With a live audience, it's very clear when you've pushed it too far to the edge - because you fall off that edge and hit bottom with a thud. Nothing abstract about that. You know you went too far when you hear that groan or worse - that silence instead of the big laugh you were expecting following your hilariously edgy joke.
There's no reason to do 'ex and the City' if it's not going to be everything 'Sex and the City' is, which is vibrant emotions, comedy, drama... and also, style.
The second episode of any new show can be tough. You have about a week to top the well-crafted and polished pilot episode that was written over six months.
Only two things change when you get older: the energy in your voice and the time of night you feel it's appropriate to call someone. In your 20s, people call at 2 a.m. and yell, 'Are you up?' into the answering machine. Now, someone calls after 8 p.m., and my boyfriend is like, 'Who is that? Who could be calling at this hour?'
My mom would be leaving the house and she'd say, 'Don't you pull out all of the old dresses in the attic and put on a show again!' And the door would close, and that's exactly what I'd do. The show was calling me!
My female writers have always been my backbone. I had a writing room of six women for five years so I know what women do. Cultivated by me, by the way!
I try not to repeat a story. I try not to repeat an emotion. I want it to be all sort of new for the viewers and to challenge myself as a writer, so there's always pressure. What else can you come up with?
I think I would love a shot at remaking 'The Philadelphia Story,' as daunting as it is. I still think it's fantastic. I love the '30s comedies because they're allowed to be both comic and elegant, and the women are so complicated in them.
I really enjoy women and I totally understand and applaud the diversity that they have in terms of their emotions and intellects and vulnerability and strengths.
Here's what happens - you create something in the moment that you feel will be good, and then... people's reactions to it or people referencing it years later, it's a compliment.
