I love doing comedy. But sometimes, that exists at sort of the mid-level to the high-comedy level of craziness, and I don't necessarily get to plumb the depths of kind of serious acting as often.
— Janet Varney
Even if you're an optimist, there's some part of you that just tries to toughen up and be pragmatic and go, 'This isn't gonna happen. This isn't gonna happen.' I really felt that way through the process of 'Korra' because I knew 'Avatar,' and I knew how wonderful it was, and I was so terrified.
There is an overarching comedy community, and then there are little comedy community pockets, almost like the way L.A. is structured. You have this grand scope of what Los Angeles is, but within that, there are all of these multi-functioning cities and neighborhoods.
Because I produce a comedy festival and because I write and all of that stuff, I've seen the relationship that actors can create, in a bad way sometimes, with the rest of the people they work with. I just want to be a good representation of, 'Actors are great! They're not what some people might think they are.'
I have such respect and awe for journalists who are able to communicate important information to the masses without sobbing.
It's easy to be silly in real life, but making stuff up onstage, that seemed hard. Better to be the funny person off-the-cuff in the room than to risk being unfunny onstage.
The good thing about being in San Francisco is it's a city that seems to have the flexibility and undefined boundaries.
Just keep the idea in the back of your head: 'I can't control L.A. traffic. I'll leave earlier than I think I need to, and I'll get there when I get there.'
Believe it or not, it actually does rain in L.A. from time to time.
Let's face it: quaintness is creepy.
I do feel like, because my podcast is so specific, I've been really fortunate in that the kind of people it attracts tend to have interests that run with mine.
Los Angeles has been great to me, and I have a home there, and I'm so lucky I get to do what I do for a living. But I did not go down to Los Angeles really even with the intention of staying.
I love interacting with the fans.
I just love the geeky comedy boys! Those are the guys I go for.
I love doing voiceover.
I like to live in a world of unicorns and rainbows where I don't pay attention to anything unless it's positive.
I always say I owe my sense of humor to 'The Muppets' because I didn't necessarily know what was going on when I watched 'The Muppet Show,' and obviously, 'Sesame Street' was made just for me.
Typically, I'm put in high heels and a tight top, which is not my personality at all.
I watch a lot of drama because I do associate comedy with work.
One of the things I've learned in playing a character like Becca from 'You're the Worst' is that there really is such a joy and freedom in behaving badly and in being a character that you do roll your eyes at. She's just so delicious to loathe.
I just want to be Patty McCormack. I want to spend every year aging the way she has.
I never pursued anything in terms of performing comedy until I was in my twenties. I was basically forced into it by a couple of my friends who were starting a sketch troupe and thought I'd be good at it. I was kind of terrified by it, but I gave it a try. I am so grateful to those guys for believing in me and viciously twisting my arm!
It's possible the only thing I love more than working with Gabe Diani and Etta Devine is humiliating myself on film for all to see.
When you're a writer, if you're very lucky, you create these characters that you fall in love with, and you feel like they're guiding you rather than you guiding them.
Pretty much everything I carry with me, I learned I needed the hard way. I sweated, dry-lipped, dry-mouthed, soaked-to-the-skinned my way through all of these lessons.
Marilyn Monroe appeared to be perfect, but she wasn't perfect.
I hope that everyone has the opportunity, whatever their work environment may be, to be surrounded by people that they respect and are inspired by.
I'm just a huge dork, and I hope I always am.
Just doing voices for cartoons is just a dream come true.
I'm always so impressed by people who can just stay super mellow and still be extremely funny.
As me, I couldn't love my cohorts P.J. Byrne and David Faustino more. I just adore them, and any opportunity to be in a room with them is just a kick in the pants; I love it.
I have two pets - a dog and a cat.
Being a teenager is complicated.
I think, coming from an improv/sketch background, I'm just used to having people around me to feed off of and support.
The whole time that I was doing the voice of Korra, I would always joke around saying that nobody's gonna give me a job as an action star or a hero. I just do silly comedy.
In general, the threshold for a woman becoming worried at how she's coming off in terms of asserting her power, that threshold is continually lower than it is for men.
Both my parents were high school teachers, and they were beloved high school teachers, so I constantly meet people through my dad's life where they'd be like, 'Your dad changed my life. He's the reason I became a lawyer. He's the reason I started writing. He's the only reason I stayed in school.'
I have such sister compassion for women in uniform in life, principally, because now I know how incredibly uncomfortable those uniforms are on top of all the other things they're dealing with that are far more important.
I was raised by a dad who has a fantastic sense of humor who raised me on 'The Muppet Show,' Steve Martin movies, and Woody Allen's standup, and he really encouraged me to ham it up from an early age.
Gabriel Diani has been my friend and collaborator for 14 years. He and Etta Devine are two of my favorite people and two of my favorite creative minds.
I wish I felt that I acted like Korra in any part of my life. I really carry around 'Be the leaf' in my head. That's not a character, but it's something from the show that's really impacted my daily life.
I have this weird thing where if I close my eyes, I feel like no one can see me.
Because Comic Con in San Diego is crazy, and it's very commercialized, and it's corporate, and it's all about money and selling, selling, selling... I think people want to go to smaller, specialized cons.
I don't particularly love watching myself on camera.
I had such a sense of purpose when I moved to San Francisco, and the purpose was purely to be in that city, and I was going to figure out the rest.
I love seeing cosplayers, not just of Korra, but anybody.
We're living in this world where we have so much media all the time. We have access to imagery all the time.
To me, the real genius in making television for kids is making something that inadvertently - or perhaps intentionally - becomes something that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.
I always had a pretty serious fascination with fire. Luckily I'm not an arsonist!
I just want Emma Thompson to be my best friend.
