Michael Spiller Quotes
If the setups take too long, you wind up losing momentum. Momentum is very good for comedy. Not having to do eight setups in a single scene and have it take five hours is very good for comedy.
Quotes to Explore
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My comedy doesn't come from any calculations and studies.
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There's nothing worse than people who want to make you feel better when you are losing. I just want to smack them.
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I've always just been attracted to comedy.
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Comedy has become, I think, a very important branch of public intellectualism. But it still ain't Washington.
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My dream is not Hollywood, but to perform my act in English to 30 people in a Soho comedy club, to show New Yorkers what they look like from the French point of view.
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When I started losing business to salespeople who were using used-car salesmen kind of tactics, I realized I can't ignore the EQ thing; it's going to kill sales.
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I have plenty of dream roles because there is so much I want to do, but my dream year would be to be in a single-camera comedy and then, on my hiatus, film a little low-budget indie drama. That would be a dream 12-month period. A dream role depends on having good material and working with people that I can learn from.
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Dan Curry is the funniest guy in the world. I can sit in a room with him for hours, and he's just cracking me up constantly. And Kitao is the next Terry Gilliam. A lot of comedy directors are just comedic writers, but they don't have any sense of aesthetic or visual vocabulary.
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If you want good sketches, go pick up Sid Caesar. The best of Your Show of Shows. That's the greatest sketch comedy you'll ever see on television.
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When I'm driving past the place I used to work, or when I'm driving past the comedy studio where I used to take photos in exchange for classes, or when I'm driving past the yoga studio I used to clean on the weekends - it's not that far removed from me yet. I get very sentimental over things like that.
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My younger sister's a comedian. She has a sketch comedy group in Chicago called Schadenfreude and I look at her with such admiration and envy because it's such an amazing thing to make someone laugh.
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I feel like my comedy voice is to take the news and everything that's happening and put a funny spin on it or to pick out the things I find funny about it.
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I love comedy. God has given me this platform.
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I sort of attract people who are interested in my comedy for being able to talk about whatever I want to talk about and not being ashamed of who I am and not hiding it.
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I've always liked and appreciated storytellers like Garry Shandling and Bill Cosby - more long-form comedy. So starting in San Francisco, watching all these great comics - Patton Oswalt, Dave Chappelle - you get to see them a bunch, and you go, 'Wow, this is where I need to be.'
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I was doing a college show for the first time, and there was this 20-year-old gay male who's been diabetic his entire life. He said, 'I really wanna get into stand-up.' I was like, 'Oh, my God, do you realize how interesting and inherently funny you are? Go do all the comedy that you wanna do.' I care about that.
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I want to work with Will Ferrell. I want to do, like, an action-comedy with him. How do I get the project for that? It's killing me. I've got all these great ideas, and the hardest thing is getting the material, the screenplay, you know.
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Every role that I have taken on has demanded some kind of emotional range. I really, really would love to do a comedy, but that opportunity really hasn't opened up.
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Comedy used to be a vehicle for change. Now, comedy has gotten to this quirky, nonsensical place, which I enjoy. But I do think there is room for discussion-based humor. We can tell those stories in a way that feels edifying.
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Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.
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When I started doing advertisements, I really enjoyed the whole process of shooting, and I realised that I could do the little bit of acting required quite easily. My directors also told me that I have a flair for acting and that I should polish it and try for films. Then I thought I probably had it in me - why not give it a shot?
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I'm not a competitive person, and I think women like me because they don't think I'm competitive, just nice.
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If the setups take too long, you wind up losing momentum. Momentum is very good for comedy. Not having to do eight setups in a single scene and have it take five hours is very good for comedy.
