Zoe Kazan Quotations

Nothing's going to come to you by sitting around and waiting for it.

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 don't like pretentious films or pretentious people.

Sometimes I feel that the people I'm writing are more real to me than the people around me. When you take that imaginative leap, you're living so much in that world.

Well, I have a sister that I'm very close with, and that relationship is probably the most intense relationship of my life to date, probably of my life, period.

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

Anytime that I've felt uninspired, I don't force myself to sit down and write. I only do it when I feel the impulse.

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.

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.

I don't have a lot of patience for boring arthouse movies.

I find playwriting really painful. I love it, or I wouldn't do it, but I don't love the theater as much as I love movies.

I hate going to bed. I read scripts, clean, listen to the radio - I've fallen asleep to 'This American Life' more times than I can count!

I have mad luck. I'm super-good at games like backgammon or anything that requires rolling dice.

I really love people. I love to meet people. I'm curious about people.

I'm used to very low-budget situations. In 'The Exploding Girl,' we were literally changing in Starbucks because we didn't have trailers.

In New York you can just walk out and be among people. You're on the subway among people, you go to cafes, you can talk to people.

When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.

But my family's really close and I was interested in what Mommy and Daddy did for a living. So when Mommy and Daddy had a script that wasn't totally age inappropriate, they would let me read it. And we would talk about it.

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 think film writing, you're thinking in pictures, and stage writing, you're thinking in dialogue. In film writing, it's also, you only get so many words, so everything has to earn its place in a really economical way. I think for stage writing, you have more leeway.

If I ever feel that acting is just soul-sucking and I don't want to do it anymore, I could stop.

I think action should be revealed through character, so if you have a plot problem, it's probably a character problem.

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

I took a writing class in college, liked it, and my first year out of school I couldn't get a job, so I wrote a play.

If I'm not working, I don't feel complete.

My hero is Michelle Williams, who I grew close to when we did 'Meek's Cutoff.' She's an extraordinary actor and mom.

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

You set up the story, but the characters start talking, and they go places that you didn't expect. You have to follow.

And I think the female creative urge is intrinsically biologically linked to our ability to give birth to a child, even if we've never... I've never given birth, but I feel like it's part of our psychology.

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.

And then the really awful thing is that at the end of the day after crying and experiencing things, then you look at what you've written and you're like, 'Hmm, there's half a page that's good here.' Then you throw out everything else.

I love to walk around New York. Honestly, that's like the best thing, to walk over to Park Slope and go visit my friend Betty and take her dog out in the park or go walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I really dig being outside and getting to see everybody in the street.

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.

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.

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.

Writing-wise, I like to have a lot of things on the burners at once, because when I hit a wall, I like to move on to the thing I haven't hit a wall on.

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.

Too often in the theatre people can't wait for intermission to get some chocolate or something. But with Come Back, Little Sheba I just hope people leave feeling like they've spent a really good two-hours in that house with us.

I think the written word is my first love. I was just a very imagination - centered child and a big part of that imaginary life came from reading.

Part of the challenge of being a girl living in the 21st Century, looking back, the danger is to not judge your character by your own standards.

My grandmother told me: "We all dated lots of different boys because no one was having sex or kissing. It was just going out for sodas and getting to know people. It didn't seem like there was a threat." I think now we have more ideas of people having premarital and unprotected sex.

When we do something we're not proud of, a lot of people don't want to look at that, people may say "what people don't know won't hurt them."

Half the fun is getting to play dress-up and imagine what it's like to be this other person. If you're not excited about a part where you get to use your imagination, then what's the point in doing it? It'll be just another job. Also, Director Michael Pressman and I see eye-to-eye with Marie.

We all have our essential nature. If you're good with numbers, you don't even know you're good with numbers because that's how your mind works.

I think from my earliest childhood, I liked to tell stories, put on plays and write things. It's funny to think of it as an "artistic bug" because I didn't necessarily want to be an artist. It's just who I was and how I communicate.

It's fun for me to be with someone who loves reading as much as I do, because he'll give me things to read that I wouldn't normally seek out, and I think vice versa.

I love to act and that's sort of my first love. That's what I started out doing.

I think, a lot of times, directors assume that whatever they get from you the first time, whether it be at an audition or on set, is all that you can bring.

When you're in the editing room, as a director, you get the opportunity to look at your work. As a writer, you can rewrite. But as an actor, unless you're watching playback, you really rely on the director to help you.

I'm always disappointed after an audition when I don't get a part and I hear, "Oh, she was too X, or too Y," and it's too much of a quality.

I've definitely gotten to work with female directors, and I feel lucky because of that. I just feel like more voices should be represented.

So often you're asked to play impossibly perfect version of yourself on screen that it's nice to get to bring in those parts that you think aren't as worth looking at.

I feel lucky to receive such critical attention and praise when you're in a show that's going to last a month, it's just easier when audiences are more receptive. I've done two new shows this year, so I'm always excited to work on something a little older, traditional and structured.

I never wanted to be a playwright.

There aren't a lot of movies being made about women, period. Most of the time, the roles that are available are the sidekick, the friend, the girlfriend or the wife, and they just aren't that interesting.

I'm klutzy, and I don't embarrass easily.

I was really surprised when I started working and realized that you're actually on your own, a lot of the time. It makes you really responsible, as an actor.