Subverting Expectations Quotes

I like grey characters; fantasy for too long has been focused on very stereotypical heroes and villains.

People look at me, they know I've appeared in costume dramas and they automatically assume I must be a Tory, I must be a certain type of person. Not a lot of people would think that I spent most of my early years totally rebelling against anything I could, getting suspended from school, going on demonstrations. I was a pretty difficult teenager.

As the generalization goes about the art industry, people can be really challenging and thought-provoking in their thinking and questioning the status quo, and it's really important that the status quo can be questioned and that there are people doing that.

I've tried to create a comedy that doesn't look like any other comedy. Maybe traditionally in TV there has been a kind of formula that says, 'Oh, comedy has to look this way; it has to look super bright.' But the way we shoot 'Insecure' is motivated by the mental state of each of our characters.

The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody else's rules, while quietly playing by your own.

As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm.

I kept hearing all these rules: 'You can't say that in country music.' 'You can't use that kind of beat.' I became so frustrated. It may have slingshotted me, in a rebellious way, toward doing something different.

I think the parts that I played sort of broke the mould in terms of - you know, I played grey characters, the bad girl with a good heart, there was a good reason for her to be bad.

I love challenging the status quo.

Much of the time in the writer's room is spent working on story, and I was always challenging myself to make it more interesting, tighter and more surprising: to come at it sideways in a way that the audience wasn't expecting.

I think the reason why 'Red Eye' is popular is because we question the common assumptions that you find elsewhere.

I'm not a conventional leading man at all and have no wish to be.

Become goddesses of disobedience.

I feel very fortunate that I was able to be cast in roles that showed the humanity, if you will, of usually stereotypical Indian characters that made up a lot of film, like the Pawnee in 'Dances with Wolves.'

Our cinema is coming of age, and people are realizing we need to tell different stories differently and in fresh manner and not just do formula stuff and serve it to the audience.

There are just so many options that people have. But as a writer, you'll drive yourself crazy, if you worry about that too much. People watch a lot of TV, so they think certain things are going to happen, and you're always trying to subvert expectations.

If you're writing a detective novel or horror or sci-fi, you want to expand or reinvigorate the genre in your own little way.

I always feel that a viewer has an expectation about every moment of the film and where it's going, so if I act against that, I've created a twist. In fact, it becomes a kind of game with the expectations of the viewer. This is the superficial appearance. In the layer beneath, there is a hidden theme.

It's nice to squash people's expectations.

There are a lot of stereotypes to be broken which I think a lot of us are doing. What I do is, as soon as people try to pin me down to one kind of part, I'll play a very different kind of role, so it explodes that stereotype.

The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.

I wanted to write a new fable and see how many rules you could break.

I don't like the fact that people are supposed to think horror movies have a way things should go. I always try to do the exact opposite of what people expect and want.

The impossible - we are told - cannot be achieved. To overcome the 'impossible,' we need to use our wits and be fearless. We need to break the rules and to circumvent - some would one say to cheat.

I've always been a big fan of taking old songs and completely turning them on their head. Having no adherence to the fine tradition of the original version. Rearranging them and taking a different approach to them.