Darren Star

Adversity creates comedy. ”

When doing a series, I look for something that has an idea you can think about, something that I'm noticing and aware of and thinking about, because when you're doing a series, you think about more than just jokes... you know, when you're doing a comedy, you think about what's going to reflect people's experiences, in a way. ”

When I did 'Sex and the City,' it was like, 'Let's do a comedy where the humor is not coming from innuendo but from the a truthful place. This is a show where we're going to be able to say and do what we want.' ”

Certainly when, you know, you put a lot of creative people together, there's ego and tension and all that stuff comes into play. But on the flip side, there's a lot of camaraderie and closeness. ”

When 'Sex and the City' aired its first season, people didn't know about HBO as a place for original series. People weren't saying, 'Oh I've got to watch 'Sex and the City'!' They found it later. In some ways, it helped change what people thought of HBO. ”

Women are really emotional creatures, and men are kind of closed in terms of emotions. I think women are just a lot more out there. ”

I think women have such rich emotional lives that they are expressive about. I also think they're funny. I like watching strong female characters, and I like writing them. I don't know if it's conscious that I gravitate towards women, but it's certainly evolved that way. ”

Male nudity, full-frontal nudity, has always been considered a lot more taboo than female nudity. As far back as I can remember, there's been a double standard between men and women. I think it's time that men get equal time in terms of nudity. ”

I never did theater. I was a theater major at USC my first year because I didn't get into the film school. I was biding my time, hoping to be accepted to film school, and I ended up transferring to UCLA my sophomore year. ”

I grew up feeling Israel is very important, and I'm very supportive of Israel. At the same time, I think you can be really supportive of Israel and not look at it as a black-and-white situation. ”