I love plays that have musical moments. I'm not a big fan of musicals per se, but I love straight plays that have musical edges to them. I don't know if I will ever be able to structure a musical, but 'Finer Noble Gases' is as close as I've gotten.
I tend to do something for two years then move on to something new. Yoga, then biking, then weight lifting, then back to biking. The moment it feels like a rut, I switch and search for a new love. It's like having a midlife crisis, but without the ne...
Every first thing is always a miracle. The first person you fall in love with. The first letter you receive. The first stone you throw. And in my conception of the novel, the letter becomes important. But what's more important is the fact that we nee...
We've all been disappointed by new installments of the stories we love. But with all this talk of filmmakers 'ruining our childhood,' we forget that right now is someone else's childhood. This is their time. And I have to build something that can tak...
I love 'Cheers.' I didn't watch it growing up, but I watched it getting ready to do the first season of 'New Girl.' It bowls me over every time I see it. The romance, the comedy, the performances - every bit of it is just so compelling.
There is a perception within our community and the world that black people don't love each other. That we don't fight for each other. That perception is so dangerous. We need positive images to counter the negative portrayals we see every day. And po...
'Out of Sight' is one of my favorite films ever. Love Steven Soderbergh. 'Goodfellas' was a huge influence on me in terms of the use of camera. 'Black Orpheus,' a beautiful love story that very few people actually have seen, and that was an influence...
Sometimes, readers, when they're young, are given, say, a book like 'Moby Dick' to read. And it is an interesting, complicated book, but it's not something that somebody who has never read a book before should be given as an example of why you'll rea...
I always liked the visuals to be choice and at the same time minimalist. And, I love black boxes. After all, that's what theatre is, it's an empty space, and it's both limited and unlimited because the space is the space, but what you can do with peo...
I love cooking. My Italian mother is a genius cook, and I picked that up from her. I make my own sauce, which takes four hours, from a recipe that's been refined over many years. I won't tell anybody what it is.
The only problem is I can't get into PG-13 Land. I just get stuck in R rated movies, which they would love us to make PG-13 movies but I never get there. But I think that you've got to make them different. You've got to switch them up.
My first book, 'Fast Forward', was about growing up in the shadow of Hollywood and how kids are affected by the culture of materialism and the cult of celebrity, and I've often felt the reason my work has an audience in the U.K. is because it's every...
I knew I wanted to be some kind of artist from about 12. I met a neighbour who drew cartoons, and I had an idea I wanted to be a cartoonist - or something that involved Indian ink, at any rate.
I'd read about Los Angeles and this fact stuck in my mind: that the city gained 1,000 new people every day. In 1956! A thousand people every day! I felt: 'I want to be part of that.'
When I met Richard Leakey, I thought, 'This is the most charismatic man I've ever met.' He has no legs. He lost them when his plane was sabotaged. But he's an interesting, sort of narcissistic guy.
I thought that Hollywood was just for geniuses and that directors come from three generations of directors. I was worried that I was not up to the challenge of making a movie. Then realized that all a director has to do is know what he wants to do.
We're taught that in life, we should try to look on the bright side. Not in this case. In this case, assume rejection first. Assume you're the rule, not the exception. It's liberating. But we also know it's not an easy concept. -He's not just into yo...
I suppose they call me a woman's director because there were all these movie queens in the old days, and I directed most of them. But I also directed Jack Barrymore and Ronald Colman and James Stewart, to name a few.
There is no perfect first experience of anything. There is only our ability to find a shard of perfection in the wildly imperfect situations we inevitably find ourselves in [Cram, Cusi, "‘One Life to Live’ and 14 Beautiful Boys to Kiss," Cafe, Ja...
Most of life’s big steps require a certain muddling through, a trusting that no one really knows the magical formula for the big firsts in life [Cram, Cusi, "‘One Life to Live’ and 14 Beautiful Boys to Kiss," Cafe, January 14, 2015].
I binge write, basically. I do a lot of prep, research, setup. I'll have a pretty detailed outline. Sort of like a beat outline. And then I'll add little notes and dialogue ideas, and I'll just create a 20-page document.
