Each year I'm getting more and more joy out of the process than the outcome...that may be because I've been fortunate to have great outcomes and are taking them for granted but I like to think I'm remapping my neurology and interpreting certain experiences differently. I like talking to other people about how to tackle a story. If I were a character in a movie, my "arc" would definitely have something to do with a journey from isolation to collaboration. In other words, as I near my retirement, my real joy has become exploiting younger writers.
Related posts tagged 'Reflecting on own work'
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Related posts tagged 'Reflecting on own work'
It's very hard to choose.
Because I've enjoyed all of them, really!
There's a movie that never really did big in terms of its receipts, but it was called "Funny Farm," and in some ways, it may be my best performance. It was very real and very fun. I think it's because also it had the great director George Roy Hill. He directed me in that.
I love the new movie and can't wait for the second part. That book is a favorite of mine, and King one of my favorite authors. It was a really big deal for me to get that role, and insane to get to work with all those stars. I'd loved both Tim Curry and John Ritter for years, and taken tremendous influence from their careers and performances. Everyone was so cool and gracious- it really set a tone of epic collaboration. The director Tommy Lee Wallace was so clear in his vision, and really able to communicate. It showed me a lot about what a director can and should be.
I think playing Oliver Sachs in Awakenings was a gift because I got to meet him, and got to explore the human brain from the inside out. Because Oliver writes about human behavior subjectively and that for me was the beginning of a fascination with human behavior.
Daily Show was a really intense grind. So much fun, but less about spontaneous laughs and more about building comedy and crafting jokes for the on-air segments. The Office was more about just trying to make each other laugh all the time. So the vibes were very different, but equally rewarding and exciting. And hilarious.
You know, at 14 years old, you don't really contemplate success and that aspect of work, you kinda do things because it's fun to do. We had an amazing crew and cast, and I had the best 8 years of my life on the show. It's not something you can force, it's either something that happens or doesn't. Yeah!
I love that movie. Getting to play that part was such a gift for me. We had a real balance of genuine emotional resonance, with highly stylized high school life. It's all subject matter and humor that I love. Plus everyone on set and in production knew each other, or were aware of each other over the years, so filming was kind of like a party. GREAT TIME.
Related posts tagged 'Creativity'
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Related posts tagged 'Creativity'
There was a world of junkies and winos, pool hustlers and prostitutes, women and family screaming inside my head, trying to be heard. The longer I kept them bottled up, the harder they tried to escape.
[In reply to Louis CK, who was leading a discussion about the importance of maintaining a physical training routine and its relation to comedy]
Louis,
I concur that poor health leads to sloth and effects your creativity.
Repeating any behavior continually will effect your writing as it gives
you nothing new to say. I do drugs, yes I do but I only do them socially. Its the fact that I
talk openly about it that gives the impression that there is a
frequency. I’ve probably done mushrooms 6 times this year, acid once
(poor quality), coke maybe 5 or 6 times, and about three xanax a week
to sleep. I dont smoke pot.
So smokes and drink are about my only habits and the cigarettes
certainly n...
Your dreams are very well written. I know this, without knowing any of you. People turn anxieties, crises and longing, love, regret and guilt into beautiful rich stories in their dreams. What is it that allows us the creative freedom in our dreams that we don’t have in our waking lives? I don’t know, but I suspect part of it is that in our dreams we are not constricted by worry about how we will appear to others. It’s a private conversation with ourselves, and if we’re worried about it, this becomes part of the dream. I think if we were better able to approach our work this way, the results would be different.
creatively you use all the same tools. you tend to steer towards people you like being around... you try to make it the best thing possible given your restraints... i guess framing it for people is the most challenging part
Get familiar with the BURN of the learning curve and just accept that the only way to get better at anything is to fail over and over and over. I saw this video of this amazing archer and he was shooting arrows through tubes and quarters and making these amazing shots and someone next to him said "Lucky shot!" and he said "The more I practice the luckier I get!"
it all comes in seasons and waves. the best we can hope it when we are called on, we are in a creative season! and if we're not, sometimes that panic of a deadline is enough to snap me out of it. but it's all self love. if youre blocked, love youself anyway. it's a better strategy and will make it go away faster than being hard on yourself. take a nap! take a walk! take a drive! watch a movie! it's all writing. just in your subconscious
Related posts tagged 'Writing for TV'
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Related posts tagged 'Writing for TV'
Very fun. I got paid to travel across Canada and stay in fancy hotels and all I had to do was come up with lines for the host like "The temperature may be ice cold here in Winnipeg, but things are really heating up in the judging room."
Oh. Well I thought a Minute with Stan Hooper was the best thing I ever did outside of stand up comedy. But Fox didn't stay with the show. It was a show that was intended to turn very dark, like at the end of the first season, it was set up like a homespun show, and then at the end of the first season my wife was going to be slaughtered by the town barber that we'd come to love as a kind of a funny old fella. Anyways, turned out he was a psychosexual sadist. but they never let us get to the end. So you never got to see my plan.
And I'm not saying anything against psychosexual sadists. I just think oftentimes you know, they'll slaughter innocents and I'm no fan of that.
It was pretty crazy. I already had a whole rhythm to my week as a writer, so it took a while to change it up and focus more on performing than on writing. Here's what helped a ton: Rob Klein and Bryan Tucker took over most of the Head Writer job and they're two of the funniest writers I've ever met. Rob and Bryan and I write a lot together for the show. Also Dennis McNicholas who used to be one of the head writers with Tina Fey and Adam McKay started producing WU last year and that was awesome. And our WU writers are the best and made our jobs a lot more fun: Pete Schultz (Leslie calls him "Franklin), Josh Patten (Leslie calls him "Clarence"), Katie Rich (Leslie calls her "Rachel"), and Mega...
There is no line that I know in terms of what's "too far," whether that means too sentimental or too ...I don't know, controversial or confessional....a "boundary" is an artificial construct, we have to create boundaries when they involve other people, precisely because it makes empirical something that would otherwise be frustratingly subjective (like that neighbor that just kind of 'feels like' their yard extends into yours, in which case you have to go to city hall and pull out a map with lines on it). In matters of creativity - when you're sitting and writing dialogue by yourself, there's no lines needed because you're not having to function in cooperation, your job in creation, I think,...
Another night to remember: Around three a.m., [30 Rock producer and writer Robert Carlock] and I were leading a rewrite in my living room and realized that we had both fallen asleep while talking. When we woke up a few moments (or hours?) later, the other writers were just sitting politely, awaiting further instruction. That is a dedicated staff.
TV was an accidental detour from what I thought was going to be a feature writing career - it started when Ben Stiller asked me and Schrab during a movie pitch meeting if we had any TV ideas...a very long story later, we ended up doing Heat Vision and Jack with Stiller and although FOX didn't pick it up, I had already gotten a taste of how much more empowered writers were in TV than they were in features and ended up sticking around for a few decades.
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