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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?

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
Make
Judgment
Taste
Hell
Movie
Everyone
Else
Firsts
First
Foremost

More quotes by 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.
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Analyze This is a good movie because Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal are really good. But without the material to put on the play, of course, they couldn't be good. For me, it starts with the writing.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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I never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit.
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Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone.
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I always think that the writer is doing the vast majority of the director's work, in a sense. If you're a writer who is also going to direct, you're doing all your preparation: You're already visualizing everything, you're imagining how the lines are going to be read, you see the blocking in your head, and you know the rhythm and the pacing.
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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.
Harold Ramis
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Whenever a critic mentions the salary of an actor, I'm thinking, He's not talking about the movie.
Harold Ramis
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When you're young and you first see the extent and depth of the world's hypocrisy, it's fun to go after it. But by the time you're sixty, it's so commonplace. What's the point in ridiculing people anymore? Their existence itself is a sort of sick joke.
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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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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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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Most people live somewhere on the spectrum of anxiety and depression.
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.
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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 can't imagine a successful comedy movie without a successful comedy performance at the heart of it.
Harold Ramis