I Like My Body, I Like To Have Fun With What I Put On, But I Also Want To Remain Classic. So I Guess My Signature Is Sexy And Eclectic But Classic.

-Lake Bell

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I Like My Body,

Lake Bell

...

I Like My Body, I Like To Have Fun With What I Put On, But I Also Want To Remain Classic. So I Guess My Signature Is Sexy And Eclectic But Classic.

Topic

Sexy

Fun

Signatures

I Feel Very Lucky That When I'm Burnt Out Of Acting I Take To The Pen And I Write Something I Want To Direct.

Writing

Acting

Lucky

Part Of Why I Love Being An Actor Is The Opportunity To Be Able To Go To Distant Lands And Take On Different Worlds And Concepts And Pretend To Take On Different Occupations And Statuses.

Opportunity

Love Is

Different

I Completely Bombed The Audition... I Was Insecure, Stopping And Starting. I Went To The Bathroom And Cried.

Insecure

Stopping

Auditions

I'm Not A Drug Person. I Don't Like Drugs. I Went To College In London, So It Was Kind Of The Curriculum There. I Got It Out Of My System Really Young.

College

Drug

Curriculum

A Friend Of Mine Told Me, You Know Your Obsession With Girls Who Talk Like Sexy Babies? You Have To Put That Into Your Script.

Girl

Sexy

Baby

It's Priceless What You Learn When You Actually Do. It's Like Going To Film School Times Eleven. The Best Education Is Effectively To Be Functioning In The Occupation That You Want To Take On.

Occupation

Want

Priceless

I Wrote An Entire Movie [man Up] About How Important I Think Voices Are, So It Was Funny.

Men

Thinking

Voice

I Think Coming To Work And Being Absurd And Neurotic And Thoughtful At The Same Time Is Far More Interesting.

Thoughtful

Thinking

Interesting

I'm Vegan On Home Base, But When I Travel To Other Countries, I Throw It All Into The Garbage.

Country

Home

Garbage

I Like My Body, I Like To Have Fun With What I Put On, But I Also Want To Remain Classic. So I Guess My Signature Is Sexy And Eclectic But Classic.

Sexy

Fun

Signatures

I'm A Music Person. Music Is, For Me, The Best Way To Cure Any Sort Of Anxiety Or Icky Feelings. I Think It Immediately Takes You Out Of Your Element And Makes Some Other Person Do The Work For Your Thoughts.

Thinking

Anxiety

Feelings

I'll Be Totally Honest In That I Feel Tremendously Lucky That I Am Offered Incredible Jobs All The Time To Direct, But The Problem That I Have Just Personally Is That There Are Only So Many Years In My Life To Dedicate To Certain Projects. When You're Directing Something That's Generally Two Years Of Your Life, You Have To Understand That. If I'm Going To Pour That Kind Of Love And Energy And Sweat And Heartache, All That Juju Into Something, I'm Going To Lean Into My Own Projects Before Someone Else's.

Jobs

Years

Sweat

I Love Fashion. I Always Have. When I Was A Kid, I Was In Almost Full-on Costumes When I Went To School, And I've Retained A Bit Of That In My Adulthood.

Fashion

School

Kids

You Can't Live In A Dialect Without Tremendous Work. Like Any Muscle, Accents And Voices And Languages Are All Formed Out Of The Muscles That We Have In Our Mouths And Faces And Tongues.

Voice

Dialect

Mouths

I'm Not A Sketch Writer. I Know What I Am: I Have A Sensitive Comedic Sensibility. What Turns Me On Is Subtle Neurosis. That's My Game. I'm Not An Action Writer Or A Thriller Writer And I'm Not A Sketch Writer. I Don't Pretend To Be Those Things. Then It Would Not Be Fun. Then You Are In A Space Where This Is Painful.

Fun

Action

Painful

I've Learned From Every Director I've Worked With. Everybody's Style Is Very Different, And I Always Say That Being An Actor Is The Best Film School That I Could Ever Go To.

School

Style

Directors

The Reason I Got Into This Business Was For The Privilege To Exist In Different Genres And Different Worlds And Play Out Different Realities.

Reality

Play

Privilege

I Hope, My Career Is Never Predictable. And My Interests Are Diverse In That Way. I Feel Very Lucky That When I'm Burnt Out Of Acting I Take To The Pen And I Write Something I Want To Direct. And Then When I'm Tired Of Taking On Too Much Responsibility As A Director I Then Look For An Acting Gig. And I've Made It Very Clear That I'm Interested In Voiceover Work. I Mean, I'm Always Looking For Voiceover Gigs. I Love That.

Mean

Responsibility

Writing

Filmmaking Is A Huge Privilege; It's Not Brain Surgery. It's Art, And Art Is Supposed To Be An Enjoyable Process, And It Is An Enjoyable Experience For Me.

Movie

Art

Brain

I Understand And Respect Deeply That Each Project Brings Its Own Secret And Wonderful Gifts And Happy Accidents.

Secret

Happy Accidents

Wonderful

I Vowed To Never Use My American Accent, And I Didn't. Even Going To Get The Paper In The Morning To Buying Milk Down At The Shop, Getting A Cab, Wherever.

Morning

Use

Paper

The Most Difficult Thing About Acting And Directing In A Film Is Acting And Directing In A Film. Every Ounce Of Your Physical And Emotional Being, And Your Analytical And Thoughtful And Producorial Being, Is Being Exercised At All Points. You Are 100% Working On Overdrive, But Because It Is Only For X Amount Of Days, If You Have The Stomach For It, You Hustle Through. It's A Massive Undertaking, And I Think Preparation Is The Key To Success For That Endeavor.

Thoughtful

Emotional

Thinking

If I'm Going To Pour That Kind Of Love And Energy And Sweat And Heartache, All That Juju Into Something, I'm Going To Lean Into My Own Projects Before Someone Else's.

Sweat

Heartache

Juju

It's Like The Most Profound Accomplishment That I've Had In My Career, That I Can Finally Be That Voice.

Careers

Voice

Profound

People Do Horrible Things When They're Young. There Might Be Betrayal And There Might Be Things That Should Be Forgotten.

Betrayal

People

Forgotten

I Had Had A Huge Background In The Nuance Of The Accent Because I Went To Drama School In England For Four Years.

Drama

School

Years

I Don't Really Enjoy Working In Tv, To Be Completely Honest, Even Though It's Incredibly Lucrative, I'm Just Terrified Of Not Being Satiated In A Myriad Of Different Ways. It's Amazing That I Get To Create Every Day, As An Actor, Or A Director, Or A Writer, And I Get To Do It In A Variety Of Different Genres And Worlds And Characterizations. I Think That's The Great Privilege Of What We Do, We Get To Make Believe. I Get To Go To So Many Different Places, Try On Different Occupations, Take On Different Points Of View. That's What's Always Been Sort Of Alluring.

Believe

Thinking

Trying

I Am Lactose Intolerant, And I Always Thought It Was Really Funny How People Who Are Lactose Intolerant Continue To Eat Dairy, Because They Like It So Much. And I Find It Not Acceptable.

People

Dairy

Acceptable

I'm In Full Transparency Here Of "yeah, I'm Trying To Find My Financing."

Trying

Yeah

Transparency

A Woman Needs Her Privacy While Drinking A Dirty Belvedere Martini On The Rocks With A Splash Of Tabasco.

Drinking

Dirty

Privacy

I Have This Necklace I Always Wear. I Collect Pendants From People I Love; My Best Friends And Members Of My Family Have All Given Me One, And I Put Them On This Chain So No Matter Where I Am They're Always With Me.

People

My Best Friend

Necklaces

I Feel Very Fortunate To Be Currently In The Position Where I Can Choose To Be An Actor, Writer, Director, Or All Of Them At The Same Time. With Being A Mom, I've Recently Had A Priority Shift That Has Sort Of Thrusted Itself On My Existence, But I Tend To Use All Experiences As Something To Work With. Anything That Is Profoundly, Energy Shifting - Like Having A Child - Is Fodder For Creative Thought.

Mom

Children

Creative

Part Of What's Cool About Being An Actor Or Being In This Industry, Frankly, Is To Be Able To Travel To Distant Lands. That's Part Of The Deal. I Always Thought When I Was Growing Up, "i Wanna Be An Actor And Go See The World.'

Growing Up

Land

Actors

The Producers Had Seen "in A World..." And That's Where They Found Me Out And Consequently Sought Me Out For This Role [in Man Up].

Men

Roles

World

I Think Of Myself As A Content Creator And Hopefully One Day A Content Enabler And Supporter Of Others, So That's What My Immediate And Hopefully Future Journey Is.

Journey

Thinking

One Day

I'm Going To Say A Phrase Or Terminology Or Vowel That I Don't Know How To Attack .

Phrases

Vowels

Know How

I Feel Tremendously Lucky That I Am Offered Incredible Jobs All The Time To Direct, But The Problem That I Have Just Personally Is That There Are Only So Many Years In My Life To Dedicate To Certain Projects.

Jobs

Years

Lucky

Something That Has Always Attracted Me To Even Taking On The Occupation Of Actor Is The Idea That I Could Be Lucky Enough To Portray Different Characterizations From Different Places In The World, Whether It's Speaking Another Language Or Taking On A Dialect And Building A History From Where They Were Born. I Was Very Attracted To That Concept, In Becoming An Actor.

Ideas

Different

Lucky

I Think Great Directors Really Respect Their Actors And Vice Versa. That Mutual Respect Makes The Job Fun Instead Of Anything But.

Jobs

Fun

Thinking

With More Money Brings More Fear And When You're Trying To Be Creative In A Fear-based Environment It's Dangerous. Then Decisions Are Made Out Of Fear, Not What's Best For The Film.

Decision

Creative

Trying

You Have To Keep Hobbies In L.a. Otherwise, It's Sad.

Hobbies

Without Strong Financial Roots, Our Generation Is In A Constant State Of Redefinition. This Forces Us To Think Outside The Box When It Comes To Making A Living... Which Sometimes Makes It Look Like We're A Mess, But Really We're Just Creative. And We Like Weed.

Weed

Strong

Thinking

I Sort Of Loved The Bustle Of A Thousand Questions. Women Are Inherently Kind Of Multitaskers.

Kind

Bustle

Thousand

When You're A Director, You Have Great Respect For Directors. I Am Really Pretty Loyal To Any Director That I Am Working For And I Want To Help Them Realize Whatever Story And Mood And Tone That They're Trying To Realize. As An Actor, You Really Just Are A Cog - You Are An Important Cog, But You Are Just A Piece Of The Machine.

Important

Trying

Loyal

We're All Part Of Movie And We're All Incredibly And Equally Important But It Is Your Actor's Job To Perform And To Deliver.

Important

I've Made It Very Clear That I'm Interested In Voiceover Work. I Mean, I'm Always Looking For Voiceover Gigs. I Love That.

Mean

Gigs

Made

When I'm Tired Of Taking On Too Much Responsibility As A Director I Then Look For An Acting Gig.

Tired

Responsibility

Acting

Actually, In My Own Life I Think I Probably Feign Neuroses To Be More Interesting Than I Am.

Thinking

Interesting

Neurosis

You Have To Be Steadfast, And Right Now I'm On A Stream Train Forward To Make.

Steadfast

Streams

Right Now

I Learned How To Direct By Being In The Trenches Of Movies. Getting To Be A Student From The Inside Looking Out, And If You're A Respectful Observer You Can Sponge Lots Of Information. That Was My Film School.

School

Information

Students

What's The Trick To Writing A Genuinely Funny Comedy? The Trick Is Therapy. Take Notes.

Writing

Comedy

Notes

There Are A Lot Of Funny People And A Lot Of Unfunny People. Some Of Them Are Women And Some Of Them Are Dudes.

People

Funny People

I Find The Female Tragedy Of Insecurity To Be Hilarious. We Get Obsessed Over Issues Like The Tiny Skin Tags On Our Backs Or That We're Fat. You Read One Line In A Magazine And It Sends You Into A Tailspin.

Issues

Insecurity

Tragedy

I Always Tried To Make People Laugh. I Attribute That To - I Come From A Family Of Divorce. It Was A Way To Distract Myself From Stuff. I Always Thought It Was Interesting That My Brother And I Existed In This Really Tight Bond, And We Would Just Take The Piss Out Of Pretty Much Everything. I Knew I Wanted To Be An Actor So It Would Be Great If I Could Make People Laugh While I Was Doing This, Because I Could Be Other Characters And Other People, And I Could Hide Behind Things. It Was A Great Out For Me, And A Mode Of Expression.

Brother

Character

Divorce

I Get Really Restless If I'm Not Working. I Generate Or Try To Generate My Own Stuff. I'm Constantly On The Prowl For Working With The People I Love And Respect.

People

Trying

Love And Respect

When You Make A Movie, You're Spending A Month Of Your Life With Someone And, Down The Line, You Have To Spend More Months With Them. It Is This Mini-marriage That You Have.

I Worked With An Amazing Dialect Coach Named Jill Mccullough. We Did Skype Sessions While I Was Shooting "no Escape" In Thailand, Actually. So Three Times A Week I Would Have Long, Two-hour Sessions With Her Just Working On The Nuance Of The Accent, Which I Had Had A Huge Background In Because I Went To Drama School In England For Four Years.

Drama

School

Years

When I Do An Accent I Commit Fully And Take It Very Seriously.

Accents

Commit

But I'd Say 'how To Make It In America' Is The Most Accurate Depiction Of The New York Hipster Community On Television For Sure.

New York

Hipster

America

I Like My Body,

Understanding the Quote: "i like my body, i like to have fun with what i..."

Lessons From the Quote

About Lake Bell

Actionable Takeaways

Closing Thoughts