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I started on television. I had five years of network television before I ever got up on a stage. The first thing I ever did was in 1967. This guy Bill Keene had a little talk show at noon, and Gary Owens took over for a week. He knew about this dummy bit I used to do, this ventriloquist thing, and I was on 'Keene at Noon.'
There are things I'm doing with 'The After' that would've never flown on 'The X-Files' and on network television, so it's more permissive. That's not to say that you want to abuse that. I think that a show like 'The X-Files' actually worked better as a network show with the restraints put on it, the censorship that was applied.
Being on a major network television show is like long-distance running: You have to pace yourself and maintain your energy level and your morale. There's the role you're playing on the show, and there's also your behind-the-scenes responsibility to the crew, the guest actors and the fans - not to mention your own life as a mom.
When he came to television, there was no way I wasn't going to watch. Of course, he delivered everything that you would expect David Lynch to deliver, and more, and he was doing it in primetime network television. Even as a 14-year old, I wanted someone in the room with me that I could look over and say, 'Can you believe we're watching this?'
We called the head of CBS and said, 'We know how network television feels about musicals. Would you even consider doing 'Gypsy?'' He said, 'If I did say yes, you'd have to have a big movie star who does not do TV.' I told him that, in our fantasy world, we'd like Bette Midler. He said, 'Get Bette Midler, and you have an on-the-air commitment.'
Often, when you're in some of these writing rooms for... and the most restrictive is network television, right? They say, 'Wow, that's a great joke, but we can't do that. Okay, let's try the second joke. Oh, you can't do that one. But the third joke you can do,' and hopefully it will be great, but it will remind people of what the joke really was.