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At a certain point, you have to convince the actors that you've done the right thing. The way I work, if I can't convince them, I've got to move on. I can't coerce them or browbeat them.

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
Done
Right
Coerce
Thing
Convince
Work
Move
Way
Point
Actors
Moving
Certain

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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.
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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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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'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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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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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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When you're a big enough part of the process that the Writers Guild gives you a lot of credit, that's a good thing. It tells me that I've had a significant impact on the film as a writer.
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You can perceive life as tragic, or you can laugh at the tragedy of it and that turns it into comedy. It doesn't change the circumstances.
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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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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.
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I'm thinking of doing a marital comedy for one of the studios, but I want it to be so painful that it'll have a profound effect on married couples who see it together.
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The trick with sequels is, you have to give people what they liked before, yet be innovative enough so they don't feel like they're seeing the same movie.
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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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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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Life doesn't care about your vision. You just gotta roll with it.
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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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Never hit anyone in anger, unless you're absolutely sure you can get away with it.
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Whenever a critic mentions the salary of an actor, I'm thinking, He's not talking about the movie.
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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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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.
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