In 'Bojack,' at least at first, we had to couch some of the sadder or weirder or introspective stuff we were doing in the costume of a typical adult animated comedy. With 'Undone,' it felt like we'd outgrown that expectation.
And I love the twist. I love to fool you once, I love to fool you twice, and on the very last page, quite often - very last paragraph sometimes - I like to just play with your perception one more time in a way that makes everything that came before just a little bit different.
I don't know... I don't think you can trust any of Kurt's characters. That's how Mr. Sutter operates: nothing is what it seems.
I want to play Lady Macbeth. I have a big chip on my shoulder about Lady Macbeth. People usually play her as this cold, Greek witch, but there's no evidence of that in the text! I think her intentions are pure.
The fun of being in the pop world is you can really play with people's perceptions of what the word pop means.
As a girl, you're supposed to love Sleeping Beauty. I mean, who wants to love Sleeping Beauty when you can be Aladdin?
With the White Stripes we were trying to trick people into not realising we were playing the blues. We did not want to come off like white kids trying to play black music from 100 years ago so a great way to distract them was by dressing in red, white and black.
A large part of the appeal of this novel when I was lucky enough to stumble across the story idea for 'A Head Full of Ghosts' was that I'd finally be writing a horror novel. In a lot of ways, the book is both my criticism of and love letter to horror.
I think fiction lends itself to messiness rather than the ideal, and plays well with the ironies surrounding what happens versus what should happen.
Artschwager's art always involves looking closely at surfaces, questions what an object is, wants to make you forget the name of the thing you're looking at so that it might mushroom in your mind into something that triggers unexpected infinities.
I personally, as a teenager, didn't like books I felt were trying to preach to me... I did not believe in happy endings. I wanted to read books which reflected life as I thought I knew it.
Since childhood, I have always rooted for the villains. I would wish the villain beat the hero and get away with everything.
I believe that pop culture is just, like, so ready for 'Watchmen.' We tried so hard to ride that wave between satire and reality, and all the things that make you still care about the character, but you don't miss the commentary about them.
It was a reaction to when I was growing up, and women were supposed to be all blonde hair, gold suntan, and pink lips. It was a real black-and-white opposite of what was considered attractive. I was kicking against something I found really oppressive.
I usually dislike second books in series. The only second installment I ever loved was 'The Empire Strikes Back,' and I think that was wonderful because it evolved the characters while not seeming like a bridge.
The subjects that I am working are movies that say something. They are shouting or criticising something. I would hate to play a princess waiting for the prince to come and give her a kiss.
In Shakespeare, unique individuals repudiate the stereotypes demanded by the structure of the play: Shylock commands our sympathy, Barnardine refuses to be hanged. Individuals trump the category.
I like stories that grow, that have unpredictable layers. As opposed to Hollywood movies that start out with a lot of shock and noise and peter out into an unconvincing cliche.
I am very interested in that fine line between fiction and reality and between comedy and tragedy - and pushing the line as much as possible.
It's not easy to craft a novel that gradually erodes the reader's comprehension of the world, of reality and identity and the passage of time.
It feels like we're all so familiar now with the traditional three-act structure that, actually, stories that are more complex, more naughty, that allow for disagreement and discussion, are more interesting to us.
A Black man who acted like John Wayne does in his filmes would be considered a raving maniac.
That's right; I was watching 'From Russia With Love', one of my favourite Bond movies, and suddenly thought that I'd love to see a version of this from Tatiana Romanova's point of view. Or, better yet; what if she was the hero? What if this was her story, and Bond was just a side character?
