than Mozart.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Writing #Littles #Way
Being a working person who works for the studios. It's a minefield and there's tons of stuff you need to know. And people mess it up all the time.
-- Thomas Lennon

#People #Stuff #Needs
If you just want to be a writer, I don't care, for pitching, for writing dialogue, you should take an improvisation class. It's super important.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Writing #Class #Important
I think people were not expecting us [with Robert Ben Garant] to, they were just like, "Well here come the writers," but we both were coming out of a sketch comedy background, so when we pitch a movie, we play every character in the film. You act it out, you perform it - you do a 10-minute performance of the movie.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Character #Thinking #Play
When you do a movie in the studio system, there's a committee. A committee of six or seven people you answer to. There's two or three producers, a studio executive and one or two people above that studio executive.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Two #People #Three
That's the other thing about working on movies, the commitment is years. That's one thing that's so frustrating about the process is that it goes on and on and on for years.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Commitment #Years #Goes On
I guess I considered myself just sort of a sketch comedian, you know? Actual screenwriting hadn't really occurred to me as a viable job - I didn't really know anything about it.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Jobs #Comedian #Screenwriting
I feel like I'm the most well-adjusted character on the show, even though I'm sure the other actors would tell you the same thing about their characters.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Character #Actors #Wells
You hate to see yourself do one draft of a script and then have somebody else come back in and change what you've done.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Hate #Scripts #Done
Writing studio movies is the best job in the world... it's awesome.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Jobs #Writing #World
The more people's money you take to do something, the more inputs you get.
-- Thomas Lennon

#People #Input
The first record I bought with my own money was Rio.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Records #Firsts
Old School has humongous laughs all the way through it.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Old School #School #Laughing
Nobody in Hollywood ever sets out to make a bad movie ever but about 99% of the time, that's what happens.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Hollywood
It's such a great thing to work with people and not have a plan.
-- Thomas Lennon

#People #Plans #Great Things
If you're a studio writer, the funny better be on the page.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Pages
Don't write something that is your passion project because all it will do is get the passion stomped out of you.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Passion #Writing #Projects
All studio movies are the middle of the Bell curve. The only way to do something is to do it yourself. And the only way to do that is to not take any money from anyone or take as little money as possible from anyone and that's it.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Curves #Bells #Littles
Yes, I am complimented on my work in Kids in the Hall once or twice a week. Its a nice feeling.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Nice #Kids #Feelings
The best thing that happened during the filming of Out Cold is that I forged a friendship with Lee Majors that endured for almost 12 weeks.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Cold #Week #Forged
The only guaranteed way to make something not very funny is to make it vague.
-- Thomas Lennon

#Way
People love that monkey torture.
-- Thomas Lennon

#People #Monkeys #Torture

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