I work very hard so that I can be present all the time for what I do and then carve out little pockets of time as I desire for my personal life.
We all have our own party fantasy that we’ve either lived or wanted to live in New Orleans.
Every night, I will write until I’m done. Until my eyes are burning and tearing, and I can’t see the computer screen anymore, till I finish the script, till I get to the point where I’m happy stopping, till I get everything off my plate, because I hate going to bed with a full plate. It makes me very neurotic.
The joke of being a showrunner is that people ask how you get it all done, and you don’t. The list of things I don’t get done in a given day is longer than the list of things I do. And one of the things that’s first to go is watching dailies.
You’re supposed to be writing from experience – experience with people, with reading, seeing some homeless guy on the street and making up some story of him in your head. If you never see any of that or have those conversations or even sleep enough to have vivid dreams, then what are you writing about?
‘Originals’ is a show that is not about struggling as a vampire but reveling in it. It’s about embracing vampirism.
I had a moment where I wrote a movie script, and it was my first movie job, and I was very excited to do it, and my only goal was really not to get fired off of it.
I wanted to work in Hollywood. I was captivated by it. I read ‘Premiere Magazine’ and ‘Movieline Magazine’ and ‘Us’ before it was a weekly magazine.
Of every movie that I’ve seen multiple times, of every TV show that I was obsessed with, I don’t think I was ever obsessed with anything more than ‘Flowers in the Attic,’ which I read 13 times between fourth grade and senior year.
The supernatural world, the sci-fi world – they give you scenarios that can truly be life or death.
You can love and hate your family with equal measure, but the power of the bond you have to have with them, you can’t really ever walk away.
I remember just weeping my way through the ‘Friday Night Lights’ finale with my best friend and just being so happy all the way through because it was so beautiful.
It took me some time to realize television, for someone like me, was the perfect medium. I like to produce, I like to be detail-orientated, I like to be in charge of a lot of things, and I like to be a storyteller. It’s kind of the perfect gig for someone like me.
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