When I stepped into the Lifetime role in 2010, I did a listening tour of what was going on for women in this country. There was such a parallel in Hollywood with women talking about how there are stories that are not getting made and that talented young women are not getting the opportunity to direct and write.
What does it feel like to be a parent? What does it feel like to be a child? And that's what stories do. They bring you there. They offer a dramatic explanation, which is always different from an expository explanation.
I've published one book before, and now I'm writing a book of essays and stories about life in Tokyo. And I have one book coming out in May in Germany, about fitness.
It's not about superheroes. This is the method of universal storytelling that all people have... To me, they're the same as the Greek myths or the Roman myths or religious figures of every religion. These are common characters that we use to express stories about being a better person or what you would do when faced with various things.
They were kind of like little Stephen King stories... but these go back many hundreds of years.
Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy.
I feel a bigger sense of fulfillment when writing a novel, and short stories are more about instant gratification.
I wrote stories as a kid just for myself. One day, some of the kids in my class found some of my stories in my bag, and I was deeply embarrassed until I realised they enjoyed reading them.
The stories we are told shape the way we see the world, which shapes the way we experience the world.
Hollywood has definitely grown, in embracing the inclusion of Latinos in the world, because, for some time, we didn't exist. We were not part of any stories.
Pet lovers know that animals sometimes understand us better than we do, and the annals of human sin and desire provide plenty of stories to drive the point home.
We always see the innocent victims in the stories, and I am a little bored with that. I am much more interested in the price paid by the people who can fly.
If I were to continue on with 'The Host,' which is a possibility, there are characters and stories that could continue... If I went ahead with that, it would be two more... Next would be 'The Soul,' and then 'The Seeker.'
Any radical change or trauma always makes for interesting subject matter, but then all stories deal, to some extent, with the disjuncture between past and present.
What I want to do is tell stories about normal people in the American suburbs. I don't write the book where it's a conspiracy reaching the prime minister; I don't write the book with the big serial killer who lops off heads. My setting is a very placid pool of suburbia, family life. And within that I can make pretty big splashes.
As the character talks and moves, the world around him is slowly revealed, just like dollying a camera back for a wider look at things. So all my stories start with a character, and that character introduces setting, culture, conflict, government, economy... all of it, through his or her eyes.
I'm not sure whay I've been drawn to this subject, except that murder is a subject that has always drawn people for as long as people have been telling stories.
Animation is the one type of movie that really does play for the entire audience. Our challenge is to make stories that connect for kids and adults.
I love working with older actors because number one, I can learn so much from them because they have so much experience. And it's fun to hear their stories from their era, some of the jokes.
Insecurity is a natural part of human nature, and there are times we feel our stories are not worth telling, so we turn to the people we admire for strength. If we dress like someone everyone thinks is cool, perhaps we'll be seen as cool.
I decide intuitively what I want to do. When directors like Imtiaz Ali, Ayan Mukerji, Anurag Basu and Anurag Kashyap, who have stories to tell, come to me, why would I not be a part of it?
Stories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths.
For years I used to bore my wife over lunch with stories about funny incidents.
I'm not very interested in charting a day-to-day familiar reality. I'm always looking for territory in which to explore the BIG subjects, the life-or-death stories.
'Monkeys' is made up of nine short stories that tell an overall story. 'Folly' is a series of vignettes all put together to tell a larger story. In 'Lust and Other Stories,' there are nine stories - three, three, three; the beginnings of love, the middles, and the afters.
I think, as long as you tell real stories, I think people will respond to it no matter whether or not it's in the context of super heroes.
Film is our literature, so we should tell stories that are apropos of our culture, in that we can learn something about ourselves.
For whatever reason, I am just very attracted to mystery stories, solving mysteries. I was a huge fan of 'The Jinx.' That's such a satisfying show because it's all... I don't want to give it away to anybody, but it's really amazing.
We want to assist China's soft power; we want to develop a vibrant young cinema in China. The average American has no understanding whatsoever of China. We'd like to create a young generation to tell their stories on a world stage. We can make history as well as make money.
I just feel so lucky to tell stories and make up stories and share them with people.
Digital-Original just shifts the R&D costs for publishing to the authors and affords us the chance to write the stories we want to write and the stories our patrons want to read.
Animation had been done before, but stories were never told.
You start as an audience member and create a world you're interested in, and then you move into the telling of those stories, bringing what has interested you as an audience member.
I have 18 tattoos. My tattoos have kind of become their own person. Everybody does stories on them. It is risky to be successful in the fashion industry and to tat your body up, but I figured, the way that I made my career and the way that I am successful is because I have always been myself.
The really successful work in England tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories. The film industry has been slow to wake up to that, for a variety of reasons. It still shocks me how few films are written or made in England about working-class life, given that those are the people who go to movies.
I love telling stories and I love writing so the fact that I can do it professionally is something that I've always been very grateful for.
