'Chewing Gum' is kind of like the world I wish I grew up in. There wasn't really a sense of community growing up. Michaela Coel More Quotes by Michaela Coel More Quotes From Michaela Coel I definitely believe in spirituality. I like to pray, but I'm not praying to something that I can define; I'm just speaking because I know it does have an effect. I believe there are some great things that I've taken from the Bible in terms of loving the world and trying to be kind. There are a lot of good things to take from the Bible, and I like to think I try to apply them to my life. Michaela Coel taken believe thinking I don't like working - I just like having done the end product. The process, I like to make it quick and painful. Michaela Coel painful done Looking back, the way I see it, there was something slightly deluded about my belief - what that meant to me - but with that delusion came of lot of happiness. Life was really black and white: if you do these things now, God will you invite you to his house where you will love forever and everything will be happy forever. That's what I believed, and that makes life pretty sweet. I do miss it. Michaela Coel black-and-white house sweet There's a massive community in church. You have a real home. You can move to different parts of the world and you'll always find a church and a community. When you let go of church, you don't have that comfort, you don't have that safety net anymore. Michaela Coel real letting-go moving If there's anyone out there that looks a bit like me, or just feels a little bit out of place just trying to get into performing, you are beautiful; embrace it. You are intelligent; embrace it. You are powerful; embrace it. Michaela Coel place me you beautiful 'Chewing Gum Dreams' should make you look twice at the girl shouting on the bus and not just cuss her off from your life. Michaela Coel dreams you girl life I'm massively open-minded to pretty much anything. Michaela Coel open-minded much pretty anything I've always liked using humor, but what I had to with 'Chewing Gum' was take out a lot of darkness so it would be a bit more feel-good. Michaela Coel more always humor darkness Comedy in the past hasn't spoken to women because it wasn't written by women, and male writers don't make women three-dimensional characters. Too often, women just facilitate the man's comedy: they're not crazy; they're not funny. But women are as vulgar as they are elegant, as stinky as they are smelling of eau de parfum. Michaela Coel man women crazy funny At college, I became friends with this girl who was a 'cool Christian.' They did street dance, then they prayed. It became my whole world. I had Christian friends. I went to Christian parties. Michaela Coel cool girl dance world When you've got African parents, you go to uni, do finance, and go into accounting. But I'm not good with systems. I dropped out in my final year of college to become a Christian poet. Then went back to do my A-levels and went to uni in Birmingham to do political science and theology. I lasted 12 weeks. Michaela Coel parents good you science I don't believe in comedy as a TV genre - I think there's drama that is funny. Because beyond the laughs, there has to be cost, and there has to be heart. Michaela Coel think heart funny believe There always seems to be an element of faith in my writing. Michaela Coel always faith seems writing In drama school, they do these big shows and period dramas, and I felt that none of those shows were representing me as a person, and I knew I wouldn't be cast in any of those when I left school. I decided to write my own one-woman show, and that was called 'Chewing Gum Dreams.' Michaela Coel dreams me my-own school To suggest things may be going on in our brains that we aren't fully conscious of, that we unknowingly make classist, sexist and racist presumptions... Well, there just aren't many comfortable ways to take that. And in the face of discomfort comes the mask of defence. Michaela Coel face just things mask It strikes me as odd that we've made journeys with our social conditioning in certain areas, but not in others. The world is always changing; discoveries in technology and science relentlessly expose our dearest values as fictions. Michaela Coel me technology science world Socialisation is not optional. It's an inescapable contract, and our birth into the world is our signature of agreement. Norms and ideologies vary from society to society, and most of them weren't formed during our lifetimes but were handed down from one generation to the next. Michaela Coel generation down society world The unpredictability of the weather, the increasing possibility of intelligence introducing a species more powerful than ours, the growing uncertainty that animals can or should be slaughtered for our pleasure, has led many of us to start asking more complex questions about what is and isn't normal. Michaela Coel start intelligence powerful weather Drama school taught me not to be precious. Michaela Coel precious me drama school To see people laughing or crying or listening, then being inspired to do their own thing? I can't think of anything better than that. Michaela Coel better think listening people
