Carol Leifer Quotes

I always thought it would be funny to have the Parents Television Council write an episode of 'Family Guy' and give them full creative control. Then see how good the episode is. That's something we've actually discussed in the writers' room. We haven't proposed it yet, but if somebody from the PTC reads this, it might be worth discussing.

You simply cannot do a sitcom by committee. It will not work. You've got to have one or two clean, creative voices in charge, and there's got to be some faith by the studio and network in those people to make the right choices.

I was the only person at Univision who had complete creative control of my own show, by contract. They didn't like that. I was the executive producer; I owned the studio where we taped. I decided who went on my show and who didn't.

I really enjoy working, you know, on streaming outlets because there's so much creative control for the creators of the shows, and, you know, you're allowed to make such great television.

That first year I was doing 'Grey's,' I didn't know it was possible to fire the creator of a show off their own show, so I didn't behave like somebody who was afraid of being fired.

Part of the fun of working on 'Beverly Hills, 90210,' for me, was that I got a lot of freedom from our executive producer, Chuck Rosen, to add things, change things. I got a lot of freedom to be creative.

In TV, when you come in to direct an episode, you are effectively learning an established language; you then have to try to learn to speak it really well. But on a movie, you are the guy. You are creating the language; you make most of the decisions.

The greatest thing that you have when you're a showrunner is this opportunity to create worlds.

When you're a comedian, and you show up on set to a job where you're not writing, and you get handed material that's as good as we do on 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine,' you just feel lucky every day.

When I got my overall deal at Fox, I got amazing bosses in John Landgraf and Dana Walden and Peter Rice. For the first time ever, they said, 'Don't change who you are; be who you are. And write something you want to watch.' That thing was 'Glee,' and it took off from there.

We got spoiled with 'Friday Night Lights.' Not every show is like that, and on other shows, if you try to bring that same truth or that same approach, the system of television doesn't always allow for that level of collaboration, which is unfortunate because the work would be richer.

As a director, you need the Saul Zaentz type of producers. Zaentz was a guy who literally capped the storm outside of the director so that they could do their job. That's a great producer.

I just want to make TV that I want to see.

I love having the control over the end result and not having to go through some committee to get something approved. I feel sorry for people, like actors, because unless you're Woody Allen or Mel Gibson, they don't have much say in the decisions that affect their work.

I essentially have always directed everything on my TV show without using that title; I edited and wrote all my stuff.

Television offered me the opportunity to do new things; I had written a lot of scripts other than scary movies. I had actually written some romantic comedies and stuff that I really wanted to try my hand at, and nobody would let me do that. Television allowed me to do anything I wanted.

You have to fight to get your show not only on the air but then to keep it what it is and make sure that it doesn't get manipulated into something else.

The stage gives you more control over your own work; in television, there's a distressing amount of communal writing. Unless it's your show, you have no control over that. You're at the mercy of whoever's running the show.

I've been in rooms where the creator has sold a show and then felt like the network didn't buy the show they wanted. They bought a show they thought they could craft into the show they wanted.

'Gossip Girl' was an adaptation that, although very different from a Marvel property, had a vocal fan base. On that show, we started off very nervous about making any changes from the book. As we got our sea legs underneath us, we became more bold.

I am a little wary of entering another situation where I would just be another director for hire and I've been doing this in one form or another since I was twenty-two doing documentaries for PBS and HBO.

When I first found out what a show runner was, I thought it was the strangest job I had heard of in my life.

I've worked with directors who have done it too much, particularly in television, you know, 'okay we got it, let's move on, next setup.' 'Well what about, we could maybe investigate?' 'Mmm… no, let's go.'

But with 'Newsrevue' I started doing some characters, and I just loved how you were in control. You could write something that day and go and do it that night, rather than waiting for a job that involves other people. So I did character stand-up, and then proper stand-up, and I loved it; I got addicted.

If someone at VH1, the powers that be, said, 'Shaunie, we want you to completely do your family show,' would I do cartwheels on over to it? Absolutely, because that is probably the most fun I've ever had shooting anything ever so I would totally be fine with that and just do my EP but, yeah.