Jill Soloway
Jill Soloway
Jill Soloway is an American comedian, playwright, feminist, Emmy-winning television writer, and award-winning director who won the Best Director award at the Sundance Film Festival for directing and writing the film Afternoon Delight. She is also known for her work on Six Feet Under and for creating, writing, executive producing, and directing the Amazon original series Transparent...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth26 September 1965
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
I always wanted to do a family show.
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.
The more horrible the truth that you admit, the better you connect. You have to tell the truth.
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.
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.
If you're female, and you want to express your femininity, you're actually demonized in the 'Free To Be... You And Me' generation.
It's a struggle every day to get people to invest financially in portrayals of women that aren't satisfying to straight white men.
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.
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.
You just have to say over and over again: 'I am a director.' Nobody gives it to you. Nobody anoints you.
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.
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.
To me, it wasn't 'Star Wars' that shaped me; it was more 'Mary Tyler Moore' and, nowadays, 'Louie' and 'Girls.'
Years of my life were lived knowing that I'd get a book out of them one day.