Lake Bell
There are so many projects on my Dream List. I have so many things in the works, just like little ideas or collections of things or things I write or even just a title of something.
There have been times where you do the red carpet in a certain shoe, and you go into the bathroom, you take that shoe off, you put the other shoe on from your purse, and then you walk around for the rest of the night.
I think the greatest privilege you have as an artist is time to nurture what you want to make; that's super luxurious. For you to rush into something, that doesn't feel fun to me. I'm living life in order to be able to write about it.
I feel very comfortable with my trajectory because I do have a life; I can go on the subway, you know? And I've been able to do that my entire career, and I have friends who are huge movie stars and can't go on the subway, and I feel like that sucks.
What I think is sad about the rom-com genre is that it has adopted this pejorative title. I think the reason why there haven't been as many great ones is because we are fighting against the genre itself. If it is a romantic comedy then snuggle up to the fact that it can be a really earnest, refreshing feeling to feel good after a movie.
I love accents in general. I'm obsessed with dialects, and I had to write a whole movie about it called 'In a World...'
My mom is incredibly stylish, and she gets it from my grandmother. I feel like I can't live up to how chic they are as women. They are great role models for aging gracefully, and that's a thing that is very key that I try to always emulate.
My fiance likes drawing on napkins, which I save. I'm always scared I'll get caught taking a linen napkin from a restaurant!
I have vitamins I intend to take to be a better person. I even have a pillbox for them to remind myself to be healthier. But will I take them? Definitely not.
With more money brings more fear and when you're trying to be creative in a fear-based environment it's dangerous. Then decisions are made out of fear, not what's best for the film.Collection: Decision
A woman needs her privacy while drinking a dirty Belvedere martini on the rocks with a splash of Tabasco.Collection: Drinking
We're all part of movie and we're all incredibly and equally important but it is your actor's job to perform and to deliver.Collection: Important
A friend of mine told me, you know your obsession with girls who talk like sexy babies? You have to put that into your script.Collection: Girl
The reason I got into this business was for the privilege to exist in different genres and different worlds and play out different realities.Collection: Reality
You have to be steadfast, and right now I'm on a stream train forward to make.Collection: Steadfast
People do horrible things when they're young. There might be betrayal and there might be things that should be forgotten.Collection: Betrayal
I've learned from every director I've worked with. Everybody's style is very different, and I always say that being an actor is the best film school that I could ever go to.Collection: School
I get really restless if I'm not working. I generate or try to generate my own stuff. I'm constantly on the prowl for working with the people I love and respect.Collection: People
I'm not a drug person. I don't like drugs. I went to college in London, so it was kind of the curriculum there. I got it out of my system really young.Collection: College
I learned how to direct by being in the trenches of movies. Getting to be a student from the inside looking out, and if you're a respectful observer you can sponge lots of information. That was my film school.Collection: School
I think of myself as a content creator and hopefully one day a content enabler and supporter of others, so that's what my immediate and hopefully future journey is.Collection: Journey
I feel tremendously lucky that I am offered incredible jobs all the time to direct, but the problem that I have just personally is that there are only so many years in my life to dedicate to certain projects.Collection: Jobs
It's like the most profound accomplishment that I've had in my career, that I can finally be that voice.Collection: Careers
I've made it very clear that I'm interested in voiceover work. I mean, I'm always looking for voiceover gigs. I love that.Collection: Mean
When I'm tired of taking on too much responsibility as a director I then look for an acting gig.Collection: Tired
I'm in full transparency here of "Yeah, I'm trying to find my financing."Collection: Trying
If I'm going to pour that kind of love and energy and sweat and heartache, all that juju into something, I'm going to lean into my own projects before someone else's.Collection: Sweat
I wrote an entire movie [Man up] about how important I think voices are, so it was funny.Collection: Men
I completely bombed the audition... I was insecure, stopping and starting. I went to the bathroom and cried.Collection: Insecure
What's the trick to writing a genuinely funny comedy? The trick is therapy. Take notes.Collection: Writing
Without strong financial roots, our generation is in a constant state of redefinition. This forces us to think outside the box when it comes to making a living... which sometimes makes it look like we're a mess, but really we're just creative. And we like weed.Collection: Weed
I don't really enjoy working in TV, to be completely honest, even though it's incredibly lucrative, I'm just terrified of not being satiated in a myriad of different ways. It's amazing that I get to create every day, as an actor, or a director, or a writer, and I get to do it in a variety of different genres and worlds and characterizations. I think that's the great privilege of what we do, we get to make believe. I get to go to so many different places, try on different occupations, take on different points of view. That's what's always been sort of alluring.Collection: Believe
I'm not a sketch writer. I know what I am: I have a sensitive comedic sensibility. What turns me on is subtle neurosis. That's my game. I'm not an action writer or a thriller writer and I'm not a sketch writer. I don't pretend to be those things. Then it would not be fun. Then you are in a space where this is painful.Collection: Fun
I always tried to make people laugh. I attribute that to - I come from a family of divorce. It was a way to distract myself from stuff. I always thought it was interesting that my brother and I existed in this really tight bond, and we would just take the piss out of pretty much everything. I knew I wanted to be an actor so it would be great if I could make people laugh while I was doing this, because I could be other characters and other people, and I could hide behind things. It was a great out for me, and a mode of expression.Collection: Brother
I'm a music person. Music is, for me, the best way to cure any sort of anxiety or icky feelings. I think it immediately takes you out of your element and makes some other person do the work for your thoughts.Collection: Thinking
The most difficult thing about acting and directing in a film is acting and directing in a film. Every ounce of your physical and emotional being, and your analytical and thoughtful and producorial being, is being exercised at all points. You are 100% working on overdrive, but because it is only for X amount of days, if you have the stomach for it, you hustle through. It's a massive undertaking, and I think preparation is the key to success for that endeavor.Collection: Thoughtful
I feel very fortunate to be currently in the position where I can choose to be an actor, writer, director, or all of them at the same time. With being a mom, I've recently had a priority shift that has sort of thrusted itself on my existence, but I tend to use all experiences as something to work with. Anything that is profoundly, energy shifting - like having a child - is fodder for creative thought.Collection: Mom
Part of why I love being an actor is the opportunity to be able to go to distant lands and take on different worlds and concepts and pretend to take on different occupations and statuses.Collection: Opportunity
I feel very lucky that when I'm burnt out of acting I take to the pen and I write something I want to direct.Collection: Writing
I'm going to say a phrase or terminology or vowel that I don't know how to attack .Collection: Phrases
I had had a huge background in the nuance of the accent because I went to drama school in England for four years.Collection: Drama
When you're a director, you have great respect for directors. I am really pretty loyal to any director that I am working for and I want to help them realize whatever story and mood and tone that they're trying to realize. As an actor, you really just are a cog - you are an important cog, but you are just a piece of the machine.Collection: Important
Part of what's cool about being an actor or being in this industry, frankly, is to be able to travel to distant lands. That's part of the deal. I always thought when I was growing up, "I wanna be an actor and go see the world.'Collection: Growing Up
I think great directors really respect their actors and vice versa. That mutual respect makes the job fun instead of anything but.Collection: Jobs
I understand and respect deeply that each project brings its own secret and wonderful gifts and happy accidents.Collection: Secret
It's priceless what you learn when you actually do. It's like going to film school times eleven. The best education is effectively to be functioning in the occupation that you want to take on.Collection: Occupation
Something that has always attracted me to even taking on the occupation of actor is the idea that I could be lucky enough to portray different characterizations from different places in the world, whether it's speaking another language or taking on a dialect and building a history from where they were born. I was very attracted to that concept, in becoming an actor.Collection: Ideas
I vowed to never use my American accent, and I didn't. Even going to get the paper in the morning to buying milk down at the shop, getting a cab, wherever.Collection: Morning
I sort of loved the bustle of a thousand questions. Women are inherently kind of multitaskers.Collection: Kind