Distracting Yourself Out of Heartbreak with Janet Varney

First Draft Episode #219: Janet Varney

Janet Varney, Emmy-Nominated actor, comedian, writer, producer,
and podcaster. She has appeared in dozens of TV shows, including
You’re the Worst, Take My Wife, Burning Love, Stan Against Evil,
and Fortune Rookie, and the voice of Korra in The Legend of
Korra. She is also the co-founder, creative director, and
producer of SF Sketchfest: the San Francisco Comedy Festival (now
in its 19th year!), and hosts The JV Club podcast.
Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode



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David Owen and Cole Stratton were in a sketch group, Totally
False People, with Janet Varney. Together the three of them
founded SF Sketchfest, and continue to run the annual
month-long comedy festival to this day 




Totally False People got asked to perform at the Aspen Comedy
Festival, and Janet was scoped out by Mad TV




Bruce McCullough, one of the members of influential sketch
comedy group Kids in the Hall, is one of Janet’s closest
friends. They met in Janet’s capacity as producer of
Sketchfest




One of Janet’s earlier roles was on Love, Inc., a Busy
Phillips project about a matchmaker




Janet was able to craft her character on Burning Love with
the blessing of Ken Marino and Erica Oyama, creators of the
movies




Janet plays “Janet Varney” on her IFC show, Fortune Rookie




Janet (and I) went through the Upright Citizens Brigade
improv school, which is focused on “game” as opposed to iO
West and The Groundlings, where comedians create broad
characters. Matt Besser is one of the four founders of UCB.




Janet was the voice of Korra in The Legend of Korra, the
sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender (not for nothing, but I
interviewed Michael DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar, and you
can listen to that conversation here).




Much like with Korra, I have read that the cast of Adventure
Time recorded the show all in a room together.




Janet’s podcast The JV Club is amazing! Check it out — you
can start with my episode, if you like!




Doug Benson’s podcast, Doug Loves Movies, and Jimmy Pardo’s
podcast, Never Not Funny, were two comedy podcasts that were
around when Janet started her own




Pete Holmes’s You Made it Weird and Marc Maron’s WTF with
Marc Maron are two long-form interview podcasts that inspired
me to start First Draft




Memento was a wildly original movie, but Janet argues that
level of uniqueness should not be the standard all creators
hold themselves to. Save the Cat: The Last Book on
Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder is a great
shorthand guide for a formula to write a screenplay.


I want to hear from you!

Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her
guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998. You
can also email the podcast at
firstdraftwithsarahenni@gmail.com. 
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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author
of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture
Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator
of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  Michael
Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender;
John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and
frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their
careers and creative works.



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