“Being pretty… I’m just confused about it. I mean, I love getting my nails done, but I also like dressing like a boy. I think I feel most myself when I’m mixing femininity and masculinity. Like, fifty-fifty.”
― Jill Soloway
“When I write, I lose time. I’m happy in a way that I have a hard time finding in real life. The intimacy between my brain and my fingers and my computer… Yet knowing that that intimacy will find an audience… It’s very satisfying. It’s like having the safety of being alone with the ego reward of being known.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’ve noticed that women are always punished for their sexuality in popular culture.”
― Jill Soloway
“My purpose as an artist is to heal the divided feminine in our culture. Well, okay wait, that sounds incredibly cheesy and like something a massage therapist might do at Esalen.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’m always going for truth and honesty.”
― Jill Soloway
“When you’re making an independent film, it’s like this actor plus this actor equals this funding, this financing. Pull this actor out, this actor is still here but this money’s gone. It’s this frightening puzzle mosaic that is the world of independent film.”
― Jill Soloway
“Guys, there’s only one thing I hate more than bloggers who start sentences with ‘guys’ – and it’s those mealy-mouth hipsters who crochet codpieces and their ye-olde-sideburned friends who pickle stuff and slaughter their own gluten-free goats.”
― Jill Soloway
“I really like writing television, and I like the collaborative writers room feeling. It’s ten people, and you’re together every day laughing your heads off.”
― Jill Soloway
“My interest in community is what fuels my work as a writer, more than just wanting to write or just wanting to have a TV show.”
― Jill Soloway
“I think I’ve always had that struggle my whole life, of feeling a little bit more gender-neutral, feeling more comfortable as a creative person when I’m dressed like a boy, when I’m dressed more masculine.”
― Jill Soloway
“It’s really easy to be funny. You get a lot of funny people in a room, the show is funny.”
― Jill Soloway
“It’s really easy to do sad; you just put on some sad music and write dramatically – everybody can do that.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’m constantly confused about how to dress.”
― Jill Soloway
“I love TV, I love writing, but I love movements more.”
― Jill Soloway
“In most shows, there’s usually a hero or a protagonist, and even if there are multiple heroes or protagonists, most shows try and make it so you really always know who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy.”
― Jill Soloway
“Watching ‘Girls,’ it was really angering for me at first, because I really had spent decades hiding unlikable, unattractive Jewish girls in likable, attractive, non-Jewish actors and characters.”
― Jill Soloway
“I guess a show like ‘Entourage’ would be wish fulfillment, right? But ‘Entourage’ is wish fulfillment for men. It’s that you can be kind of schlumpy-looking and have access to someone famous and find yourself at a pool party surrounded by girls in bikinis.”
― Jill Soloway
“Independent filmmakers already have their heads around people on their couches watching their movies.”
― Jill Soloway
“Normally, I think the people you would use on your first film, it would be a real struggle to bring them with you onto your television show. I just brought every single person with and expanded my little indie film world.”
― Jill Soloway
“We’re a whole culture of people who have a really hard time seeing beyond themselves.”
― Jill Soloway
“There’s always been something about Jeffrey Tambor, not only as an actor but as a person, where his ability to embody a sort of very dignified feminine way of being just – this was just very clear to me.”
― Jill Soloway
“I always wanted to do a family show.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’ve always been really interested in how people’s identities are shaped by where they come from and how they want to get away from where they come from.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’ve always been really interested in secrets – how people find ways of doing things without telling anyone else in order to keep themselves feeling safe in the world.”
― Jill Soloway
“People who don’t have experience setting healthy boundaries, they have secrets instead.”
― Jill Soloway
“My sister and I created a show called ‘The Real Life Brady Bunch,’ which was sort of a theatrical sensation that got us attention in L.A. and New York.”
― Jill Soloway
“After ‘Nikki’ and ‘Steve Harvey,’ I had written on a show called ‘The Oblongs,’ which was pretty well respected and had a lot of ‘Simpsons’ writers on it. So I was a TV writer with an interesting voice at that moment.”
― Jill Soloway
“’Six Feet Under,’ for me, was college. Alan Ball and Alan Poul ran that show and really taught me what it meant to really run a show in a classic way.”
― Jill Soloway
“Something I’ve really been wanting to do, ever since ‘Six Feet Under’ ended, was create my own version of this idealized writer’s room as well as the ideal family.”
― Jill Soloway
“I took all my TV experience and what I learned about – by writing and directing and bringing a movie to Sundance – about the realities of the independent film market: ‘Transparent’ is the marriage of those two situations.”
― Jill Soloway
“I always love the soapy conflicts between somebody’s family of origin and their new family – ‘Do I have Thanksgiving at my husband’s parents’ house, or at my parents’ house?’”
― Jill Soloway
“Normally, you cast a pilot, and you have to make compromises about being political about who you cast.”
― Jill Soloway
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that ‘Alpha House’ or ‘Betas’ embodied a particular vision of Amazon of the kind of brand or programming they were gonna do. I think those were the first lucky creators who hit it right for them.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’ve been writing about misogyny for 20 years and trying to understand what femininity means for my entire career.”
― Jill Soloway
“If you’re female, and you want to express your femininity, you’re actually demonized in the ‘Free To Be… You And Me’ generation.”
― Jill Soloway
“I really relate to the feeling of falling in love 10 times a day and wishing I could never stop falling in love.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’m a fan of Louis C.K., I’m a fan of Lena Dunham. I love shows about people that other people would consider unlikable, or, like, the work of Woody Allen and Albert Brooks.”
― Jill Soloway
“I love a kind of shambling outsider protagonist who always feels like they’re ‘other.’”
― Jill Soloway
“When I went to Sundance for ‘Afternoon Delight,’ I came back feeling like I wanted to take my experience that I learned from directing and bring that into a series.”
― Jill Soloway
“My sister and I are incredibly close, and we created together from childhood through the time we spent in Chicago at the Annoyance Theatre.”
― Jill Soloway
“There’s something about the kind of unconditional wild joy of creating that you have with your siblings that I am always trying to get back to.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’m a naturally open person – some might say radically open.”
― Jill Soloway
“So many features at Sundance seemed to be powered more on the director’s need to be a director than any particular story.”
― Jill Soloway
“I used to think that, when I was a director, I would have a very specific vision of what everything would look like, but now I am more of a camp counselor.”
― Jill Soloway
“At East Side Jews, we can take a risk because it isn’t all about the rules. I started it to create a space for all those people who wouldn’t go to temple because they were scared of getting the rules wrong.”
― Jill Soloway
“What I have to offer as a writer/director is the stuff with the feeling in it.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’ve been playing with this idea in my mind that the hero’s journey that we’re all taught as screenwriters may resonate more specifically for male protagonists and maybe even male viewers.”
― Jill Soloway
“If there’s a woman who is exhibiting her femininity or performing her femininity, it’s always seen as meant to pull in the male gaze.”
― Jill Soloway
“Femininity in and of itself – and the feminine – can be not only privileged, but honored or worshipped.”
― Jill Soloway
“I really feel like becoming a director came from other women saying, ‘Yeah, you can do this.’ I wanted to direct ‘Six Feet Under,’ and no, they didn’t let me.”
― Jill Soloway
“I think, because of the Internet, we’re not looking at the very, very narrow channels for distribution that there used to be.”
― Jill Soloway
“Whether you’re writing television or movies, at some point you’re going to encounter a male executive or investor who’s going to say, ‘I don’t like that woman. She’s unlikable.’ And often, it’s literally for being a regular human woman as opposed to an attracting human woman.”
― Jill Soloway
“It’s a struggle every day to get people to invest financially in portrayals of women that aren’t satisfying to straight white men.”
― Jill Soloway
“If you’re in a room and can be seen by actors, you need to understand that you can be felt by them.”
― Jill Soloway
“Most people privilege the technology, almost as if actors are in service to the machine.”
― Jill Soloway
“On some sets, if a helicopter goes by, what would normally happen is that somebody would go, ‘There’s a helicopter. Stop.’ I’d never stop for a helicopter. I am always trying to make sure that the machine is in service to the actors.”
― Jill Soloway
“For me to be able to punch above my weight creatively, to actually take a stand for what I was doing, I had to take on everything. I had to be the person who says, ‘I wrote it. I directed it.’”
― Jill Soloway
“For me, when I’m not working, the day goes by so fast. I never have enough time – getting a manicure, getting a pedicure, getting my workout in, making sure that I ate healthy. Those things can become treacherous to the mind.”
― Jill Soloway
“Perfection would be something that you see in ‘Architectural Digest.’”
― Jill Soloway
“Every project is a race between your enthusiasm and your ability to get it done. Go fast. Don’t slow down. A year from now, new things will interest you.”
― Jill Soloway
“From the moment you say ‘action,’ this is the fun part – things should happen that surprise you, excite you, scare you, turn you on, make you laugh. If things aren’t surprising you, when you say ‘cut,’ whisper things to the actors that will make them do things that do surprise you.”
― Jill Soloway
“Your first job, I tell people I mentor, is managing your affect. Be nice and say nice things. Make it so that the people walk away from interacting with you and say, ‘That was fun.’ That will make them want to come back and do it again.”
― Jill Soloway
“You must speak the vision of your project in a way that convinces people to pay for it. If they won’t pay for it, that is the artist’s fault. It is my fault. It is your fault. It is not the executive’s fault or the world’s.”
― Jill Soloway
“To me, it wasn’t ‘Star Wars’ that shaped me; it was more ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ and, nowadays, ‘Louie’ and ‘Girls.’”
― Jill Soloway
“The network shows have this very commercial voice that you have to adhere to, and the cable shows, it’s kind of like winning the lottery. The independent film world is a world you can actually get to. You can get the under-a-million-dollar film by finding a good cast and financing.”
― Jill Soloway
“I think of myself as a producer. As a producer and as a showrunner, I already understand what it meant to gather people into a room and step back, to create the boundaries of ‘everything’s okay’ to allow TV writers to go to their craziest places.”
― Jill Soloway
“I just feel like content is content; people want to see it resonate.”
― Jill Soloway
“Getting into Sundance is a certain sort of passport to a level of anxiety I’ve never experienced, even having had a baby in the NICU for a week. For about ten minutes, you’re a world-class director. Then you become an entry-level, harried, low level concierge with absolutely no juice.”
― Jill Soloway
“The first time that I saw people actually make the thing that I wrote was my first episode of ‘Six Feet Under.’ It was called ‘Back To The Garden.’”
― Jill Soloway
“I am beyond excited to share ‘Transparent’ with the world through Amazon. They’ve been so supportive through this incredible process.”
― Jill Soloway
“The more horrible the truth that you admit, the better you connect. You have to tell the truth.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’m embarrassed that people will know that I can’t ride a bicycle. For years, I have been feigning bad ankles and saying I wasn’t in the mood for a bike ride.”
― Jill Soloway
“Some of you guys are going to boo, but I’m going to say it anyway. I don’t like dogs.”
― Jill Soloway
“I was the kind of Jew who’d be in a bar, somebody would say it’s Yom Kippur, and I’d go, ‘Really?’”
― Jill Soloway
“I noticed that people were craving a way of reinterpreting tradition and of being Jewish without joining a synagogue.”
― Jill Soloway
“I was running the show on ‘United States of Tara’ and ‘How To Make It In America’ where I could say, ‘Okay, I’m in charge of everything now.’ But it still wasn’t my show.”
― Jill Soloway
“I always wanted to find my voice and claim my tone, but I was doing it through the steps of being a TV writer. I had the executive producer title. I was running the room.”
― Jill Soloway
“We grew up watching Woody Allen and Albert Brooks movies, and we see this neurotic, annoying, unlikeable male at the center of a story, and people root for him anyway. I think that’s really what we have been craving as women is the hero who doesn’t look perfect and doesn’t act perfectly.”
― Jill Soloway
“The inbox is always open in my brain, and anyone can get in any time and access me. Turning it off is taking back control. I decide who gets in. It’s about emotional privacy, having a self.”
― Jill Soloway
“I like to create a community where people want to come and have a good time and do their best work.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’m very aware that just driving blindly towards money won’t get me anything. I drive blindly towards making the world a better place.”
― Jill Soloway
“As much as possible, I put my family first.”
― Jill Soloway
“You just have to say over and over again: ‘I am a director.’ Nobody gives it to you. Nobody anoints you.”
― Jill Soloway
“A lot of the people I know connect through working. We’re all so ambitious. Sometimes my friends will say, ‘I want to hang out with you.’ And I just go, ‘Well, let’s do a project together.’ That’s the only way I can.”
― Jill Soloway
“It’s hard enough to be a lady writer. Doubly hard to be a funny lady writer.”
― Jill Soloway
“I’m a minimalist Jew, but on Friday night, I celebrate Shabbat. At sundown, we light candles, say the blessing, and I don’t turn on my computer for 24 hours.”
― Jill Soloway
“I love the Army-Navy surplus store Surplus Value Center. They have really good long underwear and multicolored bandanas, cool camo jackets, and really, really scary-looking knives. If you’re into that sort of thing.”
― Jill Soloway
“On Sunday morning, it’s Brooklyn Bagels on Beverly Boulevard. We get them hot. Then we walk some of the famous Silver Lake steps or hike in the hills to the highest vantage point to see the reservoir.”
― Jill Soloway
“For clothes, I like this little store on Fountain, Matrushka Construction. Beth Ann Whittaker and Laura Howe make amazing things. You can get a designer skirt with cool embroidery for 40 bucks instead of $400 or $4,000.”
― Jill Soloway
“If you can laugh with your friends over something, you own it.”
― Jill Soloway
“Years of my life were lived knowing that I’d get a book out of them one day.”
― Jill Soloway
“All writing is propaganda for the self.”
― Jill Soloway
“I don’t think it’s a contradiction to find painfulness funny.”
― Jill Soloway
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