John and I on the party planning committee for Kelly's party. Hanging the brown and grey balloons. We COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING.
Related posts tagged 'Behind the scenes'
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Related posts tagged 'Behind the scenes'
Behind the scene stories from SNL -- I particularly remember the Saturday that Steve Martin was hosting with Sting as musical guest. The fire alarms went off that afternoon and we all had to rush down the stairs and out into the street. We weren't allowed back into the building until right before the live show. We went on with no rehearsal. Quite exciting. (just smoke in the building).
One time in makeup as Mrs. Doubtfire, I walked into a sex shop in San Francisco and tried to buy a double-headed dildo. Just because. Why not? And the guy was about to sell it to me until he realized it was me - Robin Williams - not an older Scottish woman coming in to look for a very large dildo and a jar of lube. He just laughed and said "what are you doing here" and I left. Did I make the purchase? *No. * Did I walk away with a really good story? Yes.
My personal opinion (speaking for myself, not the character of Ryan): You will never be too warm or too cold in a long-sleeve tee. In my opinion it is the perfect item of clothing. Further backstory: this line drove writer/producer Michael Schur crazy because executive producer Greg Daniels refused to clarify whether it was meant to be sarcastic or not. It was a vehemently debated line among the Office writing staff, for some reason.
I love when something unexpected happens in a scene. Like in Trainwreck when Lebron reaches for his wallet and acted liked he didn't realize he forgot to bring it in the restaurant.
Um, Sarah Michelle Gellar and myself are credited in ROBOT CHICKEN many, many times for doing things that do not exist. Seth is our best friend, and we made him do it.
OH MY GOODNESS, that's a great question!
You know, we shot that in a town called Ouarzazate in the Sahara desert, just one long dirt road about 200 miles into the desert from Marrakech, and it was also a base for some of the fighting that was going on between the Morrocan army and others. And I had a Jeep, and I had to drive Danny into the desert to our set, and when we were done at the end of the day, we would have to drive back. And one time, Danny said "Hey look! Some Moroccan troops!" and took a camera out and took a photo and they SAW him - and they immediately jumped into the back of their truck and started chasing us! So I drove like a bat out of hell to this supposed hotel, and Dann...
The craziest moment was walking out to do Weekend Update and my first joke was about the Patriots and Deflategate and the one person I passed walking to the desk was Robert Kraft. He was just hanging out and watching the show in our studio. I was like, "Hey.... Ear muffs?"
I think he liked it. Steinbrenner was unfamiliar with the show. His grandchildren watched it, and his grandchildren talked him into letting us use his name. The last episode I think of the '96 season, we came up with the idea to actually fly him in and put him on the show because up to that point, we'd only been seeing the back of his head, and I was doing his voice. And then we thought it would be fun if he was - if he actually made a real appearance.
So we called him up, and he said, yeah, he would do it. So we flew out to do it. He did the show. We started editing the show. And as I watched it, I'm going, oh, my god, this is not good. And we thought it's so much better to just see the ba...
throaty laugh
Hahahaha!
Let's see now... All I can think of is Billy Murray holding up that candy bar in the pool!
There was no scene that was written for me and Bill Murray together, where we're both in the same shot and had a scene, so we just sort of made it up as I was playing golf and he was running that tractor with all those big blades... oh wait, my wife was just reminding me that there was a scene inside the Caddy Shack itself, and I was playing some night golf to get ready for my big day the next day with Rodney Dangerfield, but in that scene - it was hilarious - we just did it, you know? We didn't write it, we just did it, haha!
Related posts tagged 'Favorite memories as a comedian'
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Related posts tagged 'Favorite memories as a comedian'
I loved making FLETCH. Probably was my second most favorite movie to make, just because I was allowed to make up so much of the dialogue. I can't even remember learning any dialogue! I was just given the right by Michael Ritchie, a terrific director who's passed away, I'm sad to say, but he let me just go. And that's why I had such a good time doing it, and you know, looking back on that, I don't think I've ever been funnier in some ways!
Too many to name. I would say the very very late nights writing with Marika Sawyer and Simon Rich. We would laugh and laugh and laugh. It was so fun. I cannot express in words how fun it was.
I loved it when Conan came in and interrupted us from working to make us laugh for hours while production was waiting for us to write a sketch. Conan wasted more time than anyone on that show, but it was a lot of fun.
Ben and Tom are having lunch with a drunk Joan Calamezzo who is creepily hitting on Tom and we have this exchange:
Joan: I'm going to go to the bathroom and powder my nose... amongst other things.
Ben: Dude, is she gonna go powder her vagina?
Probably the hardest scene I've ever had to get through without breaking. Adam and I just had to skip doing it for the first few takes. It's on the blooper real I believe. Also, props to Mo Collins, who always brings it as Joan.
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.
One of the few times I almost broke character is when Chris Farley got hung up on the Weekend Update letters behind us as he was supposed to be hoisted up on a cable and flown over the audience. Too funny!
Well, my best memory is having worked with Harold Ramis, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year. He was also in GHOSTBUSTERS, but he directed me in CADDYSHACK and the original VACATION!
And he gave me the character of Clark Griswold.
And loved working with Eric Idle in EUROPEAN VACATION. When I was speaking what i thought was French to the waiter, and he was just making obscene... and working with Imogene Coca was great, because she really tied me into - and I'd worked with Sid Caesar too, but i really grew up on him, so it was terrific. I loved the scene, I think my favorite scene of all of 'em, is the scene between me and Jim Teach who's playing the motorcycle cop who stops my c...
"The Ben Stiller Show" was a crazy ton of fun. In fact, when it ended I had the very conscious thought that it was the most fun I would or could ever have in showbiz and my goal from that point on would be to try to replicate it. "Mr. Show" could have been more fun if I hadn't been such a tight-ass, but we still had a ton of laughs.
Best job ever. The excitement of starting a whole new show to replace my hero Letterman's, of doing it with one of my best friends hosting it, and working with hilarious young writers, it far outweighed how hard it was and how many people tore into it. Too many memories to list but Louis CK used to throw shit out the 30 Rock window a lot. He would throw money, and attach a note to it - stuff like "You fucking pathetic moron." So we got to watch people scurry to pick up dollar bills and the read the note. Even though they were ant-sized, their body language was enough to have us laughing for hours.
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