I am in so many movies that are on TV at 2:00 a.m. that people think I am dead.
Research sometimes feels like an ongoing TV series in which some amazing revelations have already been made, but there are still plenty of cliff-hangers and unresolved plotlines that you want to see resolved. But unlike TV, we have to do the work ourselves to figure out what happens next.
I come from a TV background, so for me this more like doing a freeing theatre piece because we’d go into a room and do the scene, instead of doing it as a wide shot, medium shot, and close up with only the odd line of dialogue.
The difference between you and the funny person on TV is that they acted on their ideas.
I’m rapping, I’m hooping, I’m on a max-contract, I got a big shoe deal. Everything is good now. So of course, the support is going to be there, the love is going to be there, but what’s going to happen when it changes or when I’m on the back-end of my career or when I ain’t on TV all the time?
You can binge a TV series or watch a reality show, and they’re not innocent. They take a lot of room in your brain, and you don’t have any space left for your own thoughts. They give you a scripted reality. It’s an ideological tool.
People have made sure of that, that you can’t shock anybody anymore. It’s not just because of movies and TV. It’s because of what’s happening in the world.
No one knows if Saddam is still alive. They keep showing old footage of him on TV saying that it’s live. You know, it’s like the same thing we do with Dick Cheney.
A lot of kid characters you see on TV are sassy, and snarky, and think they’re just the coolest kids in the world, and are mean spirited.
It wasn’t so long ago that I was a working mom myself. And I know that sometimes, much as we all hate to admit it, it’s just easier to park the kids in front of the TV for a few hours, so we can pay the bills or do the laundry or just have some peace and quiet for a change.
I realise that every time my face is on TV or I’m playing in a tournament, that I am a role model for a lot of people and a lot of kids do look up to me. I try to do my best in that regard and put myself across as honestly and as modestly as possible, as well.
When you start out as a TV writer, you get a lot of pressure from outside forces to fit into what they think people want.
I don’t like music that much… I put on the TV. But I often play things like fast-tempo disco or Queen. I’ve liked those since way back when.
Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. We’ve been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. It’s just like stand-up. It’s best when it’s just left alone. It doesn’t translate always on TV. It’s best live.
When I planned my wedding the first time, my ex-husband and I, we were both struggling comics. I had a TV show that had gotten cancelled. Basically, I rented a wedding gown; the reception hall smelled like feet.
I did some British TV and bits and bobs here and there. I’ve been lucky.
There is all this controversy that women and girls are too skinny or too overweight. I say to just do martial arts and everything will be okay. You will tone up your body and find a confidence you can’t find just sitting around watching TV and hanging out with friends.
With technology and social media and citizen journalism, every rock that used to go unturned is now being flipped, lit and put on TV.
Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, the higher your profile, the more castable you are in TV dramas.
I write from my imagination, not from what I’ve read in books or seen on TV or to make money. I wrote from an idea I was passionate about.
In Germany, you have to see that there are not a lot of black people in the media. I am a tiny bit of colour on German TV and there are a lot of kids who write to me.
Doing ‘EastEnders’ wasn’t exactly suffering, but my soul’s not in quick-fix TV. Theatre doesn’t pay like TV work pays, though. We all have to live, don’t we?
For me, as an actor, one of the biggest fears on a TV show is getting stuck in something where you end up feeling like you’re doing the same thing, every single year.
I don’t tour the TV studios. I don’t gossip over lunch. I don’t drink in Parliament’s bars. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve. I just get on with the job in front of me.
To this day, nothing makes me happier than finding a TV show I really love.
My dad was an interior design and furniture person. I started working with him for four years before my first TV writing break.
I think the ’80s works for a TV show because it’s the last time the world was simple. It was before the Internet really changed everything and made the world really small.
Back 20 years ago, there was a division between movie actors and TV actors. That’s kind of gone away. People who have had a lot of success in movies in the past now want to be on TV. There used to be much more of a quality division between TV and movies, and that’s kind of not the case anymore.
When you do a play, or even a movie, you have weeks to finesse your character. You really understand why they do what they do. In TV, you get new material weekly about your character.
I believe in the importance of sincerity and emotion and honesty in TV, even when it’s goofy comedy.
I am very much the daughter of immigrants. It’s both a point of pride and an essential part of characterizing my upbringing. We spoke Spanish in our house. We listened to Spanish music. All of the TV channels we watched were in Spanish. We ate mostly Italian and Argentinian food.
Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement!
When I was on ‘Mad TV,’ I figured my parents were watching, and that was it. It wasn’t ‘Saturday Night Live,’ so it didn’t really have the same high profile.
Playing a cop on TV and working closely with actual cops on set, I do think the media does a disservice to our first responders.
I can honestly say – not proudly, but honestly – before I had a child, I would see things on TV or hear the news, feel sad for the people and move forward with my day. Now I see everything through a mother’s eyes.
When you see me on TV against one of the other girls, they look 10 times better than me, and I’m OK with that. I make a conscious effort not to wear that much makeup and not have my hair so perfectly groomed. That’s just not me. I’m not going to be perfect.
It is possible to have a pretty good life and career being a leech and a parasite in the media world, gadding about from TV studio to TV studio, writing inconsequential pieces and having a good time. But in the end you have a great sense of personal dissatisfaction.
What I really like about ‘Grit’ – especially being the guy who goes on TV every week and says ‘Never Give Up’ and who truly tries to live his life to that credo – we recruited 16 people who said, ‘I will never give up.’ And the only way they can leave the contest is by doing the one thing they said they never would.
I really like ‘Batman.’ Not the TV show, but the dark ‘Batman.’
I don’t want my president to be a TV star. You don’t have to be on television every minute of every day – you’re the president, not a rerun of ‘Law & Order’. TV stars are too worried bout being popular and too concerned about being renewed.
Anything I write that I consider stage-quality work, I won’t give my TV show. I put it in my live show.
Reality TV is not real.
I don’t have a favorite medium; I was brought up on TV. so I am clearly of the TV generation, but it depends on what you are trying to sell; sometimes a fully integrated solution, sometimes a pure Internet solution, sometimes a pure billboard solution.
In the ’90s, there was a big wrestling boom in Switzerland with Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, and all those guys. It was on television in Switzerland on a German TV station for a year or so. That’s when I saw wrestling for the first time. I was in the fifth or sixth grade and was a fan of it right away.
The thought processes that go through my head when I’m playing a game compared to the thought processes in real life are very, very different. And they’re more interesting to me than what you think about when you’re doing the dishes, cleaning the yard, watching TV, driving or watching a movie.
It has become a crusade of mine to demonstrate that TV need not be violent to be exciting.
Acting is acting at the end of the day. How does it matter if it is in films or on TV?
I love the TV show, and if you make a bad movie it means you’ve soiled it. Just like if we made an advert. We were offered so many times and I’d say, look, this is the good thing, and you can’t compromise that, because then you compromise the integrity of the characters.
I’ve turned down millions of dollars to go on reality TV. It’s an absolute no-go.
I’m an avid collector of toys. I got everything. Name it. From the Easy Bake Oven to Barbies to every TV show doll, racing cars… I’ve been collecting since I was a little kid.
When the great jazz and blues clubs closed – joints where the cash register rang loudly and there wasn’t ESPN on TV over the bandstand, and people smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey and hollered ‘Play on!’ – When those places closed, I was pretty much done.
I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting.
