Zitat des Tages von Julie Plec:
God bless Hollywood and all that it stands for, but, you know, people tend to peak in their 40s, and then it's all downhill from there.
The supernatural world, the sci-fi world - they give you scenarios that can truly be life or death.
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.
If the day-to-day culture is saying it's OK to not be inclusive or tolerant, that it's OK to be bigoted, then it's your responsibility to double down and make it OK in storytelling to be inclusive and tolerant.
I think, make it as beautiful as you can, and then rip it away. That's my sadistic thought as a storyteller.
The vampire is the new James Dean.
There are a lot of things you do in a supernatural universe that can toe the line and cross the line.
Showrunning is an arrogant job. You have to be arrogant and hold yourself strong in order for people to hear you. Confidence partners with arrogance. The only person you have to trust is yourself. The only instinct you can trust is your own.
I'm a night owl; I could work until 6 in the morning without even thinking about it.
Speaking only for myself, the ideal finale to me is 'Friday Night Lights,' where you have loved and worshipped a show for all these years, you get to come back, celebrate the characters, finish up their journeys, and send everyone out with a feeling of, 'My God, I'm so grateful that I got to know these people.'
I learned more about who I am and how to be a great worker - and a great artistic worker - from doing student theater. I was a stage manager. I was an assistant stage manager. I was on the running crew. I did probably 25 shows at Northwestern - all musicals, of course.
If people love 'TVD' in 20 years the way they still love 'Buffy' today - on its 20th anniversary - I will be happy.
I talk all the time about how much I read growing up and how much I love Stephen King and how he impacted my work from a genre perspective, but Pat Conroy wrote some of the most magnificent stories about characters who had to deal with dysfunctional families and try to find a place of honor in their own world and the pain of loss.
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?
'Ghost World' was such an incredibly difficult episode to find the right tone for. I remember at the time it was very divisive because some people hated it - they thought it was cheesy and hokey - and I loved it. When I saw it, I cried my head off, and I was so happy.
'Originals' is a show that is not about struggling as a vampire but reveling in it. It's about embracing vampirism.
I love real women that don't have to be saints, who can be selfish and act out against their parents or like the wrong guy, because that's life. That's my life, at least.
There's a reason a happy ending is called an ending. The trick of a television storyteller is to find all the rivers and mountains and valleys on the way to that ending.
The one thing that always drove me crazy, especially on soaps, was when someone would have something they were hiding, and then six months later, they were still holding onto that secret, and the world has come to a complete, total end as a result of it. If they'd only just confessed!
When you have to spread heroism across too many players, you don't get to really dig deep into each of them as much as you'd want to.
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 think that when you're exploring themes of humanity and what defines a hero and what makes us our best self and what makes us our worst self, you're going to stumble into territories of societal issues and that kind of thing. Sometimes you have accidents where you're not trying, but then the opportunity just presents itself. and you lean into it.
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.
I read 'Tiger Beat' and 'Bop' from the time I was 9, 10, 11 years old. I loved movies. I saw 'E.T.' seven times. I used to yell at people who called me when 'L.A. Law' was on because they should know better. So I just have been so in love with the business of Hollywood since I can remember.
I look at 'Friday Night Lights' as one of my all-time favorite series finales, and that is what you want. After all the roads you've traveled with these people, you just want to know that they're going to be happy. I'm a big believer in shows that make that choice.
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.
An actor's only perception is of their character, and they're looking at one piece. A writer is looking at the entire story. They're going to see things that the writer didn't see because they're only looking through their lens.
What's funny is, I was always certain that I couldn't be a director because there are things about the physics of camera and lighting that I fundamentally cannot wrap my head around.
I remember, my freshman year of college, sitting in my TV room at the end of my dorm hallway with one other girl watching the premiere of 'Beverly Hills, 90210.' And then, a year later, walking into a room packed with college students watching '90210,' and I thought, 'I wonder what it must be like to be part of a phenomenon like that.'
It was a high-class problem burden, but it was still a burden on 'The Vampire Diaries,' in which we had this group of characters that we loved writing for so much and who had so much available story to tell.
The way that 'Vampire' was born was over a lunch. We got asked to do the show. A week later, we were hired. A week later, we were writing it. The minute we handed it in, it was ordered. The minute we shot it, it was picked up. Then we started working. There was never any, like, 'OK, here's what this show is...' We had to figure it out as we went.
I suffer mightily at the 7 A.M. calls. I'm happy as a clam on the 7 P.M. calls.
I think the model of The CW Network is really built on the fan platform more than anything else. The success or longevity of a series has less to do with the number it's pulling and more to do with the social footprint... There is a lot about the fan support on a strictly business level that's really powerful for that network.
The intensity of the story breaking on 'Vampire' has never been easy. Every week, you're starting with a blank board and trying to make a new movie. There's no formula; there's no franchise to hang your hat on.
I've learned that I've just barely scratched the surface of knowledge of the profession, and I have deep envy of and appreciation for filmmakers who really, truly understand the physics, the design of filmmaking. They can do story and color and composition and geometry and math and science all at once.
Because I was such a student of pop culture growing up, I love that on the list of things that I got to work on in my first years out of college were 'Scream' and 'Dawson's Creek' and, ultimately now, 'The Vampire Diaries,' which generations below me grew up on and can quote. I love that. I think that is the coolest thing in the world.