The other thing being at UCLA was just being in California and around the movie business. Which I honestly believe, and I've told this to screenwriters, you have to do. You have to be there in order to write or… — Shane Black Copy Share Image
Going to UCLA, as far as I'm concerned, afforded me two things. One was the advantage of meeting friends and getting to know a group of guys I hung out with, was chummy with. All of us eventually had success with film. Making films, cutting our own little movies together, 3 in the morning going out and shooting stuff, finding… — Shane Black Copy Share
The only way you can stay on top is to remember to touch bottom and get back to basics. — Shane Black Copy Share Image
Here's what I didn't know when I was starting out that I now know…I thought when you were starting out it was really hard to write because you hadn't broken in yet, you hadn't really hit your stride yet. What I found out paradoxically is that the next script you write doesn't get easier because you wrote one before…each one… — Shane Black Copy Share
I always have humour in my action movies. I think characters that make jokes under fire are more real. It somehow helps put you… — Shane Black Copy Share Image
For years I was doing the excruciating weightlifting of writing scripts - but then I stayed thin and someone else got all the muscles. — Shane Black Copy Share Image
I wanted at one point to act, which is a weird thing for men to want to do. It's a very vain profession. — Shane Black Copy Share Image
The worst of the action films are the ones where everything is one shout from beginning to finish. And there's no differentiation between beats,… — Shane Black Copy Share Image
I'm the kid in school who always, you know, got the straight A's. I got to be that, you know, alpha aggressive work-ethic guy.… — Shane Black Copy Share Image
I felt that in a way, I hated the writing process so much. It's excruciating, as I'm sure you know, and so lonely being in the solitary prison of my office. A lot of brain-wracking. It just felt like it was so much hard work, and I would send it away. I felt as though I was doing all of… — Shane Black Copy Share
An action movie should, like any other, follow the narrative traditions of literature. That means there should be subtlety, a slow build and a… — Shane Black Copy Share Image
Once I started selling scripts for a great deal of money - action scripts, no less, which people tend to pooh-pooh anyway - then… — Shane Black Copy Share Image
