John Sayles
John Sayles
John Thomas Saylesis an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor and novelist. He has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Passion Fishand Lone Star. His film Men with Gunshas been nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. His directorial debut, Return of the Secaucus 7, has been added to the National Film Registry...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth28 September 1950
CountryUnited States of America
I always felt like, okay, I'm going to try to tell stories whatever way I can and it would be cool to make a movie, and tell a story that way.
When I read a story or see something play out in front of me I say, how come nobody's made a movie or a television show out of this? This is something that belongs in the conversation. Certainly that's what interests me about a project.
When I was really young I didn't know that there was such a thing as a screenwriter. I wrote stories.
There were not fifteen people in the story department and twenty-five producers and stuff. And Roger had produced 1,000 movies and directed a couple of hundred, and their comments were always very, very specific.
I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you pretty much get to do the first, second and third draft yourself without a whole lot of interference.
Not that I've always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don't come out-but I've gotten to work with really good story editors and stuff like that.
We just said, 'Okay, you're in the movie. Bring what you would bring for a three-day weekend and I hope you like the way you look in it because once you're on camera, that's your wardrobe.' But it worked; it worked and we were very surprised.
You get to say, 'Here's my philosophical idea about what the costume should like,' and the costume designer comes and gives you choices and sometimes they're all good, and I say, 'What do you think?' and they pick the right thing.
I was trying to think of a title for it, which is a hard thing. Limbo is basically a metaphor, anyway ... it's this place where you're neither here nor there ... and so many people live that kind of life.
I was surprised that it still existed, ... that it hadn't, in fact ... been swallowed up by developers. And I went down, and there it still was, with two condo outfits on either side of this beautiful stretch of beach, but it was like they were moving one foot forward every day, and they were about to get it.
With Roger, it would be: 'On Page 67, we think this is a little quick to have another attack of Piranhas, so could you put it off until Page 69?'
Fahrenheit 9/11 took public domain information that should have been on the news every night and put it in a film that a lot of people went to see. But still Bush has never had to answer those charges.
But once I discovered that there was such a thing as a screenwriter and a director and all that, it stayed in my head as a possibility.
It's the best of all worlds, ... You never know when the phone rings who it's going to be.