My experience on ‘The West Wing’ was, I think, now rare in that I was pretty young, and I walked into this environment where Aaron Sorkin was giving me a script every week, and Thomas Schlamme and John Wells were keeping the studio off my back, at least as best as they could. Alex Graves Read Quote
Proof’ is a really cool pilot that I was lucky enough to read by Rob Braggin for TNT that’s about a surgeon who’s an agnostic, tough, grounded, scientific mind and she’s hired by a Steve Jobs-type who’s just been diagnosed with cancer to focus on near death experiences and what happens when you die. Alex Graves Read Quote
Most TV shows are writing the next episode while you’re directing the one you’re doing, and they’re trying to figure out what they’re going to do, and they’re putting it all together. Alex Graves Read Quote
Game of Thrones’ is shot on a very similar kind of schedule to a TV show, but there’s a lot more time and focus put into the script. Alex Graves Read Quote
The hardest part of ‘Game of Thrones’ is there is so much incredible talent bouncing off the walls that you’ll actually miss some of them, and not getting it is very intimidating. Alex Graves Read Quote
I was really, really stagnating and getting bored in the steady work of television and didn’t really know what movies I would be making that Hollywood would be making, and then I went on to ‘Game of Thrones,’ and it was just like, everything I’ve been waiting to do was handed to me by really nice people. Alex Graves Read Quote
Especially as a director on ‘West Wing,’ I directed a lot of different things in a lot of different ways and really stretched my wings. Alex Graves Read Quote
No director directs ‘Game of Thrones’ without reading all the episodes and knowing what’s going on. All the episodes are written in advance, so you can do that, which is an important point. Alex Graves Read Quote
I was, and am, a frustrated filmmaker and film student, and my passion and love for movies was so broad that, in the earlier part of my career, I stumbled into doing ‘Sports Night’ and was a comedy director. Alex Graves Read Quote
For someone making a pilot, assuming the talent is there and you can maneuver the system properly, it’s just a matter of standing your ground and trying to make something great until you are making enough money for the studio that they let you keep making it. Alex Graves Read Quote
