Quotes by Sam Esmail - Page 2

I did have friends who have suffered from schizophrenia and mild dissociative identity disorder, as well as more extreme cases of social anxiety disorder.
Sam Esmail /
Cases
Disorder
Identity
Schizophrenia
Extreme
Suffered
Mild
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With some actors, if I have upward of 10 notes, I don't want to give them all 10 notes and overwhelm them. I usually parse them out three or four at a time.
Sam Esmail /
Notes
Overwhelm
Parse
Upward
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When I started thinking about 'Mr. Robot,' I thought about it as a movie, and I thought about the complete arc, and that is the one story I'm going to tell.
Sam Esmail /
Arc
Mr
Complete
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I took Pascal, and I was terrible. And then, when I went to NYU, I minored in computer science. I just couldn't code. I just didn't have the patience for it.
Sam Esmail /
Code
Computer Science
Nyu
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Music is everything to me. It's the heart and soul of a movie or TV show to me because it can be such an injection of tone, and I think tone is everything to a story.
Sam Esmail /
Heart And Soul
Tone
Music Heart Soul
Tv Show
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I'm a huge fan of 'The Watch,' and I've also been on a few times. It's Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan's show on The Ringer. It's just a great podcast about television.
Sam Esmail /
Andy
Chris
Huge Fan
Ryan
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The one thing that I know from the personal experiences that I've had with hackers and from people in tech who are brilliant at this thing, is there's a lot of angst.
Sam Esmail /
Angst
Hackers
Personal Experiences
People Know Who
Tech
The One Thing
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'Pi' was one of my favorite films growing up because I thought it employed paranoia and voice-over, and also because it used this unreliable narrator in a very fascinating way.
Sam Esmail /
Employed
Fascinating
Growing Up
Paranoia
Unreliable
Used
Voice Over
Favorite
Films
Narrator
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Typically, whenever you're envisioning how you're going to shoot something, you have a location or a set that you're going to build, and it's going to be built to specifications.
Sam Esmail /
Location
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I don't think it's political to dislike Trump. I don't think it's controversial to say he's a bad president. He's clearly a bad president. He's clearly not equipped to do the job.
Sam Esmail /
Controversial
Dislike
Equipped
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The experience you're going to take the audience on is as important as the story you're trying to tell. And that experience needs to excite me so much that I am desperate to share it.
Sam Esmail /
Desperate
Experience Me I Am
Excite
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For shows that are hyper-serialized, it just seems to make more sense to follow a feature film model than follow a television model, which was set up more for a procedural type of show.
Sam Esmail /
Type
Feature
Feature Film
Model
Procedural
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I could watch 'There Will Be Blood' all day long, and Daniel Plainview is a terrible person - but he's still compelling to watch. That's what makes me want to engage and see what happens next.
Sam Esmail /
Compelling
Me Long Day
All Day
Daniel
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I never try and tune anything out. I think that's a mistake. You want to bring all the honest stuff that's going on inside you into your work. Otherwise, you're keeping a lot of authenticity out.
Sam Esmail /
Authenticity
Tune
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I absolutely don't deny that I was inspired by 'Fight Club,' among many other television shows and films. I completely not only acknowledge it, I own it and love to nod to them as much as possible.
Sam Esmail /
Acknowledge
Deny
Inspired
Television
Television Shows
Absolutely
Among
Club
Fight Club
Films
Nod
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I love voiceover. I never understood this idea that it was lazy. Well, yes, there are those movies or TV shows that use it as just a way to get out exposition. But you know what? That's just bad writing.
Sam Esmail /
Lazy
Tv Shows
Exposition
Voiceover
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It's weird; my fascination with tech was kind of combined with the fact that my parents would never pay for anything. It got me more involved because I would have to find clever ways to get things for free.
Sam Esmail /
Clever
Fascination
Me Weird Free
Combined
Tech
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Before we started shooting 'Homecoming,' we were in the writer's room for 'Mr. Robot.' I was also editing Season 3 of 'Mr. Robot' while I was prepping for the 'Homecoming' shoot. So yeah, it's a lot of hats.
Sam Esmail /
Editing
Hats
Homecoming
Shooting
Yeah
Writer
Mr
Room
Robot
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I used to want to be a critic. I think it's an awesome job. You get to watch all this stuff and then write about it and analyze it and give insight into it. That's an amazing job. I was terrible at it, though.
Sam Esmail /
Insight
Analyze
Awesome
Critic
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I don't cover my scenes. We approach it visually. Sometimes we go out of our way to do awkward blocking so that we can tell whatever the emotional heartbeat is of that scene in the most interesting way possible.
Sam Esmail /
Heartbeat
Blocking
Interesting Way
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I'm not a fan of these very cutty, handheld-y kind of films or TV shows, where a cut is just every half second or every two seconds, where you're desensitized to it. To me, a cut should say something and be impactful.
Sam Esmail /
Seconds
Tv Shows
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Any time I approach a scene, it's not just what's on the page - it's how the camera's going to show or not show what's on the page. It's which character are we going to align with and what music is going to be playing.
Sam Esmail /
Approach
Character
Scene
Align
Camera
Page
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I always suspend logic for emotion. If it feels real, or it feels like what I'm going for, we should abandon reality a little bit and go for that. I'm not a documentarian. We're not trying to shoot things for naturalism.
Sam Esmail /
Abandon
Logic
Naturalism
Suspend
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I did not love going out to parties or even get-togethers, really - I went to the movies, which, if you think about it, is an isolating experience anyway - and this was because I had anxiety about interacting with people.
Sam Esmail /
Interacting
Love Experience Movies
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I use voiceover just like I use dialogue. There's a way to give out information or give out insight to the character or give out their worldview, and maybe you have to slip in exposition, but it's all about how you write it.
Sam Esmail /
Dialogue
Information
Insight
Worldview
Exposition
Slip
Voiceover
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'Taxi Driver' is one of those films that is groundbreaking in how much you're inside this character's head. It uses voice-over in a revolutionary way where the audience is invited as a co-conspirator to the whole story line.
Sam Esmail /
Invited
Revolutionary
Taxi
Voice Over
Character Way Story
Driver
How Much
Taxi Driver
Uses
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The world is so heavily influenced by technology, and it has started to feel like it's not on solid ground. The world has become unreliable, unknowable. Facts are vulnerable, and things you have come to rely on are no longer there.
Sam Esmail /
Technology
Rely
Ground
Influenced
Solid
Longer
Unknowable
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Movies and television show build on top of each other, succeed one another. In a large way, in terms of filmmaking aesthetics, they evolve because they can't help but be a consequence of all the movies and TV shows that came before it.
Sam Esmail /
Aesthetic
Consequence
Evolve
Filmmaking
Succeed
Television
Tv Shows
Build
Tv
Large
Terms
Television Show
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I don't want to watch a show or a movie about the guy who doesn't have any problems, who is sort of a goodie two shoes and just does everything morally right, because that's not the person I relate to. That's not who I am. That's not what anyone is.
Sam Esmail /
Morally
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'Mr. Robot' is more directly about technology, and 'Homecoming' deals more with the pharmaceutical industry, but I think they're all part and parcel of this growing sense that things are happening behind the scenes at our expense, and we're not aware of it.
Sam Esmail /
Deals
Homecoming
Parcel
Pharmaceutical
Pharmaceutical Industry
Directly
Expense
Part And Parcel
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You don't even know if the person you're communicating with online is actually that person. And your persona on your social media - your Facebook or Twitter - may not be the person you are in real life. So then, who is the real person? Is it somewhere in between?
Sam Esmail /
Persona
Real Person
Life Social Media Media
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On 'Mr. Robot,' because I run the writers' room and know every decision behind every line of dialogue, I'm able to be nimble and adapt with the scripts and the moments. I never have to question what I'm doing as I'm directing the actors or going through the scenes.
Sam Esmail /
Dialogue
Nimble
Scripts
Adapt
Directing
Robot
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One of my favorite Tarantino films is 'Jackie Brown,' and 'Jackie Brown' does it so well, where I'm watching the back half of that movie, and I don't know which side Jackie Brown is playing. I think it's really ingenious for Tarantino to keep us in the dark on that.
Sam Esmail /
Movie
Brown
Dark
Half
Ingenious
Jackie
Tarantino
Side
Favorite
Films
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In a weird way, I never wanted - I don't consider myself a very good writer. I consider myself okay; I don't consider myself great. There's Woody Allen and Aaron Sorkin. There's Quentin Tarantino. I'm not ever gonna be on that level. But I do consider myself a good filmmaker.
Sam Esmail /
Filmmaker
Okay
Tarantino
Woody
Weird
Good Great Myself
Aaron
Writer
Allen
Consider
Good Writer
Quentin Tarantino
Weird Way
Woody Allen
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I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican or a conservative, the election of Trump is a national tragedy for multiple reasons. It will go down as one of the worst tragedies in American history. But he's not a dictator. This happened because we either allowed it or voted for it.
Sam Esmail /
History
American History
Care
Conservative
Democrat
Dictator
Don't Care
Happened
Multiple
Republican
Trump
Worst
Because
Go
Voted
American
Allowed
He
Down
Either
National
Reasons
Tragedies
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I never look at twists as a way to trick the audience. Obviously, I think a good story has surprises and unexpected turns, and you always want to do that with an audience. But it has nothing to do with conning them or making them believe so strongly in one thing and then kind of going the other way.
Sam Esmail /
Good Story
Twists
Unexpected
Good Look Believe
Trick
Strongly
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With TV season structures - and I'm a huge TV watcher - you look at shows like 'Breaking Bad,' which is my favorite show of all time, and 'The Sopranos,' which is pretty high up there as well, and there was that thing where, every season, Walter White would go up a level, but there would be a new bad.
Sam Esmail /
Sopranos
Time Look New
Time Look Bad
Breaking
Breaking Bad
Favorite Show
The Sopranos
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If you think about it, just the psychology of the superhero is, 'Because I can, I should protect people, and I should put bad guys away, and I should defend society.' But you're forming your own justice. There's no judge and jury here: you are it. That, in and of itself, is a very complicated way of looking at morality.
Sam Esmail /
Bad Guys
Complicated
Jury
Morality
Protect
Psychology
Superhero
Judge
Defend
Forming
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If your loved ones are far away, and they're uploading pictures, you feel like that's enough: these loose strands through email, through social media, are going to supply this connection you have with that person. And I think that's keeping us isolated and lonely in a way that's very dangerous because we're unaware of it.
Sam Esmail /
Email
Far Away
Isolated
Lonely
Loved Ones
Loose
Supply
Unaware
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We frame things in an off-kilter way because it's unsettling. In the 'Mr. Robot' world, that's the norm, and it's the norm for the point of view that we're looking for, which is Elliot's. With our compositions and our visual language and camera movements, it's important to always evoke that unsettling feeling underneath every scene.
Sam Esmail /
Evoke
Norm
Point Of View
Scene
Always World View
Always World Important
Visual
Mr
Camera
Feeling
Frame
World Looking Way
Movements
Point
Robot
View
Underneath
Unsettling
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I've always said that the first season was the first act of my feature, so this is what I meant. I wanted the story of 'Mr. Robot' to be Elliot actually accomplishing his goal, setting the world into chaos. What would happen to society if something like this occurred where, basically, if the consumer-debt industry were to be erased?
Sam Esmail /
Society
Chaos
Industry
Said
Setting
Wanted
Accomplishing
Act
Actually
Basically
Mr
Meant
Erased
Feature
Happen
Occurred
Robot
Season
Story
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I have a brilliant sound design team who's been working with me since 'Mr. Robot,' and one of the things we always think about - and it's also something we think about with cinematography - is how we get inside the characters' heads and how do we place the audience where we want them to be or how we want them to feel at any given moment.
Sam Esmail /
Cinematography
Any Given Moment
Heads
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Sam Esmail Quotes - Page 2

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