We all have one or two turning points in life, but Michaela Watkins’ life seems like an endless string of them. There was the classical music camp that unleashed her inner comic. The spontaneous road trip that became five years of regional theater. There was the backstage decision that doing Shakespeare actually kinda sucked. And then the double epiphany: she should be on a TV show in Los Angeles and join The Groundlings. Getting cast on Saturday Night Live and then inexplicably dropped after one season was not a turning point she’d anticipated. It was never even in the plan. So, she found herself at yet another: Wallow, or move on? Well, the suspense isn’t killing anyone who’s been watching TV for the last 10 years, but watching one of the most gifted supporting actresses around finally show what she can do with a lead role is one of the best endings we can think of.
What makes a kid cry on her birthday? The occasional cake-induced stomachache or bouncy-house bruise, sure. For Zoe Kazan, it was a sense of what she was leaving farther behind, and she cried every year. A direct and unselfconscious view of our imagination and its creative expression gets harder and harder to find in the rearview mirror unless you cultivate and protect it. Kazan tries hard to do just that through work that she loves, in a business she often doesn’t. Acting is a joyful challenge (just watch Olive Kitteridge and The Big Sick); writing, especially stage plays, is a painful one. Both expose her voice and ideas – her soul – for all of us to judge. If you believe the only true art is personal, you must decide if you’ll risk your ego to make it. If the answer’s yes, you’re in the right place. It’s a thrilling, terrifying place, and Kazan rather likes the neighborhood.
What makes a kid cry on her birthday? The occasional cake-induced stomachache or bouncy-house bruise, sure. For Zoe Kazan, it was a sense of what she was leaving farther behind, and she cried every year. A direct and unselfconscious view of our imagination and its creative expression gets harder and harder to find in the rearview mirror unless you cultivate and protect it. Kazan tries hard to do just that through work that she loves, in a business she often doesn’t. Acting is a joyful challenge (just watch Olive Kitteridge and The Big Sick); writing, especially stage plays, is a painful one. Both expose her voice and ideas – her soul – for all of us to judge. If you believe the only true art is personal, you must decide if you’ll risk your ego to make it. If the answer’s yes, you’re in the right place. It’s a thrilling, terrifying place, and Kazan rather likes the neighborhood.
What makes a kid cry on her birthday? The occasional cake-induced stomachache or bouncy-house bruise, sure. For Zoe Kazan, it was a sense of what she was leaving farther behind, and she cried every year. A direct and unselfconscious view of our imagination and its creative expression gets harder and harder to find in the rearview mirror unless you cultivate and protect it. Kazan tries hard to do just that through work that she loves, in a business she often doesn’t. Acting is a joyful challenge (just watch Olive Kitteridge and The Big Sick); writing, especially stage plays, is a painful one. Both expose her voice and ideas – her soul – for all of us to judge. If you believe the only true art is personal, you must decide if you’ll risk your ego to make it. If the answer’s yes, you’re in the right place. It’s a thrilling, terrifying place, and Kazan rather likes the neighborhood.
Struggle is just how Zoe Lister-Jones rolls. She watched her parents struggle to make a living from their art, and tussled with her own decision to pursue acting versus stability. She struggled to break into film, finally deciding that instead of fighting the system, she’d create one, co-writing and acting in her own projects. The biggest yet is Band Aid, which just happened to help women battling for a place on a film crew. It’s a comedy about artistic and personal failure, and our struggle to understand each other as men and women. In exposing her own insecurities – Do other people have it more figured out? A better relationship? – she reminds us that if we’re far from perfect, we’re about as far from it as everyone else. Lister-Jones will continue to struggle for her art, but she’s learned it doesn’t have to be so hard – it’s about your mindset, not your circumstances.
Struggle is just how Zoe Lister-Jones rolls. She watched her parents struggle to make a living from their art, and tussled with her own decision to pursue acting versus stability. She struggled to break into film, finally deciding that instead of fighting the system, she’d create one, co-writing and acting in her own projects. The biggest yet is Band Aid, which just happened to help women battling for a place on a film crew. It’s a comedy about artistic and personal failure, and our struggle to understand each other as men and women. In exposing her own insecurities – Do other people have it more figured out? A better relationship? – she reminds us that if we’re far from perfect, we’re about as far from it as everyone else. Lister-Jones will continue to struggle for her art, but she’s learned it doesn’t have to be so hard – it’s about your mindset, not your circumstances.
Struggle is just how Zoe Lister-Jones rolls. She watched her parents struggle to make a living from their art, and tussled with her own decision to pursue acting versus stability. She struggled to break into film, finally deciding that instead of fighting the system, she’d create one, co-writing and acting in her own projects. The biggest yet is Band Aid, which just happened to help women battling for a place on a film crew. It’s a comedy about artistic and personal failure, and our struggle to understand each other as men and women. In exposing her own insecurities – Do other people have it more figured out? A better relationship? – she reminds us that if we’re far from perfect, we’re about as far from it as everyone else. Lister-Jones will continue to struggle for her art, but she’s learned it doesn’t have to be so hard – it’s about your mindset, not your circumstances.
When you don’t know who you are or what you want to do, and you have no real intention of doing what your family wants you to do, and then you decide you have to do something you have no idea you can do, what should you do? First, avoid thinking about it. Lie to your loved ones a little. Then, write a movie about it. So far, so good. But how do you know if your life is entertaining enough to be a movie? If Judd Apatow tells you it is, that’s a start. Standup-turned-leading man Kumail Nanjiani puts a face on immigration, religion, racism, family and ultimately, growing up in The Big Sick. Coming to the U.S. from Karachi, he found a career and a woman he loved, then nearly lost her to a mysterious illness and his own uncertainty. It’s an uncommon story he’s somehow made completely relatable. In the process, he’s given us one more reason to embrace our differences: They’re funny.
