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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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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
Failing
Mechanical
Pay
Lesson
Playing
Psychological
Comedy
Scripts
Moral
Lips
Fail
Setup
Service
Setups
Lessons
Progression

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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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You don't have to know much, just a little bit more than everybody else.
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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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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 never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit.
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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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Life has all of these contradictory feelings and contradictory results. People spend their whole lives struggling to get what they think they want, and even if they get it, they find that it's either not what they wanted, or it comes with so many unwanted consequences. We're always shut off from pure joy.
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I have tons of rescuing fantasies based on the movies I saw when I was growing up. I wanted to be Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers and the Scarlet Pimpernel.
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You can't not have feelings about country clubs, whichever side you're on.
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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.
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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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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.
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Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone.
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Never hit anyone in anger, unless you're absolutely sure you can get away with it.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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No matter what I have to say, I'm still trying to say it in comedic form.
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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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