Craig Zadan

“There were no TV musicals until we did Bette Midler 'Gypsy,' and the success of that opened the door for us to do the rest.”

“The truth of the matter is - when we look at things - every movie we do - no matter what the subject matter is - we go to the universal theme of family. We always go to that because if the movie is about family, then any audience can relate to it.”

“I think we sublimated our Broadway desires by doing theater in Hollywood - not on stage but by doing the movies of 'Chicago' and 'Hairspray' and also musicals on TV. We did Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella' and 'Gypsy' and 'Annie.' Even 'Smash' was like doing theater.”

“Neil and I had the greatest experience of our lives doing 'Chicago' with Latifah. Then we had the second best experience of our lives doing 'Hairspray.'”

“People think, 'Oh, you're doing 'The Wiz' because 'Empire' is such a big hit.' The truth is, staging this musical has been a dream of ours since the '90s, but the rights were tied up. It's just coincidental that, this year, when we were choosing a new musical, the rights were cleared.”

“We couldn't even contemplate doing 'Hairspray' without a live audience.”

“Neil and I share a desire for great quality in our work. If we are offered projects, look at projects, or consider projects that don't have that quality, then we don't do them.”

“We called the head of CBS and said, 'We know how network television feels about musicals. Would you even consider doing 'Gypsy?'' He said, 'If I did say yes, you'd have to have a big movie star who does not do TV.' I told him that, in our fantasy world, we'd like Bette Midler. He said, 'Get Bette Midler, and you have an on-the-air commitment.'”

“Some filmmakers set out to re-create the theater experience they got on Broadway. They kept everything the same. They shot the original casts. We reinvent the whole thing, look at it solely as a movie. We pretend that nobody saw 'Chicago' or 'Hairspray.'”

“'Chicago' kind of set the bar in terms of how we approach musicals, and tone is one of the key elements.”

“We'd never do 'The Sound of Music' because the movie was perfect.”

“When you work on a passion project, there's always the chance that you'll get your heart broken.”

“In the past, once a movie musical was made, it was believed that you were left with that version, good or bad, for posterity.”

“We have a particular philosophy in the casting room that we don't really tell the actors - the actors tell us.”

“We wanted to take on social and political and LGBTQ stories which no one at the upper level of the entertainment industry ever really wants to do. So you have to fight, and you have to persuade, and you have to manipulate the studios and the networks. And you have to go back - over and over again - until they say yes.”

“If anything's going to go wrong, it'd go wrong during 'Peter Pan,' not 'The Sound of Music.'”

“Live TV is the future. It's the only way you can beat the DVRing of America. Everything is DVRed, and no one watches stuff when it's on. Awards shows and sports are watched when they're broadcast.”

“The people with mean things to say, say them. At the end of the day, the mean things and the good things only drive viewership. So what do you want? You want the ratings.”

“To battle the odds - loss of interest, no funding, discouragement - requires someone who doesn't give up.”

“When we went to Judy Davis and said, 'We want you to play Judy Garland in the mini-series 'Life With Judy Garland,' she was shocked, but we just had an instinct about her.”