Christopher Guest Quotes
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My passion is more specific, in the sense that I've always liked doing comedy. I've always liked doing music. I like acting. And apparently, you need those things in movies.
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Ninety-nine percent of television shows, I've never seen.
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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.
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I started on the clarinet. I was going to a music school - my mother took me - and the guy said, 'What do you want to play?' I said the drums, and my mother said, 'No, you don't. You don't want to play the drums.' So I said, 'Maybe the trumpet would be cool.' And my mother said, 'I don't think so.' And then the clarinet was handed to me.
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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.
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There's something about that idea of looking up and hoping, and thinking, 'I'm good.' Some things, like show business, are absolutely subjective. People look at a TV show and think, 'I could do that.' And maybe they could do that. But they're not.
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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.
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I'm fascinated by real-time behavior.
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I've never seen a reality show. I don't watch television.
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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.
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When you've been a character in a movie - and this has happened when we've done concerts as Spinal Tap or as The Folksmen - people see you as characters walking out of a movie. And you appear in public, then, to play, it's a very schizophrenic thing.
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I knew Dave Raymond, who was the original Phillie Phanatic.
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It's infrequent that that happens - great performances and magical cinematography and great direction.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If you're showing people where it's smooth sailing, where is the joke? If you go back to any movie, even a conventional movie, with any comedians, they're either not terribly intelligent or they're not doing something well.
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In 'Waiting for Guffman,' the character I played, the Corky character, he's very serious about what he does, and it's not meant to be mean that this is a small town and these people aren't the most talented people. They're trying the best they can. So to be mean, that would be kind of horrifying in its superficiality.
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You know when you're young, you have this unbelievable stupidity and arrogance and ignorance all mixed in?
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I started working in New York City as an actor and did many plays. I did regional theater, smaller theaters, children's theater.
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People ask me, 'What's your next film?' And I never know.
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I read kind of serious books about fairly arcane subjects.
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The truth of it is that people are not going to want to go to improvisational theater if it's not funny. You can succeed in doing all the things you're supposed to do - be truthful to scene - and if it's not funny, I'm telling you that no one's gonna care.
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I love documentaries. My problem is when the filmmaker becomes the star.