Hollywood Quotes

“GEORGE LUCAS: This is not a good thing to do if you actually want to earn a living. DAVID PUTTNAM: Real estate’s a much better business if you’re really interested in money.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“That’s another interesting note, and I must make note of it. In those days, the late sixties, there was a lot of innocence surrounding dope. Not like it has developed into. And as a result of that, there was a lot of dope in our editing room. SAM FULLER: These kids liked to smoke.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“GEORGE LUCAS: What I really wanted to do was go down to the ArtCenter in Los Angeles and become an illustrator. But my father said, “Well, you could do that, but you’re going to pay for it yourself”—and it was a very expensive school. He knew I wasn’t going to go out and work my way through school. Basically, I’m a lazy person.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“Groucho asked me once to play for him one of the first Irving Berlin songs. And he said to me, “You know, I sang this song for Irving Berlin. When I finished, Irving said to me, ‘Groucho, if you ever have a strong urge to do this song again, call me, and I will give you ten dollars not to do it.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“VINCENTE MINNELLI: I made that character Jack Buchanan played in The Band Wagon and based him a little bit on me. I’m a very confusing person.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“This is the true story of Hollywood. The most cruel, most despicable town in the world. Ruthless. Completely heartless.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“KING VIDOR: When sound first came in, that’s when popcorn and all the drinks started and necking in the theater started, because you could turn away and do all sort of things and you could still hear. You wouldn’t miss anything, you know. The sound would take care of it. In silent pictures, you had to pay attention the whole time. You had to sit there and try to figure it out.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“HARLAN ELLISON: Yes, there’s no denying that if you happen to be somebody’s brother-in-law, you can probably get financed a hell of a lot sooner.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“JULIA PHILLIPS: You know, there’s a battleground atmosphere in New York that makes you feel that it’s reality. PENNY MARSHALL: I was cold in New York.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“MARK CANTON: It used to be, the sequels will do half or three-quarters of the original. Now they can far exceed the original because that’s the impact of DVD and home video.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“JON FAVREAU: There’s only two types of movies that are going to be making money, I think, in this era of piracy. One is a big tentpole event film, where you have to go to the theater, like an Avatar, and the other is a semi-low-budget-ish comedy that can break $100 million.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“MARK CANTON: A perfect example, again, of all the geniuses that run Hollywood: Peter Jackson makes Lord of the Rings. Nobody wanted to make a movie with Peter Jackson.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“TOM HANKS: When Jeffrey Katzenberg called me and said, “Would you be interested in doing a voice for a new project we have?” I said, “Sure, I’ll do it.” “So come on by, and we’ll talk about it.” And what they were doing is talking about Toy Story.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“STEVEN SPIELBERG: It doesn’t take much gall. It takes desire to really do it. To really be a moviemaker or a writer or whatever you want to be, it just takes a blind faith that overcomes all fear.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“TOM POLLOCK: You have to overcome the studios’ natural reluctance to trust you with a million dollars.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“BARBRA STREISAND: Well, I mean, there’s Robert Redford climbing on top of you, you know? You don’t have to act, you know?”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“HOWARD W. KOCH: You’re not going to take Barbra Streisand out of a picture, so you spend most of your life being a diplomat. Or she calls you at night and you talk to her all night on the phone. She says, “Shouldn’t we do this? Don’t you like my hair this way?” And you keep cajoling and working, and you have seventy-five days of madness, and your wife says, “Listen, it’s either Barbra Streisand or me.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“FRANK DARABONT: Moses did not come down from the mountain with a tablet that says “Write a three-act structure, or you’ll go to Hell.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“GEORGE LUCAS: We were building sandcastles, and he was musing about how what he really wanted to do was a James Bond film. He’d gone to the producers and asked them if he could do it and said he would only do it if he could bring Sean Connery back. They didn’t want to do that, so Steve backed off. I turned to him and said, “I have the perfect film for you. It’s basically James Bond.” I told him the story of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“STEVEN SPIELBERG: George was so anxious that Star Wars would be the biggest flop in his personal history that he went to Hawaii to get away. I met him in Hawaii the day the film opened.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“JULIA PHILLIPS: What I think is a miracle is that we’ve gotten movies made at all.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“JOYCE SELZNICK: It’s not easy to put movies together. But it’s harder to sell them once they’re made.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“SAM WASSON: But The Godfather was a startling example of smart distribution, blockbuster distribution, an essential element in the burgeoning equation of how to assemble, manufacture, and sell not just a movie, but a giant hit.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“MIKE NICHOLS: There are many funny stories about making The Day of the Dolphin. And I won’t tell any of them.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“JULIA PHILLIPS: Universal is like the Pentagon.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“A. D. MURPHY: Film companies, distributors, and exhibitors woke up to the fact that people don’t go to films, they go to see a specific film. It’s an impulse purchase. There have been many studies. People make up their mind to see a film about six hours before, and they go that day. It’s literally an impulse purchase.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“DENNIS HOPPER: Anyway, so Easy Rider.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“BUCK HENRY: I had no feeling. I never have a feeling. I have a slight feeling of doom every time.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“NED TANEN: You’re always dealing with the mood of the public at the moment you put that picture out. Does anyone really think that in 1978 Easy Rider would be a hit movie? I don’t presume to know what a general feeling in America is. I don’t presume to know what a general feeling in my office is.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History

“ARTHUR PENN: When we finished Bonnie and Clyde, the film was characterized rather elegantly by one of the leading Warner executives as “a piece of shit.” It went downhill from there.”
― Jeanine Basinger, Hollywood: The Oral History