The only real difference between shooting 'Firefly' and 'Serenity' was that on 'Serenity,' we had a lot more freedom with time. When you're shooting a television show, you usually have anywhere between six and nine pages of script to shoot a day, and...
I've never let producers tell me what to do. Even when I was making television, I always did what I wanted to do, and if I couldn't, I didn't do it. It was a freedom that, these days, young directors starting out don't have.
When I'm home, the heart and soul of our family is in the kitchen. Growing up, my parents both worked, so dinnertime was for family - the TV was off. I think it's important to grab that time and really make it special, even after a tough day.
It's not an accident that both my sister and I are writers. Our parents created an accidental Petri dish. My family has great storytellers, and I grew up in a very funny, conversational house and didn't have television. This small family farm was a b...
I did skit comedy online for many years, beginning around 2001. Around 2006 I started watching a lot of food television and got re-interested in food. I come from a very food-obsessed family. But I also wanted to do my own thing, which was the comedy...
Since I was very young, probably two or three, I had really good memorization skills. I would memorize stuff from TV and perform it for my family. I was the little performer for most of my early life. So eventually, my mom caught onto that and though...
I grew up in a working-class Catholic family in south Louisiana. I went to a state university. I taught literature, wrote a novel that was the novel I wanted to write, and got a couple of good reviews but no real traction. I had no idea how to get a ...
Growing up, it was about finding a way to entertain myself outdoors. We spent all the summers on the beach, camping with my family a bunch, and traveling as much as we could. My parents wouldn't let me watch too much TV growing up or play video games...
I always thought it would be funny to have the Parents Television Council write an episode of 'Family Guy' and give them full creative control. Then see how good the episode is. That's something we've actually discussed in the writers' room. We haven...
I don't have a fear factor. Well, not much of one. And I'm willing to risk quite a lot - as a comedian, you're always risking a lot. You're risking failure, especially if you're improvising and going on TV shows trying to make comedy out of thin air....
I think people are used to seeing actors be wide open and desperately giving of themselves, and while I do that on a movie set as much as I can, it's so unnatural for me to do it on television, in interviews, in anything like that. I also don't find ...
For millions, Roger Ebert will be remembered as a writer and television personality who brought a sense of passion and excellence to his craft. For me, he is a man who fused joy and courage as few others ever have. My life was enriched by having such...
TV is so different from the movies. It takes a lot of stamina because you work such long hours. It is really challenging. You are learning the next day's lines while you are shooting today's scenes. I found courage I never realised I had. I hope to d...
Some people call it the 'Al Jazeera spirit' - courage, re-thinking authority, giving a voice to the voiceless. We have never been favored by the authority. The human being is the center of our editorial policy. We are not a TV station that rushes aft...
Variety is very, very good. Going from medium to medium, if you get the chance to do it, from theater to television to film, which are all distinctly different, keeps me sharp. What works in one doesn't work in the other, and you have to be looking f...
Technological transformations give you the chance to set up new and ambitious ventures. That's what I did with FastWeb and that is what we are doing with Babelgum. This is much more than TV because we are making the content available all across the w...
It's really cool to know that you've put something together that isn't for a particular audience. It's so often that a TV show can really only speak to one sect of the population, and this really is something that appeals to a worldwide fan base. Peo...
A lot of times what happens is, not even just with child actors, but people in general, is they get so caught up in the now. The hot song, the hot TV show, the hot movie. You're not saying 'OK, this is cool, but where am I trying to be 20 years from ...
I laugh at it now, but one time I had an agent tell me I would never work in TV if I didn't get a nose job. People tell you to change yourself to fit into the L.A. scene, but the advice usually doesn't make any sense. The next agent told me my nose w...
I consider myself true, which, I know, some people look at as radical, but I enjoy the normalcies of life. I'm not out there trying to transform things, but somehow, by being easy to talk to, and easy to look at, and on a mainstream TV show, I think ...
In the past, if you did film, you couldn't do stage, and if you did film, you certainly didn't do television. You had to pick what you wanted to be. Now it seems like we can bounce around, not only between genres, but between mediums, and I like that...
