A Quote by Michaela Coel

I wanted to write a show about an estate that wasn't sad or morbid, like a lot of shows portray working class life to be. — © Michaela Coel
I wanted to write a show about an estate that wasn't sad or morbid, like a lot of shows portray working class life to be.
There is quite a lot of mutual misunderstanding between the upper middle class and the working class. Reviewing what's been said about the white working class and the Democrats, I realized that there's even a lot of disagreement about who the working class IS.
I suppose I don't have to work, but I do love working. I class myself as a working-class girl, and I've never stopped working. When I'm offered shows here, there and the other, I do an awful lot because I feel other people would love to be offered what I'm offered; who am I to say no? I'm definitely working class, and I always will be.
I love films that show people in a way that's so real it's almost unsettling, and that's what really inspires me because I write about people. I write about people that I know, so I want to portray them and portray myself in a way that is unapologetic.
When I was nine, the teacher asked us to write a piece about our village fete. He read mine in class. I was encouraged and continued. I even wanted to write my memoirs at the age of ten. At twelve I wrote poetry, mostly about friendship - 'Ode to Friendship.' Then my class wanted to make a film, and one little boy suggested that I write the script.
I did always want to write. And then, when I left New York, where I was working very steadily in the theater - I had done three Broadway shows in a row and was a bit burnt out - I moved out to L.A. and I was not working very much. I came in cold and I'd work for a week, but then I'd have a month or two off. I thought, "I'm going to go crazy unless I actually do write." Like a lot of things in life, it was a situation that came about by circumstances.
I wanted to do an episode about Chuck having a gambling problem. I wanted to portray my addiction on the show. But I think it's a little edgy for Saturday night.
When I talk about 'working class,' I don't talk about 'white working class,'. I talk about 'working class,' and a third of working class people are people of color. If you are black, white, brown, gay, straight, you want a good job. There is no more unifying theme than that.
I just write about what makes me sad, and then when I write, I hear myself. It's like therapy, where I write something sad and then I make it happier or hopeful.
Well, first of all I think that we have to be careful with terms like the working class, obviously. When [Karl] Marx wrote about the working class he was writing about something much more bounded than we're talking about.
There is a lot more opportunity now, and I welcome all the conversations we are having about diversity, about women and about class... I come from a very working-class background, and I think the class thing is still probably more tricky.
And personally, one of the secrets I guess you can say with success on HGTV, for not only myself and a lot of other individuals who have shows, is that we truly do love what we do. We're passionate about real estate. We love design. We love seeing transformations. We love working with our hands.
The really successful work in England tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories. The film industry has been slow to wake up to that, for a variety of reasons. It still shocks me how few films are written or made in England about working-class life, given that those are the people who go to movies.
I come from a working-class family in Pittsburgh, whereas 'Mike & Molly' deals with the working class in Chicago. I swear a little, but I pretty much talk the same. It's not like when you see someone like Tim Allen and he's a lot bluer onstage.
I don't have any regrets, really, except that one. I wanted to write about you, about us, really. Do you know what I mean? I wanted to write about everything, the life we're having and the lives we might have had. I wanted to write about all the ways we might have died.
I just wanted to be a good comic and had no sense of show business, but at some point you want the opportunity to write a show about your life.
I wanted to show a different side of ourselves. I wanted to see in what ways I could explore something new. I felt like working on a double record would give people a lot to have.
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