Filmmakers, Musicians & Artists discuss their Creative Process
Where does our intuition come from? How are lifelong creative partnerships formed and what role do friendship and personal connection play? How do our personal lives influence the art we make?
Screenwriter · Exec. Producer · Showrunner
Creator of Hulu's Tell Me Lies · Queen America
Often when people write or make movies about romances with young adults, I think they are very flippant about it and don't take it seriously. But I think that those friendships and romantic relationships are some of the most important ones because they really set the stage for the rest of our lives. If your first relationship is incredibly toxic and damaging, it can take you years to figure out that that's not normal, and that that's not actually how relationships are meant to be.
Actress · Artist · Director · Producer · Writer
House M.D. · Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce · Little Bird
I have always thrown myself into everything, and that includes terrible things, because I want to have the whole experience. Even if I know it's going to hurt for better or for worse, that has been how I've lived my life. And so it's given me a lot of information and allowed me to play a lot of different roles and understand a lot of different points of view. I think part of the beauty of being in a long-running television show is that, in season one, you're playing the role they wrote. By season two, they're writing the person you're playing. You start to build your voice, and they start to merge, and so by the time you get to season three, you're much more like full human beings having this dialogue.
Actress · Artist · Director · Producer · Writer
House M.D. · Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce · Little Bird
I have always thrown myself into everything, and that includes terrible things, because I want to have the whole experience. Even if I know it's going to hurt for better or for worse, that has been how I've lived my life. And so it's given me a lot of information and allowed me to play a lot of different roles and understand a lot of different points of view. I think part of the beauty of being in a long-running television show is that, in season one, you're playing the role they wrote. By season two, they're writing the person you're playing. You start to build your voice, and they start to merge, and so by the time you get to season three, you're much more like full human beings having this dialogue.
"I don't know why we would really want to tell stories without being connected to the meaning. And I think that's especially for women, but I do think for human beings, that is how we can work as hard and be able to get up the next morning and keep going. Because we are working through the meaning, and it feeds us as we're like making sense of it all, trying to make sense of it, and for being in community and communion.” - Kate Mueth
”What we've done today is we've made everything so fast and so easy that I think there's something to the creative process about it being a little bit more of an exploration than it is wham bam, it's done. Let's go have lunch. And I think there is something to the creative process where it's allowed to develop. It's called process because it is a process. I'm always glad to just relax in the creative process, and I'm always very grateful for that. I think it's why I do so much indie film because it's really fun.” -Catherine Curtin
"I don't know why we would really want to tell stories without being connected to the meaning. And I think that's especially for women, but I do think for human beings, that is how we can work as hard and be able to get up the next morning and keep going. Because we are working through the meaning, and it feeds us as we're like making sense of it all, trying to make sense of it, and for being in community and communion.” - Kate Mueth
”What we've done today is we've made everything so fast and so easy that I think there's something to the creative process about it being a little bit more of an exploration than it is wham bam, it's done. Let's go have lunch. And I think there is something to the creative process where it's allowed to develop. It's called process because it is a process. I'm always glad to just relax in the creative process, and I'm always very grateful for that. I think it's why I do so much indie film because it's really fun.” -Catherine Curtin
Tony & Emmy Award-Winning Actress · Conservationist
Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts 1993-97
I did not seek out these roles like All the President's Men. I know that I was very interested in social and political issues from childhood. I don't know whether there was something in me that translated that I was politically and socially conscious when I was a young actress because these roles came to me. I didn't go out begging for them. And I was so grateful to have them because I thought they had a depth to them.
Tony & Emmy Award-Winning Actress, Conservationist, Author
Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts 1993-97
I did not seek out these roles like All the President's Men. I know that I was very interested in social and political issues from childhood. I don't know whether there was something in me that translated that I was politically and socially conscious when I was a young actress because these roles came to me. I didn't go out begging for them. And I was so grateful to have them because I thought they had a depth to them.
President of Mad Solar · Creative Confidante & Industry Catalyst for Scott Mescudi a.k.a. Kid Cudi
Exec. Producer: Entergalactic starring Mescudi, Jessica Williams & Timothée Chalamet
Pearl · X starring Mia Goth
And what was so moving was when we went into Netflix to the theater to screen the finished product for the first time. You're sitting there and at the end of it, Scott was crying, and I looked over - it made me cry low-key - but Scott was crying and he said – This completely blows my mind because this is the first time I had a vision up here in my head and tried to express it, and then had to trust all 300 plus people, all around the world, working in different time zones, in different places, and each of them putting a hand to it and seeing exactly that vision. And then watching the product, and it is the best version of anything I could have ever possibly had in my head.
So, to us, that's the purest, most beautiful... Again, how fortunate that every hand was moving in tandem and moving in lockstep, and all of it. But that was the beauty of collaboration, this opportunity for a small vision to touch so many hands and become the big vision.
President of Mad Solar · Creative Confidante & Industry Catalyst for Scott Mescudi a.k.a. Kid Cudi
Exec. Producer: Entergalactic starring Mescudi, Jessica Williams & Timothée Chalamet
Pearl · X starring Mia Goth
And what was so moving was when we went into Netflix to the theater to screen the finished product for the first time. You're sitting there and at the end of it, Scott was crying, and I looked over - it made me cry low-key - but Scott was crying and he said – This completely blows my mind because this is the first time I had a vision up here in my head and tried to express it, and then had to trust all 300 plus people, all around the world, working in different time zones, in different places, and each of them putting a hand to it and seeing exactly that vision. And then watching the product, and it is the best version of anything I could have ever possibly had in my head.
So, to us, that's the purest, most beautiful... Again, how fortunate that every hand was moving in tandem and moving in lockstep, and all of it. But that was the beauty of collaboration, this opportunity for a small vision to touch so many hands and become the big vision.
Claudia Forestieri (Creator) & Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz (Showrunner)
Gordita Chronicles
When you immigrate, it's kind of like you're going through adolescence because you're in a new place. You feel weird in your own skin. You're learning new things. Everything is changing. You feel awkward. So that also helped us connect the adult stories to the children's stories.
Claudia Forestieri (Creator) & Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz (Showrunner)
Gordita Chronicles
When you immigrate, it's kind of like you're going through adolescence because you're in a new place. You feel weird in your own skin. You're learning new things. Everything is changing. You feel awkward. So that also helped us connect the adult stories to the children's stories.
Creator, Executive Producer & Showrunner of Minx
starring Ophelia Lovibond & Jake Johnson
What drew me to the time period of the 70s was the real story of these magazines Playgirl, Viva, Foxy Lady, all the magazines that existed in this period. So it was a natural outgrowth of trying to tell a story that was inspired by, to some extent, real-life events. When I started developing Minx, what struck me about the 70s, in particular, is just how similar it was to our time. It seems like the magazines were covering all the same issues that we're now talking about. Obviously, we all saw with the leaked decision in Roe vs. Wade just how close we are to that time period and how far we haven't come.
Creator, Executive Producer & Showrunner of Minx
starring Ophelia Lovibond & Jake Johnson
What drew me to the time period of the 70s was the real story of these magazines Playgirl, Viva, Foxy Lady, all the magazines that existed in this period. So it was a natural outgrowth of trying to tell a story that was inspired by, to some extent, real-life events. When I started developing Minx, what struck me about the 70s, in particular, is just how similar it was to our time. It seems like the magazines were covering all the same issues that we're now talking about. Obviously, we all saw with the leaked decision in Roe vs. Wade just how close we are to that time period and how far we haven't come.
Emmy-Nominated Showrunner, Executive Producer & Writer of iCarly
What we deal more in the second season with how your online persona and your real-life persona sometimes can't help but be at odds with one another. In the first episode back we get into how women are treated, how women in relationships are treated online. In a later episode, we deal with how women are or are not allowed to express their anger online as content creators. So it’s something we talked a lot about in the room. That fracturing of self, that even in a goofy show that's very lighthearted and entertaining, it’s something that we do discuss and try to sneak little tidbits in there.
Emmy-Nominated Showrunner, Executive Producer & Writer of iCarly
What we deal more in the second season with how your online persona and your real-life persona sometimes can't help but be at odds with one another. In the first episode back we get into how women are treated, how women in relationships are treated online. In a later episode, we deal with how women are or are not allowed to express their anger online as content creators. So it’s something we talked a lot about in the room. That fracturing of self, that even in a goofy show that's very lighthearted and entertaining, it’s something that we do discuss and try to sneak little tidbits in there.
Executive Producer of Television, Feature Films & Documentaries
Hulu’s The Great starring Elle Fanning & Nicholas Hoult
As a filmmaker, what you are selling and your primary asset is yourself, so the clearer you are about yourself, the clearer you can “play yourself”, the more effective you’re going to be in expressing the ideas that you are particularly gifted to do. So that clarity of voice is as important for a writer or a director or producer as it is for a performer or a musician or anybody else. You want to find the best version of yourself and that is about recognizing when those moments of clarity are there and when they are not.
Executive Producer of Television, Feature Films & Documentaries
Hulu’s The Great starring Elle Fanning & Nicholas Hoult
As a filmmaker, what you are selling and your primary asset is yourself, so the clearer you are about yourself, the clearer you can “play yourself”, the more effective you’re going to be in expressing the ideas that you are particularly gifted to do. So that clarity of voice is as important for a writer or a director or producer as it is for a performer or a musician or anybody else. You want to find the best version of yourself and that is about recognizing when those moments of clarity are there and when they are not.
Tema Staig · Women in Media Executive Director & Art Director
Allison Vanore · WIM Secretary & Emmy-Winning Producer of After Forever
I started Women in Media in 2010 as a sort of community group. We talked about women above and below the line because there weren’t any organizations or conversations really happening about women in the below the line positions, meaning women in the crew who are in the camera, art, grip and electronics departments. There were only conversations happening about more women directors and, being a scenic artist and production designer, I knew that there are so many women in the crew and there’s only one director. So if we only aimed for one, we would never get to parity and there would never be room like myself who wanted to advance from these crew positions.
Tema Staig · Women in Media Executive Director & Art Director
Allison Vanore · WIM Secretary & Emmy-Winning Producer of After Forever
I started Women in Media in 2010 as a sort of community group. We talked about women above and below the line because there weren’t any organizations or conversations really happening about women in the below the line positions, meaning women in the crew who are in the camera, art, grip and electronics departments. There were only conversations happening about more women directors and, being a scenic artist and production designer, I knew that there are so many women in the crew and there’s only one director. So if we only aimed for one, we would never get to parity and there would never be room like myself who wanted to advance from these crew positions.
