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By the way, movies are like sporting events in that you're as good as the movie you're in. You can sit in a room for 20 years and go do a movie and you can just kill in it and you move to the head of the line again. By the same token, you can do five movies a year and if they're dreck, it's nothing.
Albert Brooks -
I made my living in comedy, but I'm not a silly person. I've got all these sides to me. Even in my movies that I've written myself, the characters sometimes border on great anger or nutsiness or other kinds of behavior. I'm not just doing fart jokes for two hours.
Albert Brooks
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'2001' is a really interesting movie because it came out in 1968, and everybody thought that that was possible, and look how ridiculous that was. We don't have ships like that, and you know, nobody in 1968 was going, 'Oh, that'll never happen!' But of course it never happened. We're not even close to it.
Albert Brooks -
Twitter, to me, works if you're funny. Twitter doesn't work as a promotional tool unless you do it very, very, very occasionally.
Albert Brooks -
One of the things I like about a character: I always think it's fascinating when a character can turn on a dime and go from one emotion to another. I like watching that.
Albert Brooks -
My mom was a professional. My dad and mom met each other in a movie called 'New Faces of 1937.' My mom went under the name Thelma Leeds, and she did a few movies, and she was really a great singer, and when she married my dad and started to have a family, she sang at parties.
Albert Brooks -
I did years of summer stock. I sort of only wanted to be an actor. And then at 19, I was funny, and I had some of these bits that I did for friends, and I immediately could get on television.
Albert Brooks -
I'm a member of the Academy, but I don't know who all the other Academy members are. It's not like a politician who knows who is in the Iowa caucus.
Albert Brooks
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I come from the place where I am thinking 'I have put my blood on the pages.'
Albert Brooks -
It's funny: in the middle of making 'The Muse,' I was offered, at the time, the first 'Ice Age,' the part that Ray Romano took: I was offered the elephant. And I couldn't even stop to breathe, so I didn't do it. They've made, like, six of them. And in the animation business, for a voice actor, that's what you want. You want six, you know?
Albert Brooks -
I've been doing comedy since I was two. You know, kids who make other kids laugh. The sickness had set in! I could make my friends' parents laugh; I had a sense of what was silly and funny.
Albert Brooks -
When I started out, I tried out all my stuff on national television. There were no comedy clubs, but even if there were, I don't think I would have gone to them. I used to do stuff in the bathroom, and then I'd drive down to NBC and do it on 'The Golddiggers' with Dean Martin.
Albert Brooks -
Even in my comedies, I don't take anger as a joke. I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it. One of the things I like about a character: I always think it's fascinating when a character can turn on a dime and go from one emotion to another. I like watching that.
Albert Brooks -
Bullfights are hugely popular because you can sit comfortably with a hot dog and possibly watch a man die. It won't be me, but I can sit comfortably and watch it.
Albert Brooks
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Once you sign on as an actor, you know, you don't go to the editing room, you don't see how they cut, you don't see how they score, you don't see how they cast the rest of the movie.
Albert Brooks -
When I went to acting school, the kids that got the best grades were the kids that could cry on cue. But it didn't really translate into careers for any of them, because the external is the easy part.
Albert Brooks -
If I'm going to act in someone's movie, I want the movie to be interesting and be able to get a couple of solid doubles.
Albert Brooks -
There've been a few mother-daughter movies that are somewhat realistic. But the mother-son movies are more comical than realistic: 'Throw Momma from the Train,' 'Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot.' You don't sit in the dark and go, 'Oh my God, that's my mother.'
Albert Brooks -
I'm really fond of 'Real Life' because I think it anticipated a whole movement. And people forget, they talk about 'Spinal Tap,' but that wasn't... this was a mockumentary a long time before that. It was one of the early, early sort of mockumentaries.
Albert Brooks -
One thing about Los Angeles is it feels like it's not new. It feels like it's already been built, and it's deteriorating, except for the places they're trying to make nicer. But in general, you drive all through the city, and the city feels like it was new a long time ago.
Albert Brooks
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Nobody will leave any place unless they're forced out. That's the nature of humans. Once you're there, you're there. I've never seen anybody get up voluntarily and leave any place.
Albert Brooks -
You know what I've always wanted to do? I've always wanted to put a lung in a suitcase and send it through an airport security check. In effect, the guard would be looking at an X-ray of a lung.
Albert Brooks -
It's interesting when you're part of a group - the Jews, to be exact - that the world has had such problems with.
Albert Brooks -
I think I present a different side of a male character: a side that is not John Wayne-like, a side that is, in fact, destructible. To some people, that is refreshing, and to other people, especially if they don't know me, it may be disturbing.
Albert Brooks