Albert Brooks Quotes
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If people don't love what you're doing, that doesn't mean you're wrong.
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I don't know how, where, and why the idea for 'Defending Your Life' began; the idea had been bouncing around for a while. Stories like that sort of have to bounce. They don't come out of nowhere. I went through my own period of life with sort of everything turning upside down, and wondering, 'Why is it this way?'
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The first act is writing, the second act is filming, the third act is releasing. If you have to partake in the third act, it hurts the first act of the next one. It's like a prizefight. You get punched.
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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.
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Movies are an expensive business.
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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.
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Most entertainment is trying to get you. It's tested, like toothpaste.
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My dad died right after performing at the Friars' roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. I have that tape somewhere. There's still a lot of good jokes in there. I mean, that was 1958.
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I had done about 60 television shows, from 'Ed Sullivan' to 'The Hollywood Palace,' before I ever went to 'Johnny Carson.' At the time, that was the showcase for comics. And I couldn't believe it.
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If you look at the best-seller list for American fiction, they're all sequels to detective stories or stories about hunting serial killers. That's what's called American fiction these days.
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You know, I became a director out of necessity. I was writing comedies, and I couldn't find anybody to deliver it correctly.
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I was offered 'Pretty Woman.' I was offered 'Big' and 'Dead Poets Society.' But what was important to me in those years was to make movies, to make these Albert Brooks movies.
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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.
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I had a very wise person tell me that he thinks marriage, when you're younger, you keep thinking you can fix things. That's what people do. And you can't really fix anything. It shouldn't be a massive difficult thing every day. Life's difficult enough.
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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.
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I probably learned, being in 'Taxi Driver' before I made my first film, I would come to the set every day just to watch how that film came about. It's like a graduate course: it's terrific. You talk to the cinematographer during the breaks. You ask the electrician why they are doing this.
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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.
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I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it.
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In my screenplays - from the very beginning I've always used tape. I talk my screenplays. And then have somebody transcribe them.
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The idea behind 'Defending Your Life': Imagine if you had to sit in a courtroom and watch your life. I don't care who you are - if you committed a crime and you had to have all of your emails searched and made public, who on this planet could survive that? Nobody.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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This is a generalization, but I think women's brains are more accessible to ideas and differences. And they can accept stuff that's weirder. I think there are enough intelligent men out there who get it, but women will watch behavior that's different and process it better. In general, women are less threatened by their emotions.