Alex Borstein Quotes

It's easier to cast yourself in something you've written because you know your voice.

Stand-up is the only thing in which you actually write it, act it and direct it simultaneously, so it's actually a great theater exercise.

Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.

Once you see the entertainment world from both sides, you really get a greater understanding of how it all operates. As an actor going into screenwriting, I was able to understand what type of dialogue feels natural and what an actor could actually say.

I started as a writer; I started writing when I was little. The acting and directing was an outgrowth of my desire to tell stories.

I like writing and directing. I enjoy telling stories, and I think it's born in a comedian to end up directing.

I write in the booth and memorize in rehearsals.

I'm not an actress. I'm a writer.

I don't know what I'm going to write when I begin to write. It feels like you are walking down a path, but you can't see around the bend and you don't know where you are going to go, which is fun.

I like having written better than I like having acted.

I prefer writing for myself to perform, I guess. But if I had to choose, I'd rather perform in someone's movie than write a movie for someone else.

I love the writing process. It's something that I'm interested in personally and something I always do on every movie.

It's hard to find a play that's right for me to do. Rather than waiting around for the right script to come along, I decided to write one myself.

I always enjoyed writing. I did playlets in high school, I did radio shows in college. That's one of the reasons I went down to Second City, because you could do acting and writing.

If you sing beautifully about nothing, no one will listen. If you sing badly about great stuff, no one will listen. Ideas are everywhere, but my theory is that a writer doesn't just think of an idea: they perform them.

I think the reason I wrote screenplays for nearly a decade was because it was my territory. I could stake that out.

Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to.

If I'm serious, yes, I'd like to have done what Shakespeare did... to act and write. You learn so much from acting. One of our great writers, Alan Bennett, does both supremely well. When I write a story, I tend to speak it aloud as I'm writing it.

I understand, certain scenes have to have a lot of takes. As an actor, I think it's quite nice to have a handful of takes, because you don't want to do it once or twice; I think once or twice sometimes is quite terrifying because you don't really feel like you've given them what you want.

Every day, I learn something new. I think one of the most exciting things for a writer is to work on a TV show. It's like a novel. You have a really long time to develop and learn about the characters, and you can just really keep digging in deeper, every week.

Even as an actor, I think like a storyteller. My parents raised us to look at the script.

I'm still auditioning and doing other movie parts, but I really like the developing and the writing. You have more control over your destiny.

The first time I ever heard professional actors delivering lines that I wrote was completely surreal and was just a gigantic moment in my life. It was just a little bit mind-blowing and completely strange to have something that had been on my computer being said out loud.

I'm more of a writer than an actor, and I used to say that I'm mostly an improviser, though I haven't improvised in awhile.

I love novels, but I'm not a novelist. I'm just a dramatist, which means I write lines for actors. That's all I have ever wanted to do.