Christopher Guest Quotes
-
I don't read about myself, and I don't read any magazine that has anything to do with movies or show business.
-
I watch mostly documentaries and things that aren't remotely funny.
-
There are dozens and dozens of improv classes across the nation, but it really cannot be taught.
-
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.
-
My daughter recommended Chris O'Dowd to me after seeing him in 'Bridesmaids,' so I watched that and his sitcom, 'The IT Crowd.' When I was over in London, we met up, and I knew immediately he was the right person.
-
I like to play music, and I like to be funny, so I just do both at the same time.
-
If you're deluded, you live in a place where there isn't everyone else's reality.
-
'Waiting For Guffman' was different right away from 'Spinal Tap,' because we didn't show the interviewer. That person became invisible immediately. That created a different way of tuning it and ultimately editing it.
-
There isn't much improvisation in film - there's virtually none. The people that theoretically could be good at this in a theater situation don't necessarily do this in a film in a way that will work, because it's much broader on a stage.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I'm a fly fisherman. I make flies. They're imitations of insects at different stages in their development.
-
I guess there's something that's appealing to me about people that are aspirational-slash-deluded.
-
I didn't go to film school. I had been an actor in movies, I had been in plays, and then I just sort of jumped into it.
-
When I look back on what I've done, I think I'm drawn to obsession, perhaps.
-
Comedy is like music. You have to know the key and you have to find players with good chops.
-
People who take themselves too seriously, who can't see anything else, are usually funny.
-
I've been buying guitars since 1964, and you fool yourself into thinking it's the last one.
-
The minute the money is more, you lose your control, so then there's no point.
-
With a documentary, you can cut away, you can do jump cuts, cut to a photograph at any point to bridge two scenes.
-
Peter Sellers is my great comedy hero.
-
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.
-
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.
-
What interests me most are the emotional lives of the people. If I don't have that, it's not worth doing, frankly.