Cheryl Hines Quotes

Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.

I started out wanting to be an actor and I like to give actors as much as possible. I love writing stuff where they can really lose control.

I know the benefits of having a really great improv show are amazing because it was this one rare and fleeting thing that was incredible, but the risk just didn't appeal to me. I liked the control of sitting down and writing things.

I want to direct, write, produce... y'know, I love the entertainment industry.

There are a lot of characters that you can get into that don't exist in the studio world.

It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

I think the hardest thing to do in the world, show-business-wise, is write comedy.

When I get moved to write a story, I don't question the story. I dive right in, and I try to ignore the voices that are chattering away at me: 'You can't do that', 'You shouldn't do that'. I just sort of leap and take a chance and go for it.

Every so often, you want to map out your plot mythology but never so specifically that you can't let a story surprise you. You want to allow the type of action of the writer's room so that you have the ability to take a left turn.

They're naughty, all those writers - they mess around with people. I know James Gandolfini got a bit fed up on 'The Sopranos': if he said anything in front of a writer, told them a story from his life, it could make its way into the script.

But you're not necessarily ever going to be handed a script where you can say: it's all done and perfect.

Yeah, the whole 'One Tree Hill' experience made me realize I wanna write, and produce, and direct as well as act. I'm interested in all facets of the industry.

I like - there's a better word for it, but I like the danger that a comic brings to a role. It has a feeling, even though everything's scripted and everything's planned what you're going to do. When I see Will Ferrell or Sacha Baron Cohen, there's a feeling that anything could happen.

When I got to the reading all the work, I was reduced to being an actor in an experimental play that I'd already written. And I didn't want to be an actor.

The only pitch I have to movie people is the same as this one: Just give me $8 million. I'm not telling you what it's about and I'm not telling you who's in it.

If you're an actor, if you're not writing as well, or you're not going to improv classes, there are long spurts where you're not physically in production - unless you're Channing Tatum at this moment right now - where you need to be doing something.

It's also that comedians don't have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They're writers who perform their own material. It's more interesting. And they're sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone.

'Cheers' was a good first step because I got to write my own material.

A lot of comics fly by the seat of their pants, and they pride themselves on being witty, quick, and off-the-cuff. That's not my show. I wrote a show, and I want to do the show I wrote. I'm not interested in what the audience has to say.

They are just really stupid people in Hollywood. You write them a script, and they say they love it, they absolutely love it. Then they say, 'But doesn't it need a small dog, and an Eskimo, and shouldn't it be set in New Guinea?' And you say, 'But it is a sophisticated romantic comedy set in Paris.'

I took my pants off in my 'SNL' audition. It was to do a character called Out of Breath Jogger from 1982. I had short shorts on underneath. It eventually aired, so it was worth it!

I loved doing 'Frisky Business.' I didn't come up with it. I think John Oliver and the writers did.

When you start a scene, and you don't really know where you're going to go, that's a roller-coaster.

I work with some of the funniest writers in the country.

In television, the 60-minute series, 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men' and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist.