Mike White
Mike White
Writer, producer, actor, and director who was on Enlightened on HBO.
ProfessionTV Producer
Date of Birth28 June 1970
CityPasadena, CA
letting-go fun giving
As an actor, it's better to just be more loose and give yourself over. That's always fun. It's fun to just let go and be somebody else.
art school thinking
I still think of Heaven as a liberal-arts school.
stressful meditating
From my experience, meditating can bring up the most stressful thoughts.
writing pages sometimes
Sometimes when you write something on the page, it can seem very funny, but when you act it out - and this happens to me a lot, actually - the melancholy of the situation becomes more front and center.
running book writing
People who write books - they live in their own world as they're writing. But people who are doing shows or big movies - not only are you writing this world that you're living in, but you're also simultaneously running a circus, and you can kind of start losing your mind like that.
directors
As a director or writer, you have to be so controlling.
girl thinking awards
Girls' is a huge show, as far as buzz, and magazine covers, and getting a ton of copy, and awards. And yet I don't think the viewership is huge.
believe self people
I believe, in general, that even people that are self-pitying, you can feel for them.
I do idiosyncratic dramedies.
giving scripts needs
I don't even give my scripts to friends because I just feel it's, like, I don't need one more set of opinions.
letting-go expectations victory
There's a victory in letting go of your expectations.
adventure men sweat
I've never been to the Oscars, but if I was ever invited to the Oscars, I would have this weird paranoia of terrorism. It just feels like The Poseidon Adventure, everyone in their tuxes. Somehow, I feel like the whole time I would be looking for where the nearest exit was, and in a cold sweat about some kind of man-made disaster, like a terrorist strike or something. It seems like such a scary, claustrophobic proposition.
writing want enjoy
For me, writing is a solitary thing and a personal thing. And it's weird, because when you make something that requires money and collaborators, you have to talk about them. I don't enjoy that part of it. I still want to keep it to myself.
writing plot feels
I feel like I know how to write plot.