The first thing that I ever made was a documentary that I shot... in downtown L.A. about a group of homeless people.

Pamela Adlon

Categorized in : Group About People Homeless

I'm not really a person who loves things that are surreal or not grounded in real life or reality. I like that - I want to find something that I can relate to and then maybe do a little bit more and embellish.

real want littles

Everybody hates you when youre the best, and everybody hates you... by Pamela Adlon

Everybody hates you when youre the best, and everybody hates you when youre the worst.

hate-you worst hate

In the first season (of 'Californication'), when we had the threesome with the nipple clamps, I was, like, 'I don't get this, I don't know how you're gonna do it.' And then, all of a sudden, there's a crane with a camera hanging over our heads, and you're, like, 'Okayyyyyyy. But how are you gonna sell this? How are you gonna make it work?' And they ended up shooting it brilliantly, cutting it together, and it just all ended up working without me having to compromise my own personal morals.

cameras cutting together

I was able to draw a lot from my own childhood, my friends' childhoods as well and my daughters' friends who are like my children as well. They multiply all the time. So you can have everything and say I can get all this done and then late at night one of your kids have a freak out about school or an assignment you end up staying up til 3 in morning helping them through it. Or somebody gets sick or has a crisis.

morning kids children

There was a point a few years ago where I realized I started out playing boys on camera and stage, and then I translated that to playing boys in animated shows. I was like, "Whoa, this is intense."

cameras boys years

Better Things. it's like with ‘ Louie, ’ I feel like there's no category for these kind of things. It's not comedy or dramedy.

When I was first coming up with the idea for the show, it was really hard for me, I was talking to Louis about it – I could come up with ideas for him all day, and when it came to me, it stopped, i always knew that telling a story about girls at three different stages developmentally was very interesting to me.

They would call me 'The Cleaner' because I would replace boys who were real adolescents, and their voices completely changed, and they couldn't do the voices anymore.

because who me real

I went from buying my own condominium and a car for myself when I was 17 on 'The Facts of Life' to not being able to pay my rent. I was at the unemployment office all the time. I had to sell my record collection just to make ends meet. And then I started getting these voice-over jobs.

myself car time life

I am a single mom of three girls, and I'm getting through that. If I can get through that, I can direct a whole season of television that I star in.

i-am i-can mom television

I don't think I have a demographic. I was at Comic-Con in San Diego recently, and I was doing a signing, and my line was all military guys, young girls, housewives and guys in wheelchairs. There was just everybody all over the place.

doing place think young

The thing about women playing boys is that we're not going to age, and we're not going to go through puberty in the middle of a long-running series.

through go women age

One of the things I learned in animation is that you never, ever want to start doing a voice that you can't sustain for four straight hours.

never start you voice

You can't regulate what these kids are being exposed to on the Internet. It's so way out of control. All you can do is just try to talk to your own kids.

control you internet way

My roles in the '80s were, like, gender dysphoric. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't this, I wasn't that. And I am kind of butchy, you know. That's just my thing.

i-am know you gender

Before 'Lucky Louie,' nobody would ever cast me to play a mom or a wife; nobody ever saw me in that role, which is weird, since that's who I really am.

nobody me wife mom

I like people to have their own reaction and their own take on things. And I don't like to shove my - what I want them to feel or think - down their throats. I like people to say, 'What was that about?' or 'Why did that happen?' And so, any reactions are welcome.

feel think welcome people

I try to direct myself the way I direct the other actors who come... by Pamela Adlon

I try to direct myself the way I direct the other actors who come on my show.

try who myself way

I just like to keep things small and subtle and authentic, and ground everything in reality. So that is something that I feel is my strength as a director and I try to achieve as an actor.

feel small strength reality

I can't imagine bringing in somebody else to direct my show. Wouldn't that be funny, if next season I had, like, Michael Bay come in and direct 'Better Things'? I wonder what that would be like?

better things wonder funny