“Of all the mental illnesses, anorexia has the highest morbidity rate. It’s serious.”
― Marti Noxon
“I spent some time in Vegas when I was doing some canvassing for Obama back in 2008.”
― Marti Noxon
“That’s a big part of the process: making the right choice from the beginning. Not getting distracted by shiny things.”
― Marti Noxon
“The problem with generalizations and judgments, the words we hurl as insults, is that they deny our humanity and our stories.”
― Marti Noxon
“I digested this value system that told me there was no one for me unless I reached a certain type of perfection. And as you get older, you realize that ideal is constantly changing.”
― Marti Noxon
“I think many people expend a tremendous amount of energy on self-loathing and self-flagellation as well as getting caught in a vicious cycle of dieting and gaining the weight back.”
― Marti Noxon
“For me, the interesting thing about anorexia is that you show your wound. There’s no hiding it. So my anger and sense of disappointment, all the stuff I was out of touch with, became this visible rebuke to my parents.”
― Marti Noxon
“Around 10, I got chubby. I knew I’d crossed a line when the only pants that fit were from the ‘Junior Plenty’ line at JC Penny. My parents had split up, my mom was going through a dark time, and my brother and I were getting bullied in our new neighborhood. Life was big and unsafe.”
― Marti Noxon
“One of the good things about consulting is that you leave the writers’ room for a couple of days, things progress, you come back, and you might have a fresher take.”
― Marti Noxon
“I realized all the writing I love lives in the gray area.”
― Marti Noxon
“I can’t be interesting, controversial, and the writer I’d like to be if I need everybody to like me and think I’m doing the right thing, because those two things, in my experience, never go hand in hand.”
― Marti Noxon
“The status quo is never happy when things become a meritocracy.”
― Marti Noxon
“It’s interesting because the first batch of really struggling with control and escape and all that happened when I was nearing adolescence, and the second one came with the onset of early menopause.”
― Marti Noxon
“If there’s a theme to where I’m at in my life, it’s that ‘warts and all’ is actually my superpower. Just like you, I’m messed up and I’m capable. I’m this and that.”
― Marti Noxon
“That went on for a long time: telling various tales from my experience being anorexic and bulimic, and having people say, ‘You’ve got to write this; you are a writer,’ and me not knowing how to approach the material.”
― Marti Noxon
“So many of the indie movies that get made are not about topics that touch millions and millions of people.”
― Marti Noxon
“Seeing Donald Trump run for and then win the presidency only enhanced my commitment to helping people free themselves from ridiculous body standards and disordered eating so they can use their gifts for more fulfilling things, like being of service and enjoying this beautiful world.”
― Marti Noxon
“The reason I fell in love with Buffy was because of the ambiguity, because she was a superhero and a hot mess. I hadn’t seen anything like her on TV – ever.”
― Marti Noxon
“The bane of every TV writer’s existence is the likability note.”
― Marti Noxon
“Sometimes when I’m reading a script, I can’t quite believe that this is going on television alongside cereal commercials.”
― Marti Noxon
“Being an aging woman in Hollywood is no picnic.”
― Marti Noxon
“There’s this idea that Hollywood sells over and over again: ‘If I just looked more like this, I’d be accepted.’”
― Marti Noxon
“There’s no shape or body type that makes you more happy or more lovable. It’s the body you’re comfortable in that makes you happier and more lovable. I look around and see how women and men of all types find the love and the life they want.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’m pretty proud of my pie crust. I think I’ve finally learned how to manhandle it just enough.”
― Marti Noxon
“My dad had made a documentary called ‘The Dream Factory’ about MGM, and my whole life, I just wanted to be inside it. And there I was.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’m lucky to be alive. It’s a blessing to tell my story, you know.”
― Marti Noxon
“There’s a brain chemistry – the floatiness and the disassociation and all the things that came with starving – I became addicted to.”
― Marti Noxon
“I encourage people and their different points of view.”
― Marti Noxon
“I did, of course, do research about what the current state of affairs is in terms of the eating disorder community and who’s being affected, and I was surprised to see that – something that was – way back when I was in the thick of it, it was typified as a fairly white, middle-class girl problem. And if it was, it really isn’t anymore.”
― Marti Noxon
“Like everbody, I’m addicted to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’”
― Marti Noxon
“I’ll be honest: I had a real deep-seated fear that ‘Buffy’ was going to be my peak. It was such a beautiful experience. It was such a fully realized show.”
― Marti Noxon
“There are certain shows or people that I would love to work with. One of the greatest things about our business is that if you get to fan out on people you might actually get to meet.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’ve grown and changed, and I’m still making television and movies that I feel really proud of.”
― Marti Noxon
“Ever since I worked on ‘Buffy’, it’s always helped me to find a genre container for something, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is where the movie melodrama has gone to. It’s gone to YA.’”
― Marti Noxon
“If you made a movie of ‘Sharp Objects,’ chances are that it would be a smaller film, but as a TV show, it can reach a lot of people.”
― Marti Noxon
“It’s funny: I’ve joked that ‘Sharp Objects,’ ‘To the Bone,’ and ‘Dietland’ are my self-harm trilogy, and each one is a different side of that triangle, with ‘Dietland’ really about fighting back.”
― Marti Noxon
“You can’t ever create defensively. You just have to create the next thing that really speaks to you.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’m so excited to be part of the environment that David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Marcy Ross have built at Skydance.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’ve been looking for a versatile and writer-driven home that could help me bring more complex, exciting, and potentially murderous characters to television – and the team at Skydance is the ideal partner for that.”
― Marti Noxon
“I really understand that we have to be sensitive to people’s feelings and to their sensitivities, but you also can’t be muzzled to tell a story.”
― Marti Noxon
“I think the science around mental illness is always evolving. There’s always new kinds of thinking.”
― Marti Noxon
“When every word is parsed for ill intention, regardless of who is speaking or why, we become so afraid we’ll offend that we stop trying to communicate with people we don’t understand.”
― Marti Noxon
“I know a lot about words. I get paid to write stories, so I get to talk with people about the meaning behind words all day.”
― Marti Noxon
“’What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ not only applies to the deeply personal subject matter of ‘To the Bone’ but to simply getting a film about people with eating disorders made. Without the brilliant Julie Lynn, Bonnie Curtis, and Karina Miller producing, there’s no way this project would be coming to fruition.”
― Marti Noxon
“I had been anorexic for about five years. And I was really sick. I probably weighed about 70 pounds.”
― Marti Noxon
“I always joke that I’m a feminist with a boob job.”
― Marti Noxon
“On ‘Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce,’ we have a mandate to hire as many women as possible, but particularly on a show that is about women and about progressive issues like that.”
― Marti Noxon
“When you’re allowed to tell stories with ambiguity and darkness and things that are still unresolved, that’s the dream scenario as opposed to having to fit into a more procedural mode or something a little more conventional. That’s not what’s working on TV right now.”
― Marti Noxon
“I don’t like characters who are either good or bad. I just don’t experience that in life, so my writing hasn’t evolved that way.”
― Marti Noxon
“It all starts with a very solid, well-executed script, where the story is very clear and everybody is rowing in the same direction. That’s always good; that’s a constant.”
― Marti Noxon
“When I was going to get ready to take ‘Dietland’ up, I have to say I was surprised to find that I felt like maybe we wouldn’t find a home for it because it’s unlike anything else that I’ve done.”
― Marti Noxon
“You really can’t quantify what ‘Dietland’ is.”
― Marti Noxon
“I think I’ve also grown a little bit in that I’m not so easily dissuaded if I really believe something.”
― Marti Noxon
“A show can be completely dead before you even get on the air. I’ve been privy to a couple of those.”
― Marti Noxon
“I think there’s a good-er divorce. I think that’s absolutely possible. There’s a better way to do it and everything in between, and then, of course, there’s the disastrous way to do it.”
― Marti Noxon
“I think my biggest problem as a creative person trying to work within a business for profit was that it was very important to me that people liked me. Over the years, observing other showrunners who made work that I so admired, I realized that that had to go. This couldn’t be my first priority. My first priority had to be the work.”
― Marti Noxon
“Eating disorders are A) not fun at parties, and B) they’re not very fun in movies.”
― Marti Noxon
“When people are like, ”UnREAL’ is so dark,’ I’m like, ‘Hahahahahahahahahaha! Wait ’til you get to ‘Sharp Objects.””
― Marti Noxon
“Any press is good press.”
― Marti Noxon
“There’re been sort of a sea change in my work in general, in that the more personal, the universal it’s become.”
― Marti Noxon
“In ‘UnREAL’, for me, just being so openly feminist, just being so overtly, like, ‘This show is about women who are not necessarily likable, doing a job that is despicable, and we are not going to be afraid of that.’”
― Marti Noxon
“You should live hoping you are going to offend people, because then you’re doing something.”
― Marti Noxon
“Can’t write worrying what the Internet’s going to think.”
― Marti Noxon
“Keanu has such generosity and intelligence, not to mention a warmth that I’m eager to tap into. We’re all incredibly excited that he’s agreed to help us bring ‘To the Bone’ to life.”
― Marti Noxon
“With everything I do, I strive for a balance of tone, where it’s not just one thing.”
― Marti Noxon
“I love characters who are really dedicated to a really bad plan.”
― Marti Noxon
“I think we’re in a time when people are much more interested in a show than where you find it.”
― Marti Noxon
“We did have ‘The Bronze’, a very active website on ‘Buffy’ where we got a lot of feedback and post-game discussion. But now it’s important to be engaged in the discussion while the show is airing and right after.”
― Marti Noxon
“Scenes on phones are really boring!”
― Marti Noxon
“I bemoaned the pending loss of Obamacare/the Affordable Care Act.”
― Marti Noxon
“Too many people will die needlessly if we go back to letting people buy junk insurance or insurance that doesn’t help people with diseases related to mental illness.”
― Marti Noxon
“’Just’ writing is every bit as important as any other creative part of a film.”
― Marti Noxon
“Being the director – way fancier than ‘just’ being the writer. People call you ‘talent.’”
― Marti Noxon
“On ‘Sex and The City’, when Carrie talked about money problems, I would always think, ‘Sell your shoes!’”
― Marti Noxon
“I’m such a type A doer myself that if someone said I had a month off, I think I’d go crazy and try to organize the vacation resort!”
― Marti Noxon
“I think women can relate to the feeling that we’re internalizing too many demands, and we’re trying to be good at everything, but one day, we’re going to snap.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’m a big believer in ‘Trojan horses’ – There are certain themes that are more palatable when wrapped in something fun or distracting.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’m a huge fan of Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Near Dark.’”
― Marti Noxon
“The dream of doing what I do started with watching movies by Mr. Spielberg, like ‘Close Encounters,’ ‘Poltergeist,’ and ‘E.T.’ That was the beginning of my obsession.”
― Marti Noxon
“When you work in television, it’s an isolating experience. You rarely ever get to watch it with an audience.”
― Marti Noxon
“I certainly often go to a movie and don’t remember exactly what the trailer had in it, except that it looked cool.”
― Marti Noxon
“Test audiences are notorious for getting kind of itchy when people talk too much, and you have to trust your instincts that they don’t necessarily understand that you’re not digesting the movie on a scene-by-scene basis.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’ve never had as much success as when I say to myself, ‘I get that. I know what the feelings that that character would be going through would be like. I can feel a through line from beginning to end.’”
― Marti Noxon
“I love being in a public space where teenagers are talking. And the funny thing is that it hasn’t changed that much. There’s certainly slang that I’m not familiar with, but among the average teen, it’s still the same.”
― Marti Noxon
“The great thing about the story of ‘Twilight’, or the story of ‘I Am Number Four’ is that you get to deal with real issues of identity and what people are going through and the choice of who you’re going to be, but it’s all large.”
― Marti Noxon
“I thought about being an actor, and I thought about directing, but writing truly became something I needed to do just to stay sane.”
― Marti Noxon
“A great thing, which I don’t do enough, is to take a break from producing and try to just take stuff in, like go to the theater.”
― Marti Noxon
“I was raised by a lesbian feminist who told me that shaving my legs was giving into the patriarchy. So, I consider myself to be a bona fide feminist.”
― Marti Noxon
“The truth is there’s a difference between the competition shows where you’re testing skills and the type of shows where you’re trying to create drama.”
― Marti Noxon
“The best feeling you can ever have when you’re working on a show is that the characters are still inside you, and they have a lot left to do.”
― Marti Noxon
“Women want to watch the dark stuff.”
― Marti Noxon
“The thing that can happen in a TV room is you can get ‘teamthink’: you can all go down a crazy path together.”
― Marti Noxon
“Sometimes I say working on a story in a writers’ room is like saying the same word over and over and over again until it doesn’t make sense anymore. Like, you say it until you don’t know what you’re saying.”
― Marti Noxon
“It’s so politically incorrect to make a character gay and then make them ‘un-gay’ again. Like, once you become gay, you’ve crossed over, or you’re not allowed to be a person who doesn’t want to be defined by a label like that.”
― Marti Noxon
“I’ve watched my fair share of ‘Housewives.’ And I just felt a little dirty afterwards.”
― Marti Noxon
“Not proud. But I watched ‘The Bachelor’ only once, and I really felt, after that experience, that I could never do it again. I felt it was so morally compromising, as a woman.”
― Marti Noxon
“It’s humiliating, being told you’re not responsible enough to make your own choices in life.”
― Marti Noxon
“You can be a sophisticated person and still have really old ideas about what love is supposed to look like.”
― Marti Noxon
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