If you're deluded, you live in a place where there isn't everyone else's reality.
Christopher Guest
What's interesting about Laurel and Hardy is that in most comedy teams, there's a straight man, and then there's the funny guy. And with Laurel and Hardy, they're both the funny guy.
Some instinct has told me I need to live in a world that isn't consumed with reading about myself or anyone else or someone's opinion about something. I need to be clear of that. It's just healthier for me. I feel happier.
In the kind of films that I do, there is an extremely limited number of people that can improvise. The reason the ensemble continues in the movies is because those are the people that can do that kind of work. It's not just an accident those people are in the film.
The most important thing about my life is this integrity, and you can't lie to yourself.
I don't know if I'd mastered that documentary format, but I wanted to move on from it.
They sell these golf aids that attach to your knee and your head and are supposed to keep your swing correct. It's futile beyond belief. I've never bought any, but I could watch those ads for 24 hours straight. People with straight faces saying this thing will take strokes off your game - that's my peculiar obsession.
We heard about people who went backstage at dog shows with scissors and cut parts of a poodle's hair off to sabotage the dog.
I read kind of serious books about fairly arcane subjects.
I went to Bard College for a year. And then, even though I didn't think I should give my blood to the theater, I did go to N.Y.U., which is where I met Michael McKean.
I've never seen a reality show. I don't watch television.
I talk to people of different ages, and a guy who's 38 who says, 'I could've played Major League Baseball, but I had this knee injury...' Yeah, probably not. It's a big thing with men and sports, where they think they could have touched that thing.
If you didn't know who I was, if I was to walk out on the street without people knowing who I am, you'd think I'm an accountant or a lawyer.
'The Office' is an amazing show. So is 'Extras.'
I don't think we've ever known what the hell's going on when we do Tap shows. It's possible the audience are effectively getting to see more of the movie when we play. You know, they know the songs, so anything we do onstage, whether we're meaning to or not, is an extension of the film. Other than that, I wouldn't understand what's going on.
It's dangerous talking about comedy; it gets to be very tedious and presumptuous.
When my daughter played volleyball in school, they were the Wildcats. Well, there are about a million Wildcats. Why don't you come up with another name?
I'm not really premeditative in any way at all. I come up with an idea, hopefully for a film, and then I'm lucky enough to do the film.
I find it really appalling when people talk about comedy.
I love being with my family and just being a regular person.
I think fans are so brought up in a culture of rooting for a team since they were kids, ostensibly, and are blind to this idea that people might take offense.
The minute the money is more, you lose your control, so then there's no point.
I am interested in the notion that people can become so obsessed by their world that they lose sense and awareness of how they appear to other people. They're so earnest about it. But that's true of so many things.
Folk musicians have a lot of the same self-importance, but they're way more cruel and jealous than rock musicians - I know this for a fact because I used to be a folk musician.
In real life, people fumble their words. They repeat themselves and stare blankly off into space and don't listen properly to what other people are saying. I find that kind of speech fascinating but screenwriters never write dialogue like that because it doesn't look good on the page.
I spent a lot of time in London when I was growing up and I've always picked up accents without even really meaning to. It used to get me into trouble as a child.
I spent more time in America, but I developed a very English sense of humour. I clicked into it deeply with Peter Sellers, who is still probably my favourite comedian.
You know it's important to have a Jeep in Los Angeles. That front wheel drive is crucial when it starts to snow on Rodeo Drive.
I'm married to the person I fell in love with.
I painted sets before I ever performed.
I rarely joke unless I'm in front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living.
People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case.
Comedy is like music. You have to know the key and you have to find players with good chops.
The movies have a way of seeping out there over time. We don't put them in 2,000 theaters. It wouldn't work that way.
Peter Sellers is my great comedy hero.
It's infrequent that that happens - great performances and magical cinematography and great direction.
Many times I'll improvise it, which isn't done a lot in movies or commercials. But a lot of my commercials are improvised.
You can pick almost any field, and there's going to be weird people.
Comedies don't get nominated for Oscars. It doesn't happen. So when we set out to do a movie, it's not what we're thinking about.
The early parodies that talk-show people did of rock n' roll in the '50s were terrible. They didn't know it, they didn't like it - and that's a lethal combination.
In 'Spinal Tap,' there's the fake historical quality of 'Stonehenge.' It's something the musicians look at with a mystical reverence. In folk music, it's the seriousness with which these people approach their 'art.'
People who take themselves too seriously, who can't see anything else, are usually funny.
I get asked, 'Who would you really like to work with?' I'm already working with them. Smart, talented, funny people, good musicians, an extended family, good friends.
All these movies are observational comedies. I see somebody, maybe a dry cleaner, and notice how they are. Maybe I'll decide to turn a person with those traits into a studio chief.
Most films, when you finish as an actor, you just go home.
The reason I work with the same people, it's not just an accident.
Ninety-nine percent of television shows, I've never seen.
I watch mostly documentaries and things that aren't remotely funny.
You know when you're young, you have this unbelievable stupidity and arrogance and ignorance all mixed in?
People ask me, 'What's your next film?' And I never know.
