A Quote by Jo Brand
I do say no to lots of things, actually! I know it doesn't look like it. But I have a tendency to a) be rubbish at saying no, and b) be pushed by some kind of Protestant work ethic.
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I think awards are good for the movie. They can bring a new audience to the movie. I've always claimed that things like that don't get you work. Work gets you work. That's my blue-collar, protestant work ethic.
I learned really early on that I had to treat it as if it were a real job. This might be my middle class background - the Irish work ethic, which isn't quite the same as the Protestant work ethic - but still, it's, 'Get a job and show up every day. Be there. And don't complain. Who do you think you are: you're nobody special; go to work.'
Nobody else in the world would look at writing as craftsmanship - it's totally this Protestant hardworking ethic. You go into this kind of infinite space of imagination and you fence yourself in with all kinds of laws.
Yeah, it's odd when you look back at your own work. Some filmmakers don't look back at their work at all. I look at my work a lot, actually. I feel like I learned something while looking at stuff I've done in terms of what I'm going to do in the future, mistakes I've made and things at work or what have you.
When I think of the things that I want to write, I can never say them out loud because I know how crazy they sound. I know what things sound like when you haven't actually worked on the script, so I don't go around saying some of these ideas because they just sound awful.
Even before I was working off-Broadway, there were lots of different TV shows that I would actually say 'no' to, and my agents would be like, 'Are you crazy?' but they stuck with me because they know the kind of things that excite me.
I used to say things like, 'My name's not Al (Bundy), you know?' Not to the press, but to fans. 'My name is actually Ed.' I'd find myself saying that, and I'd think, 'Who do you think they think you are? They only know you from that!' And finally I just got...I don't know, I guess a switch went on for me, and I realized, 'This was the greatest job that you've ever had in your life. Why are you acting like an asshole?' So from that minute on, I kind of...well, I hate the word 'embraced,' but I just kind of went, 'Yeah, okay.' 'So you're Al, right?' 'Yep!'
A lot of people will always say, 'I really know nothing about the ancient world.' But there's lots and lots of things people know. Partly, they've been encouraged to think they're ignorant about it. In some ways, the job to do is show people that they know much more than they'd like to admit.
If pushed to say what I like about Elizabeth, who, as I'm sure most of you know, overtook Queen Victoria this week to become our longest-serving monarch, it would be her uncomplaining, getting-on-with-it ethic.
I would say that Catholics came in and competed with the Protestant work ethic. That is one thing. And they did assimilate into the broader society and a lot of them, especially Irish Catholic did their best to sound like they were English rather than Irish by dropping and the O and the apostrophe.
People come up to me on the street and make some little joke - like they'll say, 'Excuse me, sir, what time is it?' And I'll say, you know, '5:15,' and they'll say, 'Hey! Made you talk!' And that's merely a way of saying, 'I know your work and I like you.'
I've had lots of people saying very nice things about the work. But I genuinely feel in the course of a writing career you're going to have people say very nice things and some not-so-nice things, and if at all possible you should try to ignore both.
Some men are deeply likable but have attitudes I don't like. Does that mean I should completely dismiss them? It's like saying: if someone votes Tory can you like them? And, yes, I can. I have friends who vote Tory, and I'm appalled, but that's not to say they're not great people in so many other ways. We have a tendency to oversimplify things.
If I don't have something to do, I'm not the kind of person who can sit on a beach on holiday. I've got to go and check things out and see things and look at things, and have some kind of itinerary in my mind. I think that a lot of people who are, in some ways, successful are kind of like that.
I think, ultimately, the problem with something like this is that you actually have so many more opportunities to say something than you actually have things worth saying. And then, as an artist who doesn't want to do bad work, gosh, how do you fill up all that space when you really don't have anything actually worthwhile to say? And that's what makes the job tough, because the fans get mad - "That's not funny," or "You've been sucking for several months now." And you go, "It's not my fault! I'm trying."
I suppose all of us - we have the old Protestant work ethic of feeling guilty when you're not working, and getting a buzz from feeling like you're really busy. That's the reason to sort of carry on.
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