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" I was part of a writers' collective with 21 writers and filmmakers called the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. We had our own office space in this old converted dog and cat hospital, and we had a basketball hoop outside. I'd bring my dog to work every day and write. "

Noah Hawley

Dog

Day

Cat

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" The last thing you want is to be desperate in Hollywood. "

" For some reason, I tend to take on the stuff that people are really passionate about. If you make a list of people you don't want to offend, it's Vonnegut readers, comic book fans, and Coen brothers enthusiasts. "

" I'm a big believer that the structure of stories should reflect the content of the story. "

" What makes something tragic is that it could've been averted at multiple points. "

" The danger of writing a so-called thriller is that in your last 100 pages, all of these really interesting characters you've created are just running away from something or toward something, but they're no longer capable of innovation or discovery. "

" 'Fargo' becomes a metaphor for a type of true crime case where truth is stranger than fiction. So, there's no reason that there isn't another 10-hour true crime story that could be told in this region. "

" I did some feature work, then tried TV. I was always very aware that the only power that you have is the power of options. If the film industry dries up, then you focus on the TV or the books. For me, it was always about what story do I want to tell next? "

Noah Hawley

Power

You

" The great amount of fun that I have is I can cast dramatic actors to play comedic roles, and I can cast comedic actors to play dramatic roles because, really, there's no such thing. There's just actors. "

" The most dangerous thing, when you have a serious mental illness, is convincing yourself that you don't have it. And you see it all the time. People get on medication, and they feel better, and they stop taking it. And some flirt with unreality on some levels. But it feels so convincing to them that it feels real. "

" Writing is this odd act, right? To sit and type, or write by hand, or whatever people do. And it requires a real discipline because it is really a sheer act of will that you're creating something, and you're doing it by yourself. "

" When Fox asked me if I'd consider taking on The X-Men universe for television, my first thought was, 'What would you do with those stories or that genre that hasn't been done?' "

" 'Fargo' is a tragedy with a happy ending. So you need to have that tragic underpinning, that all of this could be avoidable, and that's what makes it tragic. It's about the use of violence, and the fact that the tension in anticipation of violence and the tension in anticipation of a laugh are sort of the same. "

" I love the idea that the editing room is the final time you write. You should still be creatively solving problems even at that point. It's not really until you're locked that you can call it quits. "

" Everyone always says that conflict is drama, and I agree, but I also don't think you need drama everywhere. Or conflict everywhere. "

" The thing that scares us the most is when familiar things operate in unfamiliar ways. "

Noah Hawley

Most

Ways

" I remain a huge 'Game of Thrones' fan. "

" In a traditional TV show or movie, your hero is always where the action is. But in real life, at the end of the movie 'Fargo,' when Bill Macy is arrested, Marge is nowhere to be found because it's a different jurisdiction, and she wouldn't be there. I took that to heart. "

" We're used to a story in modern terms as an information delivery device. Certainly on television and even with the studio films, there's really only one note that you get, and that's clarity. And people will sacrifice everything for clarity. They'll sacrifice the joke. They'll sacrifice the moment, or the romance. "

" I don't write these stories for the rewards that come back to me. I write them because I have to write them. It's a sickness on some level. It's a compulsion. "

Noah Hawley

Sickness

Stories

" Half of a broadcast show, in my experience, is things happening, and the other half is people talking about how they feel about the things that happened. And so there's this sense of everyone saying their subtext out loud. "

" What's great is that each medium has a unique set of things that it does and does well. Film is a visual medium, and obviously, you can't fit a whole book into two hours unless you're really economical about it. Obviously, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and on some level, it's sort of true. "

" I've always been really attracted to playing with structure. To take the story of 'Fargo' and break it up in such a way that's it's not linear, per se. "

" The '50s and the '70s are sort of similar in that they're both times of major paranoia in America. "

" The great thing about 'Fargo' is that it's a more objective style of filmmaking: the camera moves in very classical ways, and the most interesting things normally are the characters. "

Noah Hawley

Camera

Great

" The best strategy for making people care about what happens is if they empathize with both sides. If you just have a Villain with a capital V, it becomes very two-dimensional. "

" There's a sense you get from the Coens' work, like 'No Country for Old Men,' where you put these characters in situations, and you just let this painful amount of time take place. Part of the tension is just how long it takes to get out of that scene. "

" Experimental film by the '70s had become much more mainstream after 'Bonnie and Clyde' and stuff in the late '60s, when you were seeing bigger movies where people were exploring the medium a lot more. "

" When I sold my first book, 'A Conspiracy of Tall Men,' it was part of a two-book deal. It wasn't hugely lucrative, but it was enough money for me to quit the paralegal job I had in San Francisco. "

Noah Hawley

Enough

Job

" I'm Kubrick without the O.C.D. "

Noah Hawley

Kubrick

Without

" Tension is all about, 'Why is this taking so long?' The interesting thing about that is that it's also the tension of comedy. The tension of drama and comedy is similar, and that's why usually you can get a big laugh in a really tense moment because people need that release. "