TV writing is for people who hate being alone more than they hate writing. Matthew Weiner More Quotes by Matthew Weiner More Quotes From Matthew Weiner The show is not a history lesson or intellectual exploration. It is entertainment based on tension, irony and storytelling that is closely related to today’s life. Matthew Weiner lessons intellectual today It's an ugly thing to see ambition and to see people satisfying themselves. Matthew Weiner ugly-things ambition people I'm a different writer now. You don't sit in a room with Sopranos creator David Chase and writer Terence Winter for four years and not learn something. And just watching the way the show was done, and watching the way that David encouraged the imagination. Matthew Weiner different imagination winter In movies and TV, we tend to fall into tropes about how characters might get out of problems. But when you look at real life, you realize that there is a lot of drama of not being able to get out of the problems. Matthew Weiner real drama fall It's very hard to turn writers against each other, believe it or not. Matthew Weiner turns hard believe I'm very supportive of creative people being paid for the work that they do. Matthew Weiner supportive creative people You don't drink and smoke that much, and womanize that much, unless you really want to be punished, I think. Matthew Weiner drink thinking If you've ever had somebody try to sell you something - people who can sell, they really are not manipulating you. They are selling themselves. Matthew Weiner selling trying people Identity is part of drama to me. Who am I, why am I behaving this way, and am I aware of it? Matthew Weiner identity drama way I'm in the entertainment business, where you're only as good as your last show. Matthew Weiner entertainment lasts shows My life philosophy and personality has been driven by the fact that I am incapable of really understanding the future, on some level. I am in this moment. I take risks because I really don't think that far ahead. Matthew Weiner personality philosophy thinking It took seven years from the time I wrote Mad Men until it finally got on the screen. I lived every day with that script as if it were going to happen tomorrow. That’s the faith you have to have. Matthew Weiner mad men years I am trying to be as impartial as possible. As you can tell from the trailers for Mad Men, I am a person who believes that you should know nothing. Matthew Weiner mad men believe That's the miracle of telling a story in film: You can express something inside someone's mind. Matthew Weiner miracle stories mind Success has a lot of things that go along with it and I haven't experienced any personal resentment. I can't control any of that and I try not to worry about it. I hope that's not the case, you know. Most of the writers that I know and artists that I know understand what was going on. I think there's just as many things going on in the awards process that have to do with the show having won a few times. Matthew Weiner awards artist thinking I have this amazing team that I trust. I completely go with their decisions on things. I don't have to go in and micromanage everything. And I think the other thing is, you start to sort of... I wouldn't say relax, because I've never relaxed. But I've tried to have more confidence in the things I like, or the things other people like. That's really the big thing in this job, to second-guess yourself all the time. Matthew Weiner team people thinking I am a competitive person, but it's so hard to do a show. Anybody who gets to the point where they get their show on the air, I wish them the best. It's too hard. I'd rather waste energy thinking good things on myself. Matthew Weiner energy wish thinking The chance to tell personal, language-specific, culturally specific stories is really flourishing on TV and I think it's just the nature of movies and international demands that you need to get a much bigger audience. TV is more like independent film was. The forms of adult drama and certain kinds of sophisticated comedy, there's no room for them in the tentpole movie universe. Matthew Weiner independent drama thinking The weirdest thing with friends, the way you measure it is if you go without communicating for months at a time, you can sit down and within five seconds be right where you were. I know it's a cliché, but quality not quantity, and that bond will not disintegrate. It does need to be tended to but it won't go away. It's amazing, though - I'm here in New York where my best friend from college lives, and we see each other twice a year and we're right where we were and a lot of it's unspoken. Matthew Weiner quality going-away college I don't want to pretend like I'm clairvoyant or anything, but I had a tremendous sense of malaise about our political future. This is right around the millennium, right around 1999, when I wrote it. The Sopranos certainly reflected that; when I saw that on the air, I was like "Oh my God, I'm not alone." But it doesn't seem that the culture really caught up with that. George W. Bush won two elections... I'm not even trying to say this from a political standpoint. I think there is a resonance to the kind of glory of that period, and the foreboding of what happened. Matthew Weiner political trying thinking
