I've always loved the genre of virus movies or Armageddon movies - anything that involves being trapped with the cute boy in detention when the zombies are attacking.
The funny thing about the entertainment business is that we all feel like kids playing in a candy store, but we are entrusted with millions and millions and millions of dollars and an entire industry that can thrive or die on whether or not we do our jobs well or not.
Because I was such a student of pop culture growing up, I love that on the list of things that I got to work on in my first years out of college were 'Scream' and 'Dawson's Creek' and, ultimately now, 'The Vampire Diaries,' which generations below me grew up on and can quote. I love that. I think that is the coolest thing in the world.
Fans are always talking about endgame as though endgame has been chosen from minute 1. I don't know that you could talk to a single series creator that would say confidently 'Where I started is where I finished, and there was no way in hell I was going to stray from that path.' 'Dawson's' being the perfect example.
In junior high, when we got our first VCR, I used to tape four soaps a day. I was a diehard 'General Hospital' fan from when I was nine to 25.
There's a lot of storylines over the years where you feel like it's maybe meant to be more important than it ends up being, and that's because we jump ship, and you gracefully extricate yourself from that as well as you can.
I wanted people to talk about the finale of 'The Vampire Diaries' as one of their favorites, which is a lofty ambition, but it certainly drove me hard creatively to make sure that we had put as much thought and love into it as we possibly could.
Speaking only for myself, the ideal finale to me is 'Friday Night Lights,' where you have loved and worshipped a show for all these years, you get to come back, celebrate the characters, finish up their journeys, and send everyone out with a feeling of, 'My God, I'm so grateful that I got to know these people.'
I remember just weeping my way through the 'Friday Night Lights' finale with my best friend and just being so happy all the way through because it was so beautiful.
I feel like Caroline Forbes is such a crucial element... on 'The Vampire Diaries.'
I look at 'Friday Night Lights' as one of my all-time favorite series finales, and that is what you want. After all the roads you've traveled with these people, you just want to know that they're going to be happy. I'm a big believer in shows that make that choice.
You can love and hate your family with equal measure, but the power of the bond you have to have with them, you can't really ever walk away.
I'm not a morning person, and yet production is a morning person's game.
Daily, I visualize the smart-ass troll who lives deep in my subconscious, and I pelt him with rainbows and unicorns. I fight a battle against my judgmental thoughts. And when an opportunity arises to gain acceptance or popularity at the expense of someone else, I zip it. It's not easy.
I think, make it as beautiful as you can, and then rip it away. That's my sadistic thought as a storyteller.
I've learned that I've just barely scratched the surface of knowledge of the profession, and I have deep envy of and appreciation for filmmakers who really, truly understand the physics, the design of filmmaking. They can do story and color and composition and geometry and math and science all at once.
I watched a lot of soap operas, when I was growing up, and a lot of those great serialized soap dramas.
I thought, 'Oh, I'll be an independent producer. Oh, I'll be a manager.' I was going through all those things in my head, and one night, late at night, I was having what I would now describe as probably a panic attack because there were so many unknowns. An almost literal voice came into my head telling me, 'You need to write.'
