1. Did publishing a book come easily to you since you are a daughter of a
celebrity?
Well, before you can get a book published, you
have to know how to write. And that took
me some time! After I got my MFA, I
lived like a hermit, writing stories that I never showed anybody, and the
better part of a novel that is still in a drawer. I went through a long period of being my own harshest
critic. And then when I got the idea for
The Daughters, I didn’t tell anyone
about it because I was so incredibly embarrassed. I would think to myself, Oh my god, you can’t write this!
It felt way too personal. And
I was determined to write about anything BUT my personal experience. But the idea never went away. It wasn’t until I’d moved out to California
and written professionally for television that I got up the courage to tell my
friend the idea. He almost hit the
roof. He said “You have to write
this! Go home and start tonight!” About a month later I finally pitched an
agent the idea. But even then I had to
convince her that I could actually write the book. I wrote the first eighty pages and that’s
when we took it out to publishers. But
we took my name off the submission. I
didn’t want anyone to want it because of my last name. Fortunately people wanted it anyway, but it
was satisfying to know that my last name had nothing to do with it!
2. Did you always know you wanted to be a writer or did you want to be an
actress or something else growing up?
I loved doing theater and taking drama classes
when I was a child and a teenager, but I always had a stronger passion for
writing. So often I’d read a script and think
to myself, “That line shouldn’t read like that.
It should read like this.” I think that’s how I knew.
3. How did the idea of THE DAUGHTERS come to you?
One
day in my twenties I was coming out of the Times Square subway and right above
me, on the Jumbotron, were my mom and dad, hosting my dad’s show. It was such a surreal moment. There I was, standing on the sidewalk rushing
off to my job as someone’s assistant or intern, and there were my parents on
this enormous screen. And I thought to
myself, Okay, this is weird. That’s when I really got the idea for The Daughters: three girls all living
“under the Jumbotron,” so to speak. At
first they were in their early twenties, just out of college, and starting
their lives. Years later, I decided to
make them teenagers, and that’s when the book really clicked for me.
4. Can you relate to any of the characters?
I
relate to all of them. Sure, I’ve never
been the daughter of a supermodel or a pop star, but the issues these girls are
dealing with are ones I had consider as well: Do people expect me to be like my
mom or dad? Do I have to be what people
think I’m supposed to be or is it okay to just be myself? And I think no matter who our parents are, we
all grapple with these issues of learning to accept and be ourselves.
5. Have you received special recognition in school
or with friends when you were young?
My
teachers and close friends in highschool always knew me as me, not as the
daughter of Regis Philbin. Of course,
there were some perks, such as getting to travel or meet people I admired
(meeting Michael J. Fox in seventh grade just about blew my mind) but for the
most part, I wanted to be as “normal” as everyone else. Like most teenagers do!
6. Is it easy or hard for you to walk down the
street or somewhere and have people recognize you?
That
only happens if I’m with my parents. But
most of the time, nobody recognizes me.
I think I’d be kind of shocked if that ever happened!
