American playwright & actor (1965- )
I don't know what it says about me that I have a greater affinity with the damaged. Probably nothing good.
TRACY LETTS
August: Osage County
We're all just people, some of us accidentally connected by genetics, a random selection of cells. Nothing more.
TRACY LETTS
August: Osage County
I like Shakespeare, but I never know what the hell is going on.
TRACY LETTS
"Tracy Letts Is Still Haunted by His Past", New York Times Magazine, March 21, 2014
I mean there's a certain finality about a movie, when it's done it's done -- that raised eyebrow in that moment will always be that raised eyebrow. Whereas a play only lives as a blueprint for a performance on any given night. There's a reason you can eat popcorn and watch a movie and you can't do that in the theatre. Theatre you have to lean in, you have to tune your ear to the stage and participate.
TRACY LETTS
The Telegraph, January 31, 2014
All women need makeup. Don't let anybody tell you different. The only woman who was pretty enough to go without makeup was Elizabeth Taylor and she wore a ton.
TRACY LETTS
August: Osage County
What they frequently want to do with a movie is, they want to cut out the valleys and just show the peaks. And valleys are important; the valleys make the peaks stand out.
TRACY LETTS
The Daily Beast, November 5, 2013
Sometimes my family thinks I've made my childhood a bit more Dickensian than it was, and it probably wasn't all that bad. But I was uncomfortable as a kid.
TRACY LETTS
"Tracy Letts Is Still Haunted by His Past", New York Times Magazine, March 21, 2014
Time wounds all heals.
TRACY LETTS
August: Osage County
Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed.
TRACY LETTS
August: Osage County
I said to my wife just the other day, I was actually taking some time to consider all the blessings in my life and that things are really good. I said, you would have to be a real churl to complain about the life I'm living right now. Everything's going great. I'm having a good time.
TRACY LETTS
The Daily Beast, November 5, 2013
Our show was very long, and Al Pacino was right next door doing Glengarry Glen Ross, and we would hear the screams on the street when he made his exit from the theater. And Ricky Martin was also down the street doing Evita, so we would hear the screams when he made his exit and we still had hours to go on our show. Those theaters are not soundproofed at all, so sometimes you're hearing buses picking up patrons and you're hearing the beeps of garbage trucks backing up. I came offstage one night and I said, "My God, it's like trying to do a play -- " and Carrie said, "In Times Square?" Yeah, exactly. Sometimes I'm not sure it's the best spot for it.
TRACY LETTS
"Tracy Letts Is Still Haunted by His Past", New York Times Magazine, March 21, 2014
If you feel like you're in control of everything, and then things aren't going well, you feel like you're failing.
TRACY LETTS
interview, Slant Magazine, December 19, 2013
I'm kind of perverse in that I think pessimism is helpful. My pessimism is my own kind of patriotism. My dissent.
TRACY LETTS
The Telegraph, January 31, 2014
If you're not entertaining, what the hell's the point?
TRACY LETTS
The Telegraph, January 31, 2014
I'm aware that a film is different than a play, and that a film isn't going to be the filmed record of the play. It's its own separate entity, and I've come to peace with that.
TRACY LETTS
interview, Slant Magazine, December 19, 2013
You know, people see [August: Osage County], and I tell them that it's based on my family, and they assume that I came from some kind of horrible, hysterical circumstances. That's not true. My family, my nuclear family, was actually very close. My mom and dad were great parents and they encouraged a real rich, creative life for me and my brothers. My extended family, like every family, has some darkness, and some violence of some kind, emotional or otherwise, in their past.
TRACY LETTS
interview, Slant Magazine, December 19, 2013
Divorce is an embarrassing public admission of defeat.
TRACY LETTS
August: Osage County
A certain giving up of control is good for the soul.
TRACY LETTS
interview, Slant Magazine, December 19, 2013
Well, one of the things we're supposed to be able to do as playwrights is write from a place of empathy, get into another character's shoes and experience things both mundane and tragic. And people don't -- like me right now -- people aren't necessarily the most eloquent when trying to express their emotions. I guess I feel as a playwright that those people deserve a voice, too, a voice that isn't so articulate that they themselves can no longer identify with it.
TRACY LETTS
"Tracy Letts Is Still Haunted by His Past", New York Times Magazine, March 21, 2014
In theater, the playwright is the boss, period. The decisions will go through him or her. In movies, the writer is pretty far down on the list.
TRACY LETTS
The Daily Beast, November 5, 2013