Being a good television screenwriter requires an understanding of the way film accelerates the communication of words.
Casting is sort of like looking at paintings. You don't know what you'll like, but you recognize it when you see it.
Film provides an opportunity to marry the power of ideas with the power of images.
Hill Street Blues gave me an opportunity to work with an ensemble cast of people whose work I admired.
I remember practically every joke I've ever heard in my life.
I think the best work flows out of a collaborative environment.
Imagery is like music.
One of the problems of writing is that anyone who commits themselves to that process has to believe that they're good.
Privately, we always called 'Hill Street' 'Cop Soap.'
Television and film are such streamlined story mediums. You can't really meander about, whereas a novel is an interior experience.
You have to give directors and cinematographers a word blueprint for visuals, but I had to learn that from experience.
