Top 30 Julia Davis Quotes

I just find it funny and terrible: someone being very rude and overbearing over somebody who doesn’t know how to deal with it. Maybe it’s because I’ve experienced that sort of thing and I don’t know how to say, ‘You can’t do that. You can’t say that to me.’

People say the comedy is so shocking, but if you read newspapers or look around generally – I mean, obviously I’m not writing about all the lovely things that there are, which I do see as well – but there is a lot of outrageousness around, slightly covered up. And obviously, it’s fun to take that a little bit further.

My dad was a civil servant, and my mum was a secretary.

You have to be enough of a parent – you have to be there. If I’m feeling bad, I really do just have to get on with it and try and channel it back into my work somehow, do something positive with it.

My grandfather was a vicar, and there was quite a lot of churchgoing when I was growing up. It’s a world that I spent a lot of time around.

I’d love to find a lifelong female film editor as Scorsese has with Thelma Schoonmaker. I think women are probably, without generalising, sensitive to subtle things as an editor.

I think I am generally prone to exaggerating characters, taking them to a ridiculous extent. But you do also meet those people in real life who are just really awful.

People could write stuff that’s really offensive, but if it’s written within a believable world that has a tone to it, then it can be funny. But if it’s just shock-value stuff, then it’s not going to work, because it’s not coming from a true place.

I’m quite tactful, actually. I worry about whether people are all right. With my friends, obviously, conversations are quite free and uncensored, but I would never enjoy making someone feel uncomfortable at all.

I worked in a supermarket for a year; I worked in a finance department at a university, a pub, busking and singing. I tried to be a nanny for about three weeks.

If I claim I’m the opposite of my characters, then it’ll just sound awful. But I tend to write the sort of things I’d never say because I’m not a very forceful person.

I would never say, ‘Ooh, let’s do something really dark.’

That is one thing I really hate about working in TV – you have to shape episodes to exact time-lengths, do like 22 minutes, and it is just so against what you are making.

I think most people, including me, like to read gossipy things about others: revealing things that I love to read but I don’t really want known about me.

I’m sure all parents think their kids are funny, and I’m sure a lot of kids are, whether their parents are comics or not.

All the time, I’m watching relationships.

I actually think I’m still quite childishly optimistic in a certain way, which is maybe why I find life quite shocking.

The main thing is to believe writers know what their voices are, and if they are left alone, they will come through with something. There are a load of brilliant U.S. comedies: at the moment, I’m loving ‘Girls.’ People say the U.S. is more conservative; I think, actually, it is a bit looser here, but trends change.

With ‘Nighty Night’ series one, Oprah Winfrey’s channel took it on, so she must have liked it.

I always imagine people give succinct answers. I have no prepared thoughts on what I do.

I was brought up in Guildford, and I think I used to absorb all the suburban things – seeing coffee mornings, women talking… that stuff, really. I was watching Alan Ayckbourn on some documentary, and he was talking about how he was around a lot of women as a child, listening to all that stuff.

I watch a lot of U.S. comedy, shows such as ‘Eastbound & Down’ and ‘Veep.’ I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her character in that show.

I do use a laptop, but I’m very technophobic. I’ve never downloaded anything. I’ve never bought anything on Amazon. I’m really ridiculous. I don’t know what it is.

I love all Daphne du Maurier’s stuff. And just enjoying period dramas, really… wanting to do something drastically different from ‘Nighty Night’, the chance to write very different language.

If I can laugh with people, it makes me feel safe with them. If I feel someone has no sense of humour, I find it really scary. I do it with the kids as well: put on stupid voices to lighten up the spirit or gee them along to do something.

To me, if something makes you laugh, that’s heart-warming. It doesn’t necessarily have to be friendly; it might just be the weirdest thing ever. Laughing makes me feel better.

I love watching programmes about food. I always think, ‘When I’m old, I’ll take up baking.’ There’s something calming about watching the recipe and thinking, ‘I’m going to make that’ – and it’s never going to happen.

A lot of my comedy is to do with being angry, then finding a way to channel that.

I just try to put myself in the minds of all the characters.

I think, in comedy, you only hit about one or two great characters in your career. Sometimes my character will be just a sketch… what is the funniest situation to put this person in?