A Quote by Leslye Headland

The biggest misconception is that I only write about shitty people. Or that I'm trying to be shocking. I just think people are super weird, so I like to write characters that get addicted to things, lose their minds, hurt others, put themselves in bad situations. I'm just more interested in that.
As songwriters and artists we get a lot of attention and gratification when we write about the moments that have hurt us, and in turn, sometimes we'll seek out more hurt so we can write more things that people like.
I'm never trying to make a statement about morality ever. If there's a statement to be made, it's "People are complicated. They do things that may hurt other people, or exploit other people, but they may do them for the right reasons, or out of desperation." I don't judge that sort of "bad" behavior. I'm only interested in a world where people break outside of the norm, and I believe people do whatever they have to do to relieve themselves of pain. I just want to watch and see how that plays out.
I have a notebook that I take with me everywhere. I free-write in it when there are situations that I know I can write a song about. I will just start writing everything that I can think of while trying to write some things that are kind of poetic or sound like they could be in a song. Then, after the music is written, I go back and look at my subjects to see which one I think woud go with what music. Then, I formulate it into a melody and get the song.
I think people have this "It can't hurt to ask" mentality, which is true on some level. I get comics like, "Hey, will you look at these videos of me on MySpace?" I was like, "Well, who's gonna benefit from that? What if I don't like you?" No, I'm gonna write to a stranger and say, "Hi. You like me, and I don't like you. And now I feel bad when I didn't need to feel bad, because you put me on the spot." Or like, "Can I open for you?" Well, I've never seen you work, so no. I certainly made awkward mistakes when I was starting out, and they're just trying to have a career.
I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.
I think television is about the characters you want to see again, and so you want to invite these people into your home. And certainly, seeing them get into bad situations and then watching them have to get themselves out, that's always super satisfying.
It is truly excellent to have someone believe in you and your ability to write. But I think it is just as helpful to have people who don't believe in you, people who mock you, people who doubt you, people who enrage you. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of this type of person in the world ... write for yourself. Write for the story. And write, also, for all of the people who doubt you. Write for all those people who are not brave enough to do this grand and wondrous thing themselves. Let them motivate you.
People think, for some reason, that I don't care about creativity and art, or helping people. So I would say that the biggest misconception is, when you think about me, when you think about my name, I don't want you to think about design or clothes or music. I want you to think about a person that's just trying to help people.
One of the things that happened is I did a lot of shitty gigs. When you do a bunch of shitty bar gigs you have to get used to people yelling at you, you're used to thinking on the fly, to dealing with weird situations.
Normally, filmmakers would just write a script and cast people to act as certain characters in the story. But in my way of doing things, I have the actors in my mind already, so I'm trying to borrow something that's unique to them. The characters have a very natural connection to the actors themselves.
Mystery is great, that's what art is and I think when you can leave your imagination to grow, it's good. I just don't like it if it's super bad because I'm a loving person, I love everybody and human beings. I do have a darkness to me, but I would never do bad things or wish bad things on people, or hurt anything or anyone.
I don't write about love because it makes for easy, passive heroes. I write about how love makes my characters more autonomous, more self-possessed, more opinionated and powerful. I write about characters who pursue relationships that make them the people they want to become. I write about love as a superpower.
I think a diversity of expression can only be good, so I think the more that people write about their experience, use their imagination to deal with their experience, you know, I think that's going to be good for not only for those authors but also for people who are interested in trying to understand it.
I think, almost, the film industry thinks that by making gay characters super masculine, it's an attempt at saying being gay is OK if you act like straight people. I don't think we should just have gay characters who are 100 percent femme, either. I just think it's about that mix and creating more diverse gay characters.
I'm just trying to write a good story, strictly from imagination. People just think it's random, they don't see the rewriting, phrasing of characters, choosing the words, bringing the world to light in which the characters live in. That creates an illusion that this is real.
I've been approached many times to write all sorts of books about my past and my personal life. I get interest from people who want to do reality shows, and somebody just offered me a huge amount of money to write my spiritual memoirs. I'm just not interested.
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