I was a 'Glee' fan before I joined the show! Since my background is musical theater, it was exciting to see a TV show that incorporated music so much and in such a genius way.
If you like standup and decide that it's overtaking your life and want to hate it, watch 1,000 standup comedians who are trying to get on a TV show.
You want to be challenged, so you feel like you want to get up and wrestle with the character or enjoy the character - especially with a TV show, because you know you could be doing it for a long time, so you want to make sure it's something you really enjoy.
There's two kinds of press that you get when you put out a TV show: The reviews, and the people that just decide what the reviews say.
Artists should be free to create what we want. I believe there's a special value in work that is a reflection of oneself as opposed to interpretation. When I see a film or a TV show about black people not written by someone who's black, it's an interpretation of that life.
The closest I've come to being on a reality TV show is C-SPAN's live coverage of the Senate floor.
I'd love to have my own TV show, in the way that Julianna Margulies has 'The Good Wife,' or a lovely ensemble show, like 'Six Feet Under.'
Whatever is shown in a TV show is a reflection of society.
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.
At the end of the day, the TV show is the best job in the world. I get to go anywhere I want, eat and drink whatever I want. As long as I just babble at the camera, other people will pay for it. It's a gift.
I've learnt that I've had the best results from just trying to be me, trying to make a movie or TV show I want to see or write a script I want to read, and that's really all I can offer - being authentic.
The cool thing about 'Transparent' is that the show is funny but not like a sitcom is funny. It all comes down to the writing... The writers on that show are so good that you don't have to worry about anything. There are so many things that can go wrong making a TV show or a movie, but if the writing's good, that's, like, 95 percent of it.
I've gotten pretty good with a tray between acting jobs. In fact, when I got the TV show 'Gravity' I was still doing my catering work. I told my director I had to miss rehearsal because I had to work a party. He was like, 'You're on TV. You need to get over that.'
Writing a novel, when it's all going well, it's wonderful. You're lost in the world, and you have a relationship with your own mind. Also, as a novelist, you don't have to yell at anyone. But being an executive producer of a TV show, all you have is people coming at you with questions, and you're making decisions, decisions, decisions.
'The Judy Show' would be the name of my TV show if I had one, but I don't.
All I ever wanted to do was get a great job on a TV show. When I read 'Modern Family' and started looking at what was available - I obviously couldn't play Gloria; I couldn't play Claire. When I saw the character of Cam, I was like, 'I have to have a shot at this,' because I thought it was a character that would be really fun to play.
One of the things you have to get used to, working on a TV show, is filming out of sync.
Television is such an evolving medium. When you're doing a TV show, it's not like you just shoot for six weeks and you're in an editing room with all of your footage. It's like a guitar or a car, you have to fine tune things. You stop doing what's not working, you work on what is working and you add things that do work.
It's the big question of every TV show, right, where you have these two people who it's clear the world wants to put them together and everyone wants to see them together, but also when you're telling these stories you can't throw these people together immediately.
You were doing a TV show - you don't realise that you're also making social commentary at the same time.
When you're doing a TV show, it's not like you just shoot for six weeks and you're in an editing room with all of your footage. It's like a guitar or a car, you have to fine tune things. You stop doing what's not working, you work on what is working and you add things that do work.
I always wanted to be on a great TV show and in a Broadway show and have a CD out, and the fact that they happened simultaneously is kind of an embarrassment of riches.
But I don't only get recognized for 'Friday the 13th.' I was on a TV show called' I've Got a Secret.' I was on that show for ten or eleven years. The older people always remember me from that.
'Wonder Showzen' is one of my favorite shows of all time. When I first saw it, I thought it was so funny and new and original and edgy and insane and subversive. I didn't know comedy could do that. It redefined what I thought you could do with a TV show.
