Jokes that are gratuitously offensive are synonymous with bad writing to me. I'm offended as a writer first and as a person second.
Jokes that are gratuitously offensive are synonymous with bad writing to me. I'm offended as a writer first and as a person second.
When I graduated, I was director of my school's sketch comedy group, and I knew that I wanted to be writing and performing my own sketch comedy. It kind of made me want to do my own one-person sketch group.
We're told all the time to give up everything for love. That's the Western notion of what love is - love conquers all, all you need is love. And there are so many different kinds of outside, conflicting pressures on women.
I lived with Ilana Glazer of 'Broad City.' She was my roommate for a year and a half. I was living with her just as she was creating and filming 'Broad City.' Both of us, and a lot of my friends, come from the Upright Citizens Brigade theater either in New York or L.A.
For myself, the way that I learned comedy was doing it live for four years, and only after doing sketch for four years did I feel confident enough to be like, 'Okay, I feel good about starting to put stuff on the Internet where it lives forever.' As opposed to one time at a college sketch show where it bombs and we never speak of it again.
Fashion has always been a source of stress for me because I don't know how to dress myself. I'm short-torsoed with big boobs, and I don't really understand what a belt does. But you get on these shows, and people fit the clothing to you, and suddenly you learn, 'Oh, I should be wearing petite jackets.'
I think people like musicals. And when done with a modern comedic sensibility, musical comedy can be the most efficient delivery of both storytelling and jokes.
Musical theater is an American genre. It started really, in America, as a combination of jazz and operetta; most of the great musical theater writers in the golden era are American. I think that to do a musical is a very American thing to me.
The title 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' is meant to be a deconstruction of a stereotype, and the whole show is about deconstructing the boxes that we're supposed to be put into. We like taking apart the tropes and the stereotypes and explore the nuances, so 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' is a label that we go deep underneath to explore.
All those things you hear about networks trying to stifle creativity - CW lets creators create and gives us freedom.
I've loved musical theater ever since I was a kid. My mother's a pianist, and my grandfather was an amateur theater director and stand-up comic. And I was an only child. And I loved attention. So from an early age, my family was teaching old musical songs.
Making a musical television show was always the ultimate dream. But I really didn't think it would ever happen. Because who's going to make a musical television show?
I have my own show at 28 and a Golden Globe. So, yes, I face rejection, but I've also been very fortunate and understand how fortunate I am.
It's double talk and double standards. It's like, be honest, but don't be too honest. Look fresh-faced and young, but don't tell us how you got there. God forbid you have plastic surgery, even though we're telling you, 'Oh, you look old.' Be a career woman, but also, why aren't you having kids? Are you some kind of cold shrew?
Jewish, black, Filipino, whatever the specificity is, it's specificity that makes a good story. And I think people are tired of seeing the same old shtick on network television. It's just a group of white people hanging out talking about their jobs. Who cares? We've seen that.
Only children are weird. The only children I know, including myself, are either superweird or very talented and special or a mix of the two. I think there was always a certain independence and loneliness - I had a lot of imaginary friends as a kid.
There's so many confusing messages that you're being sent about being pretty but not too pretty, smart but not too smart, ambitious but in a way that makes people comfortable. It's very hard to navigate.