I have to say that the only good reviews I've gotten in my movie life were for The Emperor's New Groove. I really, really liked that movie. It was very hard to do (which sounds crazy, because it's only the voice) but the backstory was, it was originally called Empire of the Sun. And it was myself and Owen Wilson as sort of a prince and a pauper trading places type thing. And we got a year and a half into it, and Michael Eisner from Disney looked at a rough cut and said "I don't like it." And they got rid of everybody but Spade, and they had this dopey llama idea. It sounds like they just made it up on the spot, and he liked it, and somehow those guys put together a whole new idea, and it was...
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Yes. Wait, what? Yes, I would consider doing a Dirty Work 2. But there's so much involved. I should start a kickstarter. Because the problem is Dirty Work 1 lost so much money the movie studio had to shut down. MGM had a huge loss in their quarter, and the stock owners fled, and boy, you hear a lot about that on your answering machine. So I don't know if they want to make another one. But Artie is always hilarious.
Question: You've worked with a lot of the same people since your early 20s (Bridges, Elswit, Tichenor, Sellar etc). Did you pick these people very carefully out of admiration for their work, or was it more coincidental? Especially with Elswit - did you immediately know this was your guy?
Answer: Elswit was the only one who had a resume. The rest of us all found each other and started getting to work - big dreams and all...
Elswit was nice enough to work with me and teach me everything. He was and is my hero.
That was on Louie ck's first short film called "Caesar's Salad" I played the part of "crazy pumpkin head" where I charged a group of people with a knife. Nick was one of them. We used a real knife and I dropped it on nick's foot in the scene. Went through his shoe and everything. He had to go the hospital. But he did get a bit out of it.
I like making short films. You can do anything you want in a short film because it doesn’t have the weight of a feature [film] where every moment has to serve the entire film.
If you have a weird little idea you can just go out and make a short film about it and people can watch it for a short time and then move on to whatever the next thing is they’re doing in their lives.
So I just always encourage people to make short films because it’s the one thing in film that you can always do. There are people laying all over the streets who are great and qualified and talented filmmakers, directors of photography and editors who have nothing to do and they are always eager to jump on a project wit...
One of the best times I've ever had making a movie. Kind of hard not to have fun with that crew. Anything Craig Robinson says makes me laugh. I think Channing Tatum is most like his character.
That every moment in life is precious? That the gifts of your relationships with others, don't miss it. That was one of the hardest movies I think I ever did in my whole career. Every day was literally hell, because of the nature of the subject matter, dealing with death and being in hell literally. When I watched the final movie, I felt it was extraordinarily beautiful but I felt disappointed by the ending. There was a different ending that they shot that I felt was much more true to the story. It was about reincarnation, basically, that they were going to meet again. The movie ended with two babies being born simultaneously, one in Bombay and one in the United States, and they held them up...
when i did pootie tang i signed a deal that i served at their pleasure and had no creative control. It was worth it because I got to direct a studio movie at a young age and I learned. I don't sign deals like that anymore though.
Loved having the breasts on my head. The make up dept. really made them authentic. Filled with condoms full of water. Everyone wanted to feel them, guys and women. At the end of the day when they were removed no one cared about me. It was then I realized how powerful it was to have breasts!
Oh my gosh I learned so much. Hard to put into words because it's so many things about so many things. With making Robot Chicken for several years, I've gotten lots of experience not just working with actors, but also helping a large crew all work together for a shared goal. I really appreciate every individual's personal contribution to the whole, and know that people need encouragement. I've learned to be direct without making someone feel punished, and I really focus on surrounding myself with superior talent wherever possible. I really work to take nothing personally, and give space for everyone to do their best work. I think I'll direct another movie, but I need it to be something I lov...
Related posts tagged 'Reflecting on own work'
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Related posts tagged 'Reflecting on own work'
The only movie I watch end to end over and over again is Walk Hard. It just makes me laugh and relaxes me. the rest I will watch pieces of when they are on cable. I have so many emotions tied to every scene it’s hard for me to be a normal audience to any of it. Except Dewey Cox. And Zohan. And Popstar. I guess the sillier ones draw me in.
The pin really did slip from my fingers and catch on my sweater. That was not something that was planned. But what we didn't show in the episode is that I had a second backup pin taped behind my ear with a band aid (skin color so you couldn't really see it). In practicing, the pin was really easy to drop, so I wanted a backup. If the pin hit the ground, I would have gone for my backup pin.
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.
I love how much people love Freddy Got Fingered. I think that movie made me realize how much the media gets the story wrong. Everywhere I go people tell me how much they love that movie. Lobby your congressman!! Freddy Got Fingered rules.
I agree with Justin Kirk who played Andy on Weeds..."I don't feel things when they are happening." At the time I was fine with it and looking forward to moving on to other things in life but now I am becoming a little nostalgic for it. We would have begun taping Season 9 this week. I have certain years that were my favorite on that run. I think when any show runs that long you are going to have some years that are stronger than others. I ran into Chevy Chase once and he said that with SNL a lot of people don't remember this but only one out of two SNL shows in the original years were good.
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.
I had actually pitched Nathan for You to Comedy Central before I started working on Jon Benjamin Has a Van. It was inspired by segments I did for a Canadian series called "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" where I'd interact with real people in an interview setting. I first began doing these segments in 2007. But it's always interesting to watch different approaches to dealing with real people, and it was very educational to work with Jon and see how he operated. You Can't Shoot Here is one of my all time favorite comedy bits.
I've interviewed almost 60,000 people. It's impossible to pick one out.
I've interviewed 7 Presidents, Marlon Brando, to Frank Sinatra, to Nelson Mandela, to Martin Luther King, it's impossible.
I had a great time on that show. That was a really fun time in my life. I left Saturday Night Live, and was happy after about 2 years of that show, I realized we were going to stick around, and it was happy to have the monkey off your back, when you leave SNL it doesn't mean you're not going to do anything else in your life in show business. So to leave it, and then get something else that kind of clicked, and I could make money at, and was really fun to do, was great. So if I didn't have Just Shoot Me, I wouldn't have had a lot of stuff. I would have never gotten a cover of Rolling Stone, I never would have gotten the house I had, and I got to work with fun people and do a show that I was p...
We acted together in the Senior Show our senior year. He was incredibly talented and the show was a lot of fun, but no, it never occurred to me that anyone would do anything together after high school. Who ever imagines that?
I sometimes think that if I were to wake up and it turned out The Office was all a dream, the fact that John Krasinski was in it with me would be what I'd realize afterward should have been the obvious tip-off. "Oh! And John Krasinski was in it, too! But they called him Jim! And there was a beet farmer... Whoa, so weird"
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