Diablo Cody on the backlash to her early success, her Megan Fox therapy breakthrough, and writing Jagged Little Pill the musical
Photo: Dina Litovsky Read the press surrounding Diablo Cody from 2008, the year she won, at the age of 29, an Oscar for her screenplay for Juno, and you might imagine a hard-living, hard-charging, rockabilly sexpot with a penchant for wordplay. The wordplay part is true — though she keeps it out of her scripts these days — but as for the rest, Brook Maurio, the real person behind the name, is not much like the persona she used to storm the gates of Hollywood a decade ago.
Yes. It was confessional. For me, there was just a desperation to be heard, because I was an aspiring writer and I was trying to get published and failing. Suddenly, I became aware of this opportunity to write things, self-publish them, and not have to get permission from anybody. I could write anything I wanted and just shoot it out there, and that was a thrill, you know? Now it’s something everybody takes for granted.
Some of the stuff that was written then — can you imagine if the coverage was the same now? It wouldn’t be done. Yeah, absolutely. I’m like the emotional Cronenberg, because all I care about is personal transformation and reckoning with your past. Nobody paid attention to my blog until I started stripping and writing about it, and overnight I had this spike in page views. I thought, “Well, let’s see how far I can take this.”I’m proud of that because, when I first came to town, everybody assumed I was going to be exclusively pushing stripping projects.
No. Grown-up me is making sure I stay the course. Little Brook is a mean machine that just wants to indulge herself. I’m keeping Little Brook in check. If anything, I would say I’ve developed a compass in adulthood that I didn’t have when I was young. I just was like a self-indulgent, self-centered artist. I don’t know a lot of kindergartners with a superiority complex, but I can tell you that I was one.Oh hell yeah.
People always think about “You Oughta Know,” but that song is kind of an anomaly, actually. It’s like the one aggressive song on the album, and everything else is about wanting to be seen by her family, wanting to be recognized as this artist and a spiritual person, which she really is. The most prominent theme on the album is “Wake Up,” this idea of You cannot avoid pain. You have to face things.
Oh my God, that’s my favorite phrase. You’re screwed either way on a lot of issues. I think important work creates a dialogue, and there’s always going to be opposite sides of a good conversation. I’m okay with it because I’m old and I’ve been through so many controversies in my career. I’ve been through it all, man. I’ve had to apologize to pro-choice people. I’ve had to apologize to people with postpartum depression, even though it was an experience that I personally went through.
Young Adult was a really interesting example to me, at the time it came out, it was such a crazy character to see. Now, we’ve broadened our palate for unlikable women ever so slightly. It totally holds up, by the way. I rewatched it recently, and I hadn’t seen it since it came out. I don’t typically rewatch my stuff because it makes me want to die. I could not believe how bleak it was.I do now. Maybe she wouldn’t do a third. I don’t know.
No. Hell no. I wake up every day and I have to pick one. I have to say, “Am I going to prioritize my career today or my kids?” You can’t do both. I can have days of the week when my children are the priority, and then there are days when they’re not. I wish I could say, “Oh, they’re always the priority,” but right now I’m in New York and they’re in Los Angeles. I am a bad mother right now. And that’s okay, because I’m providing for them.
I know people like Ricki. So, for me, it was just realistic. You do meet people who present as rebels who are politically conservative. It’s actually pretty common.I’d never dared to dream that Meryl Streep was going to take that part. I will never forget the night I realized that she was doing it. I met her out for sushi, and I thought we were just going to discuss the possibility of her doing this. I thought to myself, She’s probably not going to, but this is a nice meeting to have.
I feel like squirting is also something that was discussed more in the late ’90s and early aughts, or maybe that’s just when I became aware of it. Yeah, me too. I was there from the beginning. I’m totally going to get shit on for this, but don’t you think some of the writing on Succession is a little reminiscent of the writing that I got dragged for early in my career? “You can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Gregs,” which is my favorite line in the world.People thought it was just so glib and obnoxious when I did it, and now people are enjoying it. I don’t know. By the way, I fucking love Succession.
A lot of it is casting. You can write the best script in the fucking world and if you do not have a recognizable name attached, you’re fucked. Especially since now we’re in a world where we have A-listers doing television. You’re competing with projects that have Jennifer Aniston attached. You’re competing with the Paul Rudd show. I have a project right now I can’t talk about yet, but it’s a familiar piece of IP. I’ve been thinking to myself as I’m writing it, Okay.
Yeah, the context is changing constantly. I do think Juno is a … I don’t know why I keep talking about Juno. It’s a million years ago. Juno is a pro-choice movie, but I probably wouldn’t make a movie with that narrative now.You’ve said that’s part of the reason you wanted to do that Juno table reading as a Planned Parenthood fundraiser.
No. I don’t know why. I’ve just never had a really strong drive. I work because I enjoy it, you know? So much of it has just been selfish. I’d be doing writing even if I wasn’t being paid to do it. I don’t have a lot of big dreams beyond what I’ve accomplished. I would love to say, “Oh, I think I’m afraid of success,” or like, “I’m protecting myself by not endeavoring to be the next Martin Scorsese,” but I don’t want to be. I am really not an alpha female.
He came out with us to pitch the show, which was at the time thrilling, because having someone like him in the room who had so much power and who could sell the show was great for us. I had a cordial relationship with him. I wasn’t involved with him day-to-day. I don’t know him socially. I haven’t spoken to him since all the shit went down.You know, you’re literally the first person to ask me about this, which is interesting.
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