Nothing brings me more joy than when people love what I do.
Our family dinner table was my first platform - every dinner was all about sharing stories and jokes and points of view.
Whenever I get stuck on something, I'm like, 'What would I do if I wasn't afraid? What would I write if I wasn't afraid? What would I say in this situation if I wasn't afraid?'
I always want to go darker, and I'm always being advised to stay on the lighter side.
The element of surprise is the most important thing and what keeps me interested in writing. I can feel it if I've written that predictable or boring line, and I will carry that around with me all day.
The joy and the pain for me is about tightroping between being a cynic and being a romantic - the tug between barely believing in anything and hoping for everything.
As women, we get the message about how to be a good girl - how to be a good, pretty girl - from such an early age. Then, at the same time, we're told that well-behaved girls won't change the world or ever make a splash.
Women know what they're doing all the time, and they're pretending that they don't.
People generally are just really nice to each other. You know, the good people.
I always knew that saying the unsayable was going to be a powerful thing.
I don't think the challenge is asking an audience to like a character; it's inviting them to try and understand them... then making that journey entertaining and worth their while. It's a classic trick, but it's human, and it allows characters to have more depth.
You have to make an audience feel like they can - and want to - change something about what they are watching. And that might be the thing that galvanises them in the end, that makes them come out of themselves and say, 'No! Don't do that!'
I think if you've got people on your side, if you've got people really laughing, you are able to make them cry.
I think there's something funny about people who laugh in the face of convention or surprise us morally.
I had such a supportive family, and I think that affects your life in such a profound way; it fortifies you completely.
I'm just constantly on the verge of bursting into tears with joy.
There's nothing that makes me cry and laugh more than stories about friendship.
To me, most comedy is dark comedy.
I just find all that stuff incredibly funny. I love a fart. I'd do anything for a good poo story.
When an audience is laughing with a character, they make themselves so vulnerable, and they open up. They expose their heart the moment they're laughing, because they're relaxed and they're disarmed.
