Quote

I wanted to do - there was this film called 'Magic' that Anthony Hopkins did. And the director wanted me. The writer wanted me. Joe Levine said no, I don't want any comedians in this.

Gene Wilder

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gene Wilder
Age: 83 †
Born: 1933
Born: June 11
Died: 2016
Died: August 29
Actor
Comedian
Diarist
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Writer
Milwaukee City
Wisconsin
Jerome Silberman
Magic
Writer
Levine
Called
Anthony
Film
Hopkins
Wanted
Comedians
Comedian
Director
Directors

More quotes by Gene Wilder

Image
To match the shoes with the jacket is fey. To match the shoes with the hat is taste.
Gene Wilder
Image
With Mel [Brooks], only one time and that was later on during Young Frankenstein - never with Zero [Mostel] and never with Mel except I was writing every day, and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written. And then he'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, OK. But we need a villain or we need whatever it was.
Gene Wilder
Image
If you're not gonna tell the truth, then why start talking?
Gene Wilder
Image
My favorite author is Anton Chekhov, not so much for the plays but for his short stories, and I think he was really my tutor.
Gene Wilder
Image
My agent at the time, Mike Medavoy, before he became a movie mogul, called me up and said, how about a movie with you and Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman? And I said, well, what makes you think of that? He said because I now handle you and Peter Marty.
Gene Wilder
Image
Zero Mostel wasn't afraid of authority in any form, and that's the part that influenced me the most.
Gene Wilder
Image
I want to be an actor, maybe a comic actor but a real actor.
Gene Wilder
Image
Dont put the sheep on the table.
Gene Wilder
Image
[Gilda Radner] died in '89, and I got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000. I've just passed the five-year mark and I'm now what you call - well, it's called complete remission, but I'm cured. I'm fine.
Gene Wilder
Image
Which one of us, anywhere in the world, doesn't yearn to be believed when the audience is watching?
Gene Wilder
Image
A lot of comic actors derive their main force from childish behavior. Most great comics are doing such silly things you'd say, 'That's what a child would do.
Gene Wilder
Image
Her business manager said, you know, Gilda [Radner] left you that house. That's when I decided to stay and test it out. And after about a month, the roots grew, and I didn't ever want to live anywhere else for the rest of my life - travel, yes, but not to live anywhere else.
Gene Wilder
Image
We gave each other a hug, [Richard Pryor] said how much he admired me, I said how much I admired him, and we started working the next morning, and we hit it off really well, and he taught me how to improvise on camera.
Gene Wilder
Image
I put out my hand to shake hands with Zero Mostel, and he took my hand [and] he pulled me up to his face, and he gave me a kiss on the lips. And all my nervousness went out the window.
Gene Wilder
Image
On stage or in the movies I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free.
Gene Wilder
Image
I was miscast in that production [of Mother Courage and Her Children] ... but it was with Anne Bancroft, whose boyfriend at the time was Mel Brooks, and that made my - I can't say my day, it made my life, in a way.
Gene Wilder
Image
When you please your mother by doing something, it gives you confidence that you can please other people.
Gene Wilder
Image
Gene Wilder often said that his job as an actor wasn't to make something funny but to make it real.
Gene Wilder
Image
I had improvised a lot in classes and at the Actors Studio, but I never did it in front of the camera.
Gene Wilder
Image
In fact, [Gene Wilder] had made a hysteric seem considerably less funny in his film debut as a terrified undertaker in Bonnie And Clyde. And neurotics soon became his stock-in-trade, whether he was playing the weird title character in Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory...
Gene Wilder