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I have no trouble selling out—I’m a benevolent hack, in a certain way—but I want to pander for something I believe in.

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
Believe
Pander
Way
Hack
Hacks
Benevolent
Selling
Trouble
Certain
Something

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Where's the great pay? Where's the travel? Where's the Winnebago, Goddamnit!
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No matter what I have to say, I'm still trying to say it in comedic form.
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There's a personal story of my own that I will write at some point, and it's a film that I will happily make. It could very well be the next thing I do, unless someone shows me something great.
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I did a comedy with Al Franken about his character Stuart Smalley, which was really about alcoholism and addiction and codependency. It had some painful stuff in it. When we showed it to focus groups, some of them actually said, If I want to see a dysfunctional family, I'll stay home.
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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.
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You don't have to know much, just a little bit more than everybody else.
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We all wish we could be in more than one place at the same time. People with families feel guilty all the time-if we spend too much time with our family, we feel we're not working hard enough.
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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.
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My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.
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Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone.
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I'm not a believer in the pratfall. I don't think it's funny just to have someone fall down.
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My job is to come up with something that you like and you agree with that you would play wholeheartedly. If we disagree, I may not be doing my job correctly.
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Some people have a fear of rejecting all the security that comes with family, church and state. They become fundamentalists.
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I try to measure the amount of truth in a work rather than just looking at the generic distinction between comedy and drama.
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I was the little guy who knew how to tie a necktie. It came from having absentee parents. They were tremendously loving and caring people who, by circumstance, had to go to work.
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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.
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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.
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First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?
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When I've written for Bill Murray - I've written six films for him - people would read it and say, Oh, that's so perfectly Bill. He'd read it and say, Are you kidding? I can't say these words. So it's all about perception.
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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