The Originals | Diablo Cody

Francesco Carrozzini

Diablo Cody is in on the joke. And this stripper-turned-writer is as agile on the page as she was on the stage: among her current projects are developing the sudsy “Sweet Valley High” books into a film, while simultaneously writing an original screenplay called “Young Adult,” about a divorced author of teen fiction who returns to her hometown to chase her now-married high school boyfriend. This is the kind of career-as-meta-gag that smart young writers dream of, but almost nobody can pull off. Cody, a Los Angeles resident (who in an earlier life was Brook Busey from Chicago), made her name with the Oscar-winning screenplay for “Juno.” She followed up with the Showtime series “United States of Tara,” a writerly tour de force about a suburban mom (played by Toni Collette) with multiple personalities, now in its second season. “It’s safe to say that I need everything to be embellished, creatively or otherwise,” says Cody, 31. “Just like I’m inclined to put on too much jewelry or get too many tattoos, I need my writing to be a little over-the-top.