Carlton Cuse Quotes

#1. I love 'Titanic' and the idea that you're kind of rooting for Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to survive despite the fact that you know that they're not going to.

Carlton Cuse

#2. It's entirely possible that the notion of what is the past, what is the present and what is the future, could change.

Carlton Cuse

#3. When you're a storyteller, part of the process of storytelling is the kind of communion you form with the audience to whom you're telling your story. If some segment of the audience doesn't like that story, it doesn't feel good.

Carlton Cuse

#4. We feel like 'Lost' deserved a real resolution, not a 'snow globe, waking up in bed, it's all been a dream, cut to black' kind of ending. We thought that would be kind of a betrayal to an audience that's been on this journey for six years. We thought that was not the right ending for our show.

Carlton Cuse

#5. There are just so many options that people have. But as a writer, you'll drive yourself crazy, if you worry about that too much. People watch a lot of TV, so they think certain things are going to happen, and you're always trying to subvert expectations.

Carlton Cuse

#6. We should just go back to, like, episode 30 and re-break from there and just make it a spaceship. That would be the unexpected reboot of 'Lost.'

Carlton Cuse

#7. TV showrunners have become known entities to people who watch television in the way that movie directors have been known to filmgoers for a long time. When I started out as a writer and producer in television, I never had the slightest expectation that fame would be part of the job.

Carlton Cuse

#8. 'Brisco' was the first show I created, and of course, at the time I had no idea what a special experience it was because I didn't have a frame of reference. After it was over I was like, 'Damn. Shoot. That was something special.' I'm still upset that it got cancelled.

Carlton Cuse

#9. The experience of reading a book is always unique. I believe that you render a version of the story, when you read a book, in a way that is unique and special to each person who reads it.

Carlton Cuse

#10. This idea that you can watch a show like 'True Detective,' and it was awesome, but is it really ruined for you if the finale is not your favorite episode of it? It's just odd to me.

Carlton Cuse

#11. 'Lost' is driving toward an ending, and that ending is: Are these people getting off this island? What is the nature of this island? What is going to happen to them? What is their ultimate fate? What is their ultimate destiny? Those questions need to get answered.

Carlton Cuse

#12. As hard as you try to write a good script and you have great intentions, this alchemy has to occur.

Carlton Cuse

#13. I think 'North by Northwest' and 'Rope' and Rear Window' and 'Psycho' are on my list of favorite all time movies. I just think his kind of command as a director was almost unparalleled, and I feel like in certain ways the sort of character-based thriller owes more to Hitchcock than anyone.

Carlton Cuse

#14. If you go to a movie and it's a great experience, the experience at the end of it is always like this sadness that it's over, that your time with these characters is finished. There's almost like an achy feeling that I have when I go to a movie that I love and it ends.

Carlton Cuse

#15. It's a very artistic process to translate and adapt a book into a series.

Carlton Cuse

#16. When 'Lost' was over, we expected that there'd be some people who'd really like it and other people who wouldn't. The Emmy nominations are an indication to us that there were a fair number of people who did like the way we concluded our story.

Carlton Cuse

#17. I think that we're moving into this new phase of television where audiences are really embracing stories with a beginning, middle, and end.

Carlton Cuse

#18. I think that the best television now is giving you a three-act experience.

Carlton Cuse

#19. One of the things that's, I think, hard in television is that there's a certain sameness to a lot of television because you're working in a very constricted box, and the box is defined by the amount of money you have to spend and the amount of time you have to get ready.

Carlton Cuse

#20. I think that 'Lost' is a bit of a dinosaur in terms of the type of show it is. The economics just don't support making a show this big and complicated profitable enough for a network.

Carlton Cuse

#21. There is a natural progression to 'Lost,' and as the story goes forward, it's going to change. It's not a static story. The franchise of 'Lost' is not characters sitting on a beach.

Carlton Cuse

#22. You have to be able to get inside the heads of the characters and completely sympathize and understand them

Carlton Cuse

#23. Tragedy is a great storytelling form. It worked extremely well for Shakespeare. It worked extremely well for Jim Cameron with 'Titanic.'

Carlton Cuse

#24. As a writer, I always think about who my prototype actors are, in my brain. It's helpful, as a writer, to think about that.

Carlton Cuse

#25. If we lived in a time where people couldn't watch 'Lost' on Hulu or record it on their DVR, we wouldn't necessarily have succeeded. We need people to be able to catch up. Now you choose when you watch TV. We wouldn't have survived in the old days because people would have missed episodes.

Carlton Cuse

#26. I'm a big baseball fan, and I feel proprietary about the Dodgers. I'm not the owner. I'm not the manager. But I feel passionate about the decisions that they make, and I take it personally when they make decisions I don't like.

Carlton Cuse

#27. I didn't know at all I wanted to do TV. I thought I might go to law school. I might want to become a history professor.

Carlton Cuse

#28. In Hollywood, there is no bigger commitment you can make than to a TV series. Even marriages pale in comparison. Marriages don't require signing iron-clad multiyear contracts. At least, most first marriages don't.

Carlton Cuse

#29. Sometimes the fans want it both ways, of course. They want to feel like they're influencing the show, and at the same time, they want to think that showrunners have the story all mapped out in our brains. But it can't be both. In truth, we were usually far ahead of the fan feedback.

Carlton Cuse

#30. I can't say that the ending of a story is always the best part of the story, and yet there's sort of this implicit idea that the finale is somehow supposed to be the mind-blowing best episode of a show. The question is: Why is that? Why do people make that assumption?

Carlton Cuse

#31. The Following and Hannibal are really well made, but the tone is very consistently dark.

Carlton Cuse

#32. Both my wife and I went to Harvard, and it's incredibly exciting that our son and daughter are going there and have the chance to experience it. There are many awesome opportunities at Harvard. That's one of its greatest frustrations - not having enough time to take the classes you want to take.

Carlton Cuse

#33. The most difficult story that I've ever been involved in breaking on any of my shows was 'The Constant' episode of 'Lost,' which was when Desmond was consciousness-traveling.

Carlton Cuse

#34. 'Lost' is about a bunch of people stranded on an island. It's compelling, but kind of tiny. But what sustains you are the characters.

Carlton Cuse

#35. I think movie and television companies are in the business of making money, and if you have a franchise, eventually you'll want to exploit that franchise and revisit it. So I assume at some point someone will do another story in the 'Lost' world.

Carlton Cuse

#36. Being a showrunner meant writing and producing a television show, period, but with 'Lost,' suddenly it became part of the job to promote and be the face of the brand. In a weird way, the story was as much the star as any of the actors, so people wanted to hear from us.

Carlton Cuse

#37. That's one of the reasons why 'Lost' has to end: because we can't sit around and envision, 'What is the flashback for Jack in year nine?' It doesn't realistically exist.

Carlton Cuse

#38. I think everyone in Hollywood works on multiple things because you never know what's going to happen with your projects.

Carlton Cuse

#39. I think 'Lost' was really a pioneer in the use of the kind of connection between a television show and the Internet, and the Internet really gave fans an opportunity to create a community around the show. That was something that wasn't really planned; it just sort of grew up in the wake of the show.

Carlton Cuse

#40. I really think that as good of a job as you do as a writer, you're absolutely indebted to the actors that have to deliver that material.

Carlton Cuse

#41. Ironically, I wouldn't say I'm a massive horror fan. I love thrillers.

Carlton Cuse