A Quote by Chris Lilley

When I was in school, I was always writing scripts and dressing up as characters. I'd constantly be that guy who'd get up on stage. I used to write imaginary TV shows, like soap operas, for fun.
When I was little, I had this old video camera, and I set it up, and I would pretend that I was on comedy shows and soap operas and things like that.
I was always writing. I was writing in high school because it was a really competitive school for class clowns; I used to have to write all of my snaps and my disses the night before and then act like I was making it up the next day.
Early on, America took one path and went down the advertising road, and in the UK they founded the BBC and developed a different kind of public broadcasting. There was a point where TV was so beholden to commercial interest that people - civil society - actually rose up and said, "This is ridiculous: we have our soap-selling soap operas, cigarette-sponsored news broadcast; we have our rigged quiz shows - let's put some checks and balances here."
I had always enjoyed playing characters and dressing up, but it wasn't until I got to school and I started getting on stage for plays that I got the bug.
I was 11 and watching soap operas with my mom, and I thought it would be cool to be an actor. I thought soap operas was going to be the dream at the time - it's obviously now not the dream, but I think soap operas are really cool. Maybe I'll go back to that.
I always loved putting on shows - when you're the youngest of seven and five are older sisters, you've got to get noticed somehow! I did puppet shows and magic shows... even ventriloquism. My doll's name was 'Dan,' and I used to write these scripts, and my schoolmate hid under the table and supplied Dan's voice.
I used to write in school a lot; I always liked it and used to write on my own, comic books, come up with alternate story lines to the stuff I watched and read, a lot of books and TV, episodes of 'Twilight Zone.' I didn't think about it.
Sometimes when I get up after writing, I'm surprised at how my body feels. Suddenly I'm not a lanky, hungry young boy any more. It's no fun putting on ten years and fifty pounds all of a sudden. Other times, I get up and I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm not a weary innkeeper, hopeless, with bones that feel like they're made of lead. I really sink into the characters that I write.
All the people I looked up to - Roseanne, Tim Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld - were stand-up comedians who used humor to get TV shows. I'm on TV now, and I'm working towards getting my own show.
Growing up female in America. What a liability! You grew up with your ears full of cosmetic ads, love songs, advice columns, whoreoscopes, Hollywood gossip, and moral dilemmas on the level of TV soap operas. What litanies the advertisers of the good life chanted at you! What curious catechisms!
I would rather stare at the wall for half an hour than watch an episode of any of the 53,801 Australian soap operas now cluttering up UK TV.
My first experiences with fashion were dressing up. It was always about fantasy for me. Dressing up as characters . . . I always thought that's what clothes were - that they would make you into the person you wanted to be. I'm an actress, so I love to act, and I think that's one of the most important things - the thing that makes you feel like another person.
Reality TV has totally destroyed soap operas. They're gone. They used to be the biggest thing in the world - they're gone.
For an author, the nice characters aren't much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They're doing it for themselves.
I watched a lot of soap operas, when I was growing up, and a lot of those great serialized soap dramas.
We've always dreamt of a TV series and working in film. When we first sat down to seriously write 'A Little Nightmare Music,' to write something for TV was our original inspiration. But all the stuff we were writing down is not going to work on stage. We had to rewrite it so it would work on the stage.
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