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No matter what I have to say, I'm still trying to say it in comedic form.

Harold Ramis

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Harold Ramis
Age: 69 †
Born: 1944
Born: November 21
Died: 2014
Died: February 24
Actor
Comedian
Director
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Harold Allen Ramis
Form
Stills
Still
Matter
Trying
Comedic

More quotes by Harold Ramis

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Films are big hits when they touch a lot of people. Things are not funny in a vacuum, they're funny because we respond to some personal dislocation, some embarrassment, some humiliation, some pain we've suffered, or some desire we have.
Harold Ramis
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No one will laugh at how great things are for somebody.
Harold Ramis
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I'd rather do comedies that strike at some bigger ideas.
Harold Ramis
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It's like the old rule-if you introduce a gun into the first act of a play, it's going to be used in the third act. So if you do a movie about criminals, you have to accept there's going to be Some action.
Harold Ramis
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I've never taken a script to the stage or to principal photography and said, This is perfect. This is as good as it can possibly be. It's not Shakespeare, you know you know it can probably be better.
Harold Ramis
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I'm a writer-director-actor, which I've always kind of enjoyed. I compared it to the Olympic biathlon. Not only can he cross-country ski, but he's a terrific marksman as well. I want people to say, You mean that writer performed a tracheotomy? That's right, I do everything.
Harold Ramis
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Somebody once told me that if you laugh at a George Bush joke, or you send an email cartoon to your friends that makes Bush look like a fool, you feel like you've done something significant. But really, what have you actually done? Just expressing contempt for your leaders doesn't really accomplish anything.
Harold Ramis
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I loved writing and performing, but the idea of doing it for a living seemed so remote. But I eventually let it devolve to the point where it was the only thing I could do.
Harold Ramis
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I've been directing for 25 years almost, and I've only directed nine films in that time because I like to be careful.
Harold Ramis
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For me, most comedy scripts fail in the mechanical playing-out of the setup. They'll pay lip service to a moral lesson or a psychological progression.
Harold Ramis
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If you're doing six takes, instead of doing six variations on the same words, why not just throw out the words and make them up as you go along, if you're comfortable with it? It gives the movies a slightly rangier feeling, and more of an accidental feel, but it also makes them edgier.
Harold Ramis
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When a director writes, there's a compulsory arbitration. You have a right to challenge any of the arbitrators, but they pick three of four arbitrators who read all the drafts with no names attached and then allocate credit.
Harold Ramis
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Find the most talented person in the room and if it's not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. try to be helpful.
Harold Ramis
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Groundhog Day was pretty clean. It may have to do with some puritanical feeling that comedy is a forbidden pleasure in a certain way. They make you laugh, and laughter is somehow an inferior emotion to tragedy.
Harold Ramis
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Comedy is essentially made by young men, or older men with some form of arrested development, for young men or immature older men.
Harold Ramis
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As much as I liked acting for its playfulness and the reward of hearing big laughs wash over you on a stage, I always felt I should do something that I could control.
Harold Ramis
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If Chevy Chase had not been an actor, he might have been a very popular guy in advertising or whatever field he would have gone into, because of his charisma.
Harold Ramis
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Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.
Harold Ramis
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I'm sure that the liability for doing a tracheotomy would be tremendous. You make one mistake, and it's over. Most doctors won't even do it.
Harold Ramis
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Just expressing contempt for your leaders doesn't really accomplish anything.
Harold Ramis