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I studied acting at Boston University. I was in the theater department there. Somewhere in there I decided that wasn't what I was going to do and I went to the B.F.A. film program at N.Y.U.

Charlie Kaufman

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Charlie Kaufman
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: November 1
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Theater
Decided
Wasn
Boston
Went
Studied
Acting
Department
Film
University
Going
Somewhere
Program

More quotes by Charlie Kaufman

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I think there are things that aren't represented in movies that are a big part of everyone's life. We romanticize everything about people in movies. One of the things I don't like in movies is that people feel alone with their bodily functions in the real world, as if people in the movies don't do these things.
Charlie Kaufman
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When I'm writing a script, before I can write dialogue or anything, I have two or three hundred pages of notes, which takes me a year. So, it's not like what happens next. I've got things that I'm thinking about but I don't settle on them. And if I try to write dialogue before then, I can't. It's just garbage.
Charlie Kaufman
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As a writer, or as a filmmaker, you have to present yourself, and part of what yourself is is what you're interested in, or what you think is funny, or what you think is sad, or what you think is horrible.
Charlie Kaufman
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There are things that aren't represented in movies that are a big part of everyone's life. This is a movie about health and about the body.
Charlie Kaufman
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I actually think I'm probably more interested in structure than most people who write screenplays, because I think about it.
Charlie Kaufman
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I graduated from college in 1980.
Charlie Kaufman
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I think generally I'm kind of interested in subjective experience, what goes on inside someone's head, that being all they really know of the world.
Charlie Kaufman
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I often have a theme in mind when I'm starting. I know that I want everything to be in a world of, say, evolution, or guilt.
Charlie Kaufman
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Story ideas, but it's also musing on stuff that I'm thinking about. This leads me to this and this leads me to this. They're kind of random and haphazard. Often I can't find anything. Somehow, by doing that, even though I don't necessarily refer to them in a specific way, I have some sort of architecture in my head.
Charlie Kaufman
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You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?
Charlie Kaufman
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I'm old enough, by a long shot, to remember going to the library and spending days researching. If I was looking for a line from a poem or something else I needed, that would be the trip I would have to take.
Charlie Kaufman
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I have a personality that tends to be somewhat compulsive, and I do tend to think in a circular way. I dwell on the same things over and over and I try to figure out different ways of looking at the same issue.
Charlie Kaufman
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I have a tendency to hire people who tend to be unattractive to the studios. Maybe this is a bad idea.
Charlie Kaufman
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There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.
Charlie Kaufman
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Clementine: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon. Joel: I know. Clementine: What do we do? Joel: Enjoy it.
Charlie Kaufman
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Seriously, I don't consider myself a writer. I don't think I have writing talent. But I will continue to do it.
Charlie Kaufman
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We're all one thing, like cells in a body. 'Cept we can't see the body. The way fish can't see the ocean. And so we envy each other. Hurt each other. Hate each other. How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell.
Charlie Kaufman
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I'm not working on anything. I was trying to write something new . . . I guess the goal for me now, at least at this point, is to try to direct again.
Charlie Kaufman
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I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.
Charlie Kaufman
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The world needs you. It doesn't need you at a party having read a book about how to appear smart at parties - these books exist, and they're tempting - but resist falling into that trap. The world needs you at the party starting real conversations, saying, 'I don't know,' and being kind.
Charlie Kaufman