All of the most important lessons about writing I learned from my father. He never set out to teach me anything, it would just be something he said casually in conversation.
— Joss Whedon
On one level, I must never lose touch with my audience. But I must, at some point, stop trying to get everybody to like me, and be true to the thing I think I need to say.
Movies were always the goal, but I had a lot of goals. Twelve-year-old me wanted to do everything: act and sing and paint and dance.
My mom is a teacher, my dad was a writer for television, his dad was a writer for television, and combining those two has been sort of the goal of my life.
I was a little bit ashamed of American TV because I thought, 'None of the shows my father works on are as funny as my father.'
That's the great thing about 'The West Wing:' you really felt like you were in the thick of it.
Soon, I will be 'King of all Hollywoodland.'
I love TV in a way that I don't love any other medium.
I love a good romantic comedy.
I respect television in a way that some people who came out of film might not.
I never give up on anything, because you come back around, and suddenly the thing you thought you'd never do is relevant.
Especially, I think, living in any fantasy or science fiction world means really understanding what you're seeing and reading really densely on a level that a lot of people don't bother to read.
The thing with the comics is that you have license to go down every alley your brain can think of.
My mom and dad were divorced, and although they got along very well, my mom thought American television was reprehensible, so I was raised on the BBC. I kind of agreed with her. We watched American news, though.
I don't like uncertainty. I don't play poker. I don't like bluffing.
The fact is some people really love my work, some people not so much, but at the end of the day, I don't want anybody coming out of the movie thinking about me.
My absolute favorite part of Comic-Con is seeing, like, a 'Mass Effect' guy hanging out with a 'Sailor Moon,' and they're just having a great time.
I would like to have as much going on as other people do, but my problem is I get so attached to things, and there's my kids, and I need my sleep, and then there's being married - gotta check in on that, too.
You learn something every time you make a mistake.
I loved teaching and I did a lot of work as a teacher's assistant in college, and my favorite experience was basically getting a laugh from a bunch of people because they had just understood something.
Something like 'Much Ado' happens, and even 'Avengers' happens because of the years of building connections and doing the work and proving yourself.
I kept telling my mom that reading comic books would pay off.
The musicals that I love on stage are generally meant for the stage.
I usually write things in my head before I ever write them down. When I write it out, usually I've already figured out what it is I'm trying to do.
I'm very much more interested in the created family than I am in actual families.
I've been doing Shakespeare readings with my friends for years.
Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women.
I never tire of the heroes that I knew growing up. The fun is not that much different from doing a television show: You're stuck with a certain set of rules, and then, rather than trying to break them, it's just trying to peel away and see what's underneath them. That to me is really fun.
Wonder Woman isn't Spider-man or Batman. She doesn't have a town, she has a world. That was more interesting to me than a kind of contained, rote superhero franchise.
I was very proud of my father, and I admired him, but I always thought he was more interesting than the shows he was working on.
I always want to make sure I'm telling a story about people that I care about.
My dad would go to work every day and write in a room full of funny people. He enjoyed it. I know great writers who find the process agonising but to me, writing has always been sheer joy.
The problem for me is that 'Watchmen,' one of the great comics of all time, is a look at superheroes that has gone beyond the concept of or necessity for superheroes.
I always was an early-morning or late-night writer. Early morning was my favorite; late night was because you had a deadline. And at four in the morning, you make up some of your most absurd jokes.
The Internet community started forming right when 'Buffy' started airing, and the notion of a show creator being anything other than a name people recognize on the screen was completely new.
For me, the act of telling the story and showing it to somebody is almost gravy.
A lot of people who saw 'The Avengers' didn't read comic books, don't like comic book movies, and enjoyed it. That was huge for me.
My deal with Marvel is I have a consulting deal with them as well as a contract to make 'Avengers.' That means I'll read all the scripts, I'll look at cuts.
The more you can create a structure by which people live in a fantastical situation and by which they will act, and the more you lay that out for the audience, the more they will feel at home in it.
I do have screenplays I've written that never saw the light of day, but I don't usually go back to them. When I've told a story, I want to tell another story.
I like to think that I'm a populist entertainer, but I'm a little bit idiosyncratic, and sometimes the networks wouldn't really roll with that.
I've been in this business for a long while, but it's not like I've been waiting tables. Since I started writing, I've only worked on things that I love. I've had a lot of heartbreak, but you don't become an artist and not expect that.
Shakespeare's language does not require a British accent. It requires a facility with language, and that's all.
I'll always protect what I'm working on. Which is why more and more of it is stuff only I can ruin.
I always tend to think just left of center, to remove myself from the world by one step. It is very freeing, and it's a particular way of coming at stories and looking at them that I find the most beautiful stuff that I know comes from, ultimately.
'Buffy' is about growing up. 'Angel' is really about already having grown up, dealing with what you've done, and redemption.
I loved working with 'The Avengers' cast and we had a great time, but it was a job, and they had other commitments during that job, so they would go off and do other things.
What I do like is hiking. And that's what filmmaking is. It's a hike. It's challenging and exhausting, and you don't know what the terrain is going to be or necessarily even which direction you're going in... but it sure is beautiful.
I go to movies expecting to have a whole experience. If I want a movie that doesn't end, I'll go to a French movie. That's a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself; it can't just build off the first one or play variations.
I like Victorian children's novels extremely a lot. If I would say I collect anything, that's what I'll hunt for now and again at old book stores.
