A Quote by Mary Elizabeth Ellis
I don't think that I would go into the writers' room because they work really hard and I feel like I'm already working really hard to shoot my part of the show. Also, I haven't written in a writers' room before, it's kinda intimidating to walk in there.
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Lots of shows are written completely in the writer's room. And I wouldn't say 'The Walking Dead' is that way. There are three levels to it. There's us in the room. The writers going off by themselves. And me working with the writers on a finished script.
I tell people all the time that producers, writers, and directors really don't know what they want until it walks into the room - you have to show them what they want. Everyone is rooting for you when you walk into the room. Everyone wants you to be good because it means their day is over!
I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.
There are good writers and bad writers. It's hard to find writers who really speak to you, but the work is out there.
With the Holocaust - I wonder if a lot of Jewish writers of my generation have felt this way - it feels really intimidating to approach it. I feel like so many writers who have either lived through it firsthand or were part of that generation where they were closer to the people who were in it have written so beautifully about it, so there's no lack of great books about it
A lot of what you're seeing these characters go through is something that either is a story one of the actors told in the writers' room or one of the writers themselves told in the writers' room.
I have to say that The Simpsons comes from a huge number of great writers headed by Al Jean, the show-runner, and the work that they do is really fantastic. It's a blast just to sit around with them in the writers' room and listen to all the filthy jokes that will never get on the air.
It's very hard to be a screenwriter. I remember getting a couple of awards. I got a PEN West award a million years ago when I did Running on Empty, and I sat in the room with all these writers. They wrote everything from novels to non-fiction to children's books to journalism - any kind of writing - and I realized that there was no one in the room who would ever read anything I'd written.
Because I work in television, I always knew that I loved working with writers. It's very collaborative. You're always in a room full of writers.
Once I'm in the editing room, forget about what I intended to shoot. I take a cold, hard look at what I really did shoot, and then I edit that because, if you try to edit what you intended and you missed somewhere, that will show up.
I try really hard to ask people to take a look at their bookshelves. Are there female writers on it? Gay writers? Writers of color? There should be.
That's what I've always wanted to do - work with my favorite writers and make something from scratch with them that we can feel like didn't exist before we came in the room.
When I was in the writers' room, all these writers were like, "Ugh, another star that they gave a writing-producing credit to." But then within like an hour, they were like, "You're really a writer." "Yeah, I really am. I'm a writer, and a director, and a producer, and an actor, and a painter, and I do all that stuff in the Lush Life." It was great.
I structure the scripts and work on them on films and work on scenes with writers and but I haven't written a script myself, I really respect what they do and I'm fortunate I get to work with people that I really enjoy working with and we all kind of spitball and work together on these things, but I haven't written a script yet.
When I walk into a room that is all white and all male, I'm sitting on the outside of that club. That's sometimes an intimidating experience. But I think that everywhere that I've gotten is because I've worked hard. I have the experience, I have the credentials - I continue not to take any of that for granted.
Comedy can be, especially in a writer's room, really aggressive, kind of a very male-dominated room, and it would be hard for women. It's not a nurturing place. It's not like a lot of women are going to say, I can't wait to live that lifestyle and be in a writer's room until 2 or 3 a.m.
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