There is certainly a higher percentage of wit in British comedy than in American comedy. What always tickles me is the way in which people try to use their intellect to get themselves out of tricky situations but never quite manage to do so - much to their enormous embarrassment.
A lot of things you just stumble into: relationships or ways of putting characters opposite one another that really worked. So then it's not always so much about imitating other people, but imitating yourself, at least in your thinking.
I get asked a lot what the key is to creating a hit show, and I have a standard answer: Do everything right, and then get lucky 10 ways.
I sense from people that they get frustrated with me for not being out and about. But I guess I'm a shy boy.
We live in an era now where every episode is reviewed 80 different times on the Internet by periodicals you've never even heard of.
A picador is the guy in a bullfight who helps make sure the matador doesn't get killed by distracting the bull. That's what TV writing is. You're just distracting the bull long enough to stick around for the next set of commercials.
Here was another guy who, okay, he was a toon, but he was also just so evil. So evil. I mean, dipping the little shoes and other little toons into the dip? He was just nasty. And, of course, I loved the makeup. That outfit I wore, the glasses, the whole look of it. It was a lot of fun to play. Yeah, that was great. And working with Bob Hoskins and, again, Bob Zemeckis. I've been lucky.
I tend to avoid things like award shows and panels and interviews, not remotely because I feel I'm above them or wish to cultivate the image of the intriguing recluse. I'm just not very good at them.
I was shooting a film in Mexico City that I'm not sure ever came out. But it was shooting in Mexico City, and I was kind of implanted there, focusing on that, when my agent sent me the script for "Back to the Future". I scanned it, but I wasn't terribly impressed, mostly because I'd been offered the chance to go back East and do a play at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. I'd be playing Hans Christian Andersen - I grew up with Danny Kaye. And Colleen Dewhurst, an amazing, wonderful actress, was going to be my mother in it, and I just thought, "I need to go back to my roots." So I just dismissed the "Back to the Future" script. And then a friend who was with me at the time said, "My mantra has always been to never leave any stone unturned." In other words, whenever someone has an interest in you, whatever it is, at least check it out. So based on that, I flew back to Los Angeles, met Bob Zemeckis, and the rest is history.
On 'Frasier,' a network executive once suggested that one week we have John Lithgow play Frasier and Kelsey Grammar play Lithgow's role on '3rd Rock From the Sun;' I've been deeply afraid of the idea of a crossover ever since.
I remember him well. John Belushi was doing Saturday Night Live at the time, which he had to be in New York to do, and we were shooting Goin’ South in Durango, Mexico, which meant that for three or four weeks he had to do Saturday Night Live, fly to Durango - which was fairly complicated, because you had to go to Mexico City and then up to Durango - shoot for a couple of days, and then fly back to New York to do Saturday Night Live again. But he was wonderful to work with. I mean, he was absolutely right for the part. He had a lot of energy, of course. He was great. We had a good routine together. It was cool.
A sign that negotiations were handled well on both sides is that everybody probably feels a little bit like they didn't get what they wanted.
Well, that happened in a rather interesting way. I was doing a Broadway musical called "Happy End", a Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill collaboration, and Nicholson was looking for a leading lady, a new actress, to be in Goin’ South, which he was directing. So he came to see "Happy End" not knowing I was in it but, rather, to see Meryl Streep, who was my co-star. And I remember after the play, the stage manager said that Jack Nicholson was going to be coming back to my dressing room to say hello. And Meryl Streep was there, and he said that there was a script that he'd like for me to see, that he'd like for me to do a part in it. And the film was Goin’ South, and I did it. And ultimately, he found Mary Steenburgen to play the role that he was trying to cast. But it was just fortuitous that he came by that night.
In point of fact, I'm not sure there are too many comedies with laugh tracks anymore. Most of what you hear is live studio audience laughing as a show is filmed. If this prompts you to wonder who those actual human beings are who are laughing at some of this stuff, that is a mystification I share.
I had a scene in that when I'm walking along an alley and I see a boy eating an apple. I reach over the fence with a big knife and snare the apple, and I eat the apple. And the boy playing that role must have been about six or seven years old - he was horrified of me. Even when I was out of makeup. He'd hide behind his mother when he saw me just walking as myself. Just absolutely terrified.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen