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. I think that when you're close with a sibling, especially a sister, it's a relationship unlike any other.
Zoe KazanIf I was born into a household with anxiety about money, I wouldn't have had as much freedom to be in my own world. So it's impossible for me to divorce the privilege of my childhood from the other things.
Zoe KazanI stopped Googling myself a long time ago. I'm sure there's plenty of misinformation out there, but I am blissfully unaware of it.
Zoe KazanI'm definitely feeling whatever's going on pretty hard. It's like playing Barbies. You're holding the Barbies, but all of the action is happening inside of your head. You might be holding them or even speaking out loud, but really, all of the animation is internal. That's sort of how I feel about my writing. 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.
Zoe KazanI find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew up watching movies and not watching plays.
Zoe KazanI 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.
Zoe KazanI had a real feeling of being fated to be an actor and do my work, and I remember so much speaking up in a room full of people who authentically knew as much or more than me, and feeling like I was absolutely equal, and what I had to say was important.
Zoe KazanI think a large part of an actor's job in preparation is just making the words feel organic to them, and obviously they came out of me, so they felt organic to me already. And then I think then it was all about clearing away all the other voices.
Zoe KazanWell, 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.
Zoe KazanI've worked with a lot of really famous people. It stops being weird really quickly. For me, at least.
Zoe KazanI'm not that interested in writing for myself. That's not where my impetus as a writer comes from.
Zoe KazanI grew up in LA, and I don't think I've seen LA onscreen in a way that felt real to me. There are definitely movies, but they are few and far between. I wanted to see a movie that was set in LA that wasn't about the film industry. LA is such a lonely place to be alone. In New York you can just walk out and be among people. You're on the subway among people, you go to cafés, you can talk to people. In LA, no one talks to each other, you're in your house, you're in your car, even when you take walks there's no one on the street.
Zoe KazanWe 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.
Zoe KazanI 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!
Zoe KazanI was 14, when I wanted to be an actor. My parents were basically like, "This is a very hard life, and you have to be really serious about it, and show us that you're serious about it. You can't drop out of school." They strongly encouraged me not to act professionally until I finished college, which I didn't. And I think they should have been horrified! It's a really hard life. I'd be really scared if I had a child who wanted to be an actor.
Zoe KazanAnytime that I've felt uninspired, I don't force myself to sit down and write. I only do it when I feel the impulse.
Zoe KazanAnd when I get bored, it's like the worst parts of me come out. I really veer to self-destructive tendencies quickly.
Zoe KazanMost adults get to a point in their careers where they feel secure, where they have a body of work behind them that will ensure longevity, and for actors, it's just not like that. You're basically always a temp, going from job to job.
Zoe KazanEvery piece of writing I've done has been something where I feel like I need to get this out of me, whether it's a seed of something personal or an anxiety that turns into a play or an image that's in my mind and haunts me that I'm trying to investigate.
Zoe KazanI grew up with my grandfather [Elia Kazan] being famous in a way that's not like Beyoncé, but famous in a relative way. It made me feel weird about the way that we treat people that are famous, and it made me feel weird about fame in general.
Zoe KazanWhen 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.
Zoe KazanI 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.
Zoe KazanMost of the things I'm talking about are essential human rights. I don't think it should be political to say that children should be able to have lunch at school when their families can't afford to feed them properly, or to say women should have access to basic health care, or that Muslims deserve equal protection under the law, or police shouldn't be killing black people and getting away with it - it shouldn't be a political thing to say. A lot of people on the right standing behind Christian values should be standing with us, because equality is a basic tenet of Christianity.
Zoe KazanI think most actors jump at the chance to do something where the camera's on them all the time.
Zoe KazanI will say they were horrified when I wanted to be an actor. It wasn't a showbiz-y family, and my parents are real introverts who don't go to a lot of Hollywood parties and are most comfortable in their pajamas in our sweet little home. Part of the reason I wanted to be an actor and not just a writer is because I felt much more extroverted than that - I love to be around people, and feed off people's energy, and collaborations. If I hadn't had their example, I wouldn't have been so serious, but I also wouldn't have wanted so much to find another creative outlet.
Zoe KazanWildlife was the only thing we've written together with Paul Dano. It's based on a book by this author Richard Ford, who just published a memoir about his family that's really wonderful. Paul fell in love with his book, and we optioned it ourselves, and he took a first pass at writing it. He asked me for notes, and then our note session devolved into an argument really quickly.
Zoe KazanWhen I would get close on a part but wouldn't get it, I would be like, "They made a mistake," which is not how I think about things now. I both admire it and I'm grateful for the modicum of health, knowledge, and humility that I have acquired over the last 10 or 15 years.
Zoe KazanThere are people a lot smarter than me investigating nature versus nurture who would have a lot to say about that, but I think it's an enormous privilege to be born into a family where my parents had enough time to read to me and listen to my stories and foster my imagination. It's a privilege to have time to investigate your imagination. And not to have, like, an amount of stress on you as a kid that prevents you from maturing creatively.
Zoe KazanI think for acting on stage and in film, one informs the other. Obviously, they require really different kinds of discipline and really different kinds of work. It's more along the same continuum, for me.
Zoe KazanThere 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.
Zoe KazanI don't love the word "quirky." I think it's a word that's a catchall. It's a word that doesn't stand in empathy with the person, it stands in judgment of them. It's a very externalized word.
Zoe KazanLena Dunham or Miranda July, those people are sort of thinking about their work in a slightly different way than I do, where their whole body is a seed of what they're creating. I can't imagine watching Miranda's movies with anybody else playing her role, she's so integral. But for me, it feels more like every story is really individual. If I thought of something else, or thought it should be my body representing it, I'd fold my body into it. But most of the time I'm writing to get something out of my body.
Zoe KazanI wouldn't wear makeup, and I didn't like to let boys open the door for me because I felt like it was sexist.
Zoe KazanYou know, it only happens a handful of times in your career, where you walk out of an audition feeling like all the stars aligned, my preparation paid off, something magical happened in the room. I've gotten really lucky and I've gotten to work a lot, and I would say it's only happened, like, two or three times, where I've walked out and been like, This was the right thing and the right choice and they should just cast me.
Zoe KazanI've gotten incredibly lucky with the people I've gotten to work with. It's made my mind better, and it's made me a better person.
Zoe KazanThere are a lot of words that I knew first as a reader, and I never put the pieces together in my brain. The word segue I thought was pronounced "seeg," I think until I went to college, which is horribly embarrassing.
Zoe KazanI would not wear any clothes that had a brand name on them, and I only read books that were canonical.
Zoe Kazan