A biography for Greg Berlantihasn’t been written yet.
“In TV, in general, the more you try and please everybody, the less people you please.”
“To me, there's still nothing more thrilling than, every week, people getting to see another chapter in this story that you're telling.”
“We did 'Jack & Bobby' in the middle of the Kerry/Bush election. It hurt it a little bit. No matter what we did, everyone thought we were advocating for one person over the other. The stuff I work on is more about the people.”
“I think a lot of what I've done is about people feeling as if they are part of the world but also not part of it at the same time. I don't know whether that's from being a gay kid, but I definitely think that resonates with me.”
“Especially with DVRs nowadays, people have their roster. More and more, it's not just, 'I'll watch what's on at 9 P.M.' They have their backlog of the shows they always watch, that they record every week, and it's a matter of, how do you get into that list?”
“There were only a couple of Marvel characters I read. I read 'Iron Man.' I have a lot of those. And this was the time they tried X-Factor out. I was never an X-Men person, but I was like, 'Let me check out X-Factor.' I was more of a DC guy in general.”
“People don't really see television shows and movies as different anymore. They expect the same quality.”
“I read some Marvel, but I was more of a DC guy. Particularly the Flash, Barry Allen. I latched on to him because I felt like him. You thought to yourself, 'Well, you can't really be Superman.' You couldn't really be Batman - Batman was a really dark figure. I identified with Barry Allen's hopefulness.”
“I have a Twitter profile, but I avoid red carpets and all that kind of stuff. I'd rather no one talk about me ever, and I just get to do my thing. I'm an introvert.”
“'Flash' has a family drama element, 'Arrow' has a epic saga/crime element, 'Supergirl' has a young-woman-in-the-city and a workplace element, and 'Legends' is like the Dirty Dozen teaming up.”
“If I had to give odds, I would say 30 percent of whatever good fortune I've had in this business has been luck, and 50 percent has been casting - so that's 80 percent right there. And 20 percent is just working really hard and taking risks.”
“I didn't happen to be one of those gay kids who knew definitively by the time I was 13.”
“The most important decision you can make as a showrunner when you're doing a pilot is who's in it and who's directing it.”
“I can remember when there were storylines with gay characters on shows like 'Family' and 'Dynasty' and thinking, I have something in common with that person. This was way before the Internet and all the visibility that has brought with it.”
“There are a few reboots I'd love to see that I'd love to have nothing to do with! I'd love to watch just as a viewer. 'Quantum Lea' - someone should bring that back. I'd love to see another 'Star Trek' show on the air. I loved 'Buck Rogers'; someone should do that. But I don't want the responsibility of doing any of those things.”
“For most of my childhood, even through college, there was a lot of feeling very alone. I loved TV, so when those very special episodes of anything came, or when certain characters reflected the world I lived in, I felt connected.”
“There were moments where Supergirl gets a thrashing in the pilot, where if a man in the 'Flash' or 'Arrow' pilot got beat up, people didn't visibly wince. And I watched in testing, people in the audience really became uncomfortable by the fisticuffs and the action. But then, they were elated and cheering at the end.”
“Early episodes of TV I compare to out-of-town plays. You can make them better. You don't have all the time in the world, but you have time to make them better and improve them as you go along.”
“I was a DC fan; The Flash was always my favorite character. He was sort of the most average guy amongst all of these icons, even though he had super speed, you know?”
“There is nothing I've wanted more, or waited for longer, than to be a father.”