I think there is a long exploration in American drama of women in particular who, by force of circumstances or because they are predisposed to, choose fantasy over reality.
So much of great American drama has been about a certain kind of dysfunctional family, and maybe my interests are in the kind of strange dysfunction that exists even among deeply functional families.
One would like to say in the aftermath of the 2008 election that everyone lived happily ever after. But the American drama, especially when it involves race, is always more complicated than that.
Eugene O'Neil created an American theater, and Tennessee Williams taught it how to sing.
So many American plays are about family. When you're in the first part of your life, you write about family a lot. I find with my absurdist plays that I was actually writing about my family, but so disguised I didn't realize it myself.
We're trying to tell a very full story of 'Nashville' and these characters in Nashville, and I'm really hopeful that we're going to be able to do something as innovative as 'American Horror Story' and 'Friday Night Lights.' And I think so far, we're on the right path for that.
I'm an American playwright. Tennessee Williams got in all our DNA.
'Cardiac Arrest' was the first British drama to use a lot of medical jargon. 'ER' began the following year and was the first American drama to do that.
I would probably do anything with David Mamet. He's so great. I just love his writing.
I love 'Mad Men' & 'Nip Tuck.'
There's no mistaking the fact that some of the best longform fiction out there now is in American television. 'The Wire' and 'Deadwood' and 'The Sopranos.'
I think American drama is at its best when it takes the domestic and makes it epic, like a Greek tragedy in the front room.
I like 'Mad Men,' and I think 'The Killing' is pretty great too. I like 'Brothers & Sisters.'
In Britain you're more used to challenging drama. In America, TV is just boring, and numbing, and bloody terrible.
I was a huge 'Mad Men' fan.
What the Americans want to see is life in their drama. Life of all sorts: hard lives, easy lives, or lives which, like most of ours, are a mixture of the two.
I'm not one of these people who say how much better American drama is than English. I find it mostly too American, except for The Sopranos, which I think is the best thing.
