Zoe Kazan

“I've always really been interested in the Pygmalion myth and both what it has to say about creativity and what it has to say about relationships between men and women.”

“It was very hard for me to come back to a place of feeling normal about food and about my body. And then, when I came to the other side of it, it felt like something was gone. An exorcism. I still experience the same chemical swings and moods and pain, but I'm much better at dealing with it than I was at 18.”

“I can work a lot faster when I'm writing a screenplay than when I'm writing a play because, if I'm having a problem with a scene or something, I can just be writing it in a way where there's no dialogue, or find a way to make sound do the work that I want to do or a close-up do the work that I need to do.”

“I grew up in L.A., and I don't think I've seen L.A. onscreen in a way that felt real to me. There are definitely movies, but they are few and far between.”

“My schedule is completely different doing a play than it is doing a movie, and I actually think it's a much harder schedule because you've got to do it eight times a week and you've got to do it good eight times a week and with different kinds of audiences who are cold or drunk or tired, whatever it is.”

“When I look back, I can say that the summer when I was 19 was a formative time for me. But at the time I just thought I was making tofu every night for dinner and going to work.”

“And when I get bored, it's like the worst parts of me come out. I really veer to self-destructive tendencies quickly.”

“People really do make the assumption that I had some weirdo Hollywood upbringing, but my parents are incredibly down-to-earth people who worked really hard to raise us in a way that was health.”

“Historically, art and music and writing and film have been one of the only tools that is effective against tyranny.”

“I think movies have much more magic than the theater. Theater can be a magical experience, but movies thrust their subjectivity on you in a more profound way.”

“I think most actors jump at the chance to do something where the camera's on them all the time.”

“I find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew up watching movies and not watching plays.”

“I don't like pretentious films or pretentious people.”

“I read a lot of plays as a kid, but I didn't see that many plays, so I feel better-versed in film history and film structure. I just think it's easier to think in pictures.”

“People are always asking me - because of my family - if I ever feel pressure or feel like I have something to live up to. And having that in the back of my head, I've just learned to be really brave even in the face of feeling ill-prepared.”

“I grew up speaking Spanish. The woman who helped raise me was only Spanish-speaking, so it was one of my primary languages as a kid. And I lived in Spain for a while.”

“I love bad movies, whereas going to the theater for me is a painful experience. I think it's really hard to sit and watch actors do something live and have it not go well.”

“I always wrote. My parents are writers. It just seemed like something people did.”

“Someone said that once a family producers a writer, that's the end of the family.”

“I will be a broken record for justice.”