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I want to do my own thing, and I'm trying to get closer to realizing that as a filmmaker.

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
Trying
Filmmaker
Closer
Realizing
Thing

More quotes by Charlie Kaufman

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Failure is a badge of honor. It means you risked failure. And if you don’t risk failure, you’re never going to do anything that’s different from what you’ve already done or what somebody else has done.
Charlie Kaufman
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People ask me all the time, What are your influences? Are you trying to do Beckett? It's like, No, I'm trying to do me. Whatever that is. I don't know what that is, but that's the basis. I'm trying to be true and I'm trying to be honest.
Charlie Kaufman
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There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss every relationship ends in one way or another.
Charlie Kaufman
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I graduated from college in 1980.
Charlie Kaufman
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I think everything I do is based on my experience in the world in one way or another.
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 want to create situations that give people something to think about.
Charlie Kaufman
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I try when I'm writing to leave enough space for people to have their own interpretation, and not to direct it toward one conclusion. Then the audience would not be reacting, because they are being preached to or lectured at. I don't have that much to say that I think people should listen to me.
Charlie Kaufman
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You're dealing with the body, and you're dealing with bodily functions. We romanticize everything about people in movies.
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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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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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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When I found myself in that situation - that actors are like children, I tried to be successful. And when it worked and I figured out how to communicate that things were good - or at least okay - then I felt pleased.
Charlie Kaufman
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I think if something resonates, even if it's surreal, it's because it is relatable and I think that that's a core issue for me.
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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I'm Jewish, and my family is Jewish. I was very interested in Woody Allen when I was growing up, but I don't think of myself as a Jewish writer. I'm more from suburbia, American suburbia. I'm more from the '70s than I am from Judaism.
Charlie Kaufman
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And so not only do you have to make that work, you can't really start putting the thing together in any form because some of the shots are very short and obviously many of them take so long, you're waiting months and months and months before you can see if it's going to be working emotionally.
Charlie Kaufman
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I'm in my mind a lot. I live there.
Charlie Kaufman
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You spend most of your time as a director trying to move forward with the movie. It happens on a daily basis, if not more than once a day, that you are struggling with budgetary constraints. Whereas when you're writing, the limitation that you have is your imagination. So it's decidedly non-pragmatic.
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