If you create a visual that actually captures the imagination, that’s not real. It will look real, and that will spread at such lightning speed that by the time it’s found out, it has already done its damage. It’s a very, very scary time that we’re living in. I say it’s an age of absurdity. Barry Levinson Read Quote
Writing by committee becomes much less about a vision. It is really about a piece of merchandise. Barry Levinson Read Quote
We excuse movies like ‘Independence Day’ that really lack logic and say, ‘It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s a ride.’ I thought a movie was a movie and a ride was a ride. Barry Levinson Read Quote
Paterno had that almost legendary reputation, and then all of a sudden, the scandal broke. Why would I be interested? You can’t quite figure it out at face value. Barry Levinson Read Quote
You have to do a version of somebody that’s the essence of Paterno. I think that’s what Al is so great at. You have to create a man, a life, and the emotions that go with it. He’s truly brilliant. Barry Levinson Read Quote
You can’t tell the story of the thousands of people whose lives were destroyed by Bernie Madoff because there are thousands of stories. What you can do is to start inside, and that’s the picture that you do, which becomes like a Greek tragedy in that regard – that whole collapse. Barry Levinson Read Quote
Now, a lot of people didn’t know him at all – it went through feeder funds, so they wouldn’t even have known anything about Bernie Madoff. But everybody finds a justification for their behavior, and obviously, Bernie had a half dozen justifications in his own mind. Barry Levinson Read Quote
You just start going through that process of trying to put together a cast that works. I don’t know that I can explain it in a way that you can go, ‘Oh.’ It’s a little bit like saying, ‘How would he be with him? How does that feel?’ Barry Levinson Read Quote
Some stories seem to lend themselves to telling right away. ‘All The President’s Men’ was done, what, four or five years after the event? It certainly seemed to work there, as opposed to something that happened 40 years ago. Barry Levinson Read Quote
