Lake Bell: I am lactose intolerant, and I always thought it was really...

People do horrible things when they're young. There might be betrayal and there might be things that should be forgotten.

Lake Bell

betrayal forgotten people

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.

Lake Bell

thoughtful emotional thinking

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.

Lake Bell

loyal important trying

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.

Lake Bell

love-and-respect trying people

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.

Lake Bell

divorce brother character

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.

Lake Bell

painful action fun

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.

Lake Bell

anxiety feelings thinking

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.

Lake Bell

trying believe thinking

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.

Lake Bell

different opportunity love-is

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.

Lake Bell

curriculum drug college

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.

Lake Bell

information students school

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.'

Lake Bell

growing-up actors land

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.

Lake Bell

lucky jobs years

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.

Lake Bell

one-day journey thinking

You have to be steadfast, and right now I'm on a stream train forward to make.

Lake Bell

steadfast streams right-now

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.

Lake Bell

juju heartache sweat

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.

Lake Bell

style directors school

I'm in full transparency here of "Yeah, I'm trying to find my financing."

Lake Bell

transparency yeah trying

It's like the most profound accomplishment that I've had in my career, that I can finally be that voice.

Lake Bell

voice careers profound

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.

Lake Bell

gigs made mean

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.