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All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that's what ultimately works the best for me.

Barry Levinson

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Barry Levinson
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: April 6
Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Baltimore
Maryland
Best
Create
Removes
Enough
Happen
Behaviour
Feel
Small
Tension
Feels
Free
Remove
Trying
Everyone
Atmosphere
Moments
Ultimately
Happens
Works
Seems
Comfortable

More quotes by Barry Levinson

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I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things - worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.
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I don't know that you can do an absurdist film and just have everybody embrace it in terms of filling out cards. I just don't think it happens. So you have to prepare an audience.
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I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.
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When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.
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It's such a funny thing. Hollywood is terrible unless you happen to be a celebrity who's a Republican. So Ronald Reagan can be a Hollywood celebrity, and he's a Republican, and then he can become the president, and that's okay. Fred Thomson, well, that's okay. But the rest we need to demonize. There's no consistency.
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I'm fascinated by documentaries, to begin with. Because of the nature of television, as opposed to theatrical, documentaries can be in this long form and take you on a journey.
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I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can't truly define why something succeeds.
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Creative differences are legendary in this movie business, so we're really not exploring the creative-difference aspect as opposed to the money aspect, or the fact that something can come up in a movie and literally put the whole movie on the line, and this is where producers have to earn their keep.
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You don't always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion.
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There was a time when I said, I'm going to go do a television thing, after doing all these theatrical films, and heard, Television? Why are you going to go back to television? It's an interesting place.
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I think when Sarah Palin opened her mouth and started talking, the more she talked, the less appealing she became.
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A lot of people have done things over the years and made fun of people in one way or another. When I was a kid, Vaughn Meader used to do John F. Kennedy. I don't know if that makes John F. Kennedy less credible. He would do the voice, he'd have some silly situations or whatever. I don't know if it made him less presidential because of it.
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I think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it's getting.
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No one really has the power, and everybody's trying to get through the day, and everybody's nervous and desperate.
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I don't know that you can do it as a satire. I mean, the business is crazy enough as it is. It's like doing Wag The Dog - we took a thing that was almost completely absurd on one level, and then ultimately those things came about.
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I've had a lot of movies that didn't get great numbers on test screening, but a lot of times the film was able to survive, or the studio still stayed and supported it.
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The interesting thing about movies, it's not always - y'know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.
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It's always hard to explain why an audience ultimately responds to a movie.
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I think we are seeing a radical shift in the business in general. The studios are making much more of the real big extravaganzas and there are other kinds of films that are coming out. I think you are going to begin to see more diversification that we've seen in the past.
Barry Levinson
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I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, We're just the mayonnaise.
Barry Levinson