I try my best to live by the principle that if you're going to be telling a story that you didn't live, tell it with as much respect as you can for the people who did live it. Craig Mazin More Quotes by Craig Mazin More Quotes From Craig Mazin There's a difference between the perfect way of doing something in terms of historical accuracy, and the perfect way of doing something so that people will watch it and appreciate what matters. You can't have both, at least in that format. Craig Mazin entertainment To walk where they walked felt so strange, and also being under that same piece of sky you start to feel a little closer, in a sense, to who they were. Craig Mazin entertainment I really hate people that spoil stuff by putting scripts online. I don't mind so much people that do movie spoilers when the movie is out in the theater. If you haven't gotten there the first weekend, it's on you to not read reviews or anything. But to put up screenplay reviews just kills me. Craig Mazin me you hate people Chernobyl happened in April of 1986. A few months earlier, in January 1986, the Challenger space shuttle exploded. It did not have the impact on the environment and the amount of lives that Chernobyl did, but it was the result of the same exact problem: a failure of a lot of people and institutions over a long period of time. Craig Mazin failure time long people We are struggling with the global war on the truth. And if what we used to think of as the domain of the Soviets, the kind of celebration of lies and press as propaganda, that now we realize is not something that is unique to the Soviet state. It's within ourselves as well here in the West. Craig Mazin think unique truth war My hope and my intention was that people would experience the tragedy of what Chernobyl was in every regard: a scientific tragedy, a political tragedy, an emotional and personal tragedy, all of that. Craig Mazin experience political hope people When you're writing a feature film, the moment you begin Page 1, you are in a sweat that you're running out of pages. Craig Mazin moment you sweat writing Our culture reflects back what is true. It doesn't always reflect it back reliably. It can distort things. Craig Mazin true back always culture The strange rejection of the expert is mind boggling to me. When we're told that the worst word in politics is 'elite,' I have to wonder whom else are we supposed to be rooting for if not the most qualified and smart and informed people? Craig Mazin me politics mind people When you look at the history of slavery in the United States, and you see the impact that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' had, culture sometimes is the only way that we can put people's eyes on an emotional truth and make them feel why something has to change. Craig Mazin eyes change truth history This is in us: a certain sense of denial, a certain sense of groupthink. This is not something that sits on one party line or the other. We've seen it in all permutations throughout history, and at the core of it is a certain insistence that what we want to be true is now true, and what we don't like is now false. Craig Mazin true party want history My personal belief is that there's not much value in showing things from the past that have no relevance to today or failing to connect some kind of dotted line to where we are today, because otherwise, it just becomes homework. Craig Mazin value homework today past What compelled me about the story of Chernobyl more than anything else was something very universal. Yes, Chernobyl happened because in many ways, the Soviet system was deeply corrupt and evil, but the Soviet system did not arrive to us from some other planet. It was devised by humans. Craig Mazin something story me evil I'm a big believer in the old-school way of releasing television. It's not to say that other platforms aren't making great shows, but there's something about just dumping it all down at once that I think, honestly, cheapens it a touch. Craig Mazin great think television way I was 15 when Chernobyl happened, I've been vaguely thinking about it for most of my life. But somewhere around 2015, it occurred to me that I didn't know how it happened, which seemed like a pretty bizarre lapse in my understanding of the world and how it functions. Craig Mazin my-life me life thinking As writers, our job is to try to create, in a fake space, something that feels true. That's just straight-up fiction: Invent a character that doesn't exist; make them seem like they do. Craig Mazin job fake space character Governments are different, and philosophies are different, but when it comes down to it, a schoolteacher is a schoolteacher is a schoolteacher. A butcher is a butcher is a butcher. We are people. And we are far more common than we ever imagine. Craig Mazin more down different people What I want people to consider is that no matter what it is we want to believe, and no matter what story it is we want to jam the world into, the truth is the truth. Craig Mazin truth believe people world If you organize your life around some political party's list of things you should believe, or an individual that you think is going to come and save you, you are disconnecting yourself from truth. And there is a price to pay. Craig Mazin yourself you truth life There's an amazing movie, I think the best war movie ever made: it's called 'Come and See.' Soviet film. Made in the Soviet Union. It was about Belarusian and Ukrainian partisans in World War II. Craig Mazin amazing best war world
