As far as what makes a viral video, then it's gotta be something that you've either never seen before, a fresh piece of comedy, or something that relates to something topical.
— Adam McKay
Things I used to get in trouble for writing at 'SNL,' suddenly other people like it.
I am actually talking about possibly adapting 'The Boys,' by Garth Ennis, which would not be a comedy, but an action movie with comedy elements to it.
Nowadays, the truth is, I think a lot of the newer generation of action stars usually are pretty self-deprecating and cool. I mean, Dwayne Johnson is a great example.
I think there's a tendency to think geeks and nerds are just sweet guys that were picked on, but that hasn't been my experience. I'm certainly not like that, in a lot of ways.
There's nothing more fun than mean-spirited characters.
The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way, you can break the ice. It's crazy, but even at funerals, people will get huge laughs.
The key is a good story. If you have a good story, you have enough emotional beats that you can hit.
I think everyone knows the news has become ridiculous. It's entertainment driven.
For 'Breaking Bad,' people were with Walter White for 99% of that show, even though that guy is a monster.
I want to see Brian Williams with no irony wearing a mustache.
'Blazing Saddles' is one of the funniest movies ever made.
Friends give me a hard time about the pants I'm wearing, which are made in China. Well, how do you find the right clothes? Or the right movie studio? The right people giving you checks? Good luck doing the right thing all the time.
When the movie starts playing on TV and DVD, that's when you really see what the movie is.
I would never do 'Stardust Memories' because I don't particularly like that kind of movie - that would be why I wouldn't do that.
If you look at 'Avatar,' could you imagine if you did 'Avatar' for 50 million dollars? It would be ridiculous! You would almost be getting laughs from the audience, unless you got a real indie director to do something incredibly stylised.
Basically, we used to have a rule at 'Saturday Night Live' that you're not allowed to bring up 'The Simpsons' at the rewrite table, because 'The Simpsons' has done every joke there is. Every week there would be guys going, 'The Simpsons did that.' I go, 'C'mon.' And 'South Park,' too.
A lot of shorts spend too much time setting up the idea; sometimes they meander.
Any time Chris Nolan wants to call me for advice, he can.
I love Paul Rudd.
In the past, in the '60s and '70s, genres were much more segmented. You had action guys who were deadly serious about it, and I think you had comics that were comics.
If you aim for parody right off the bat and it misses, no offense to the filmmakers, but it is Meet the Spartans.
For some reason, people with comedy, any time they can detect a pattern, it kind of freaks them out. 'Those guys are always together!' Yeah, they're a comedy team. Anything they can recognize as a pattern they think is a hole.
I gotta say - if I clicked on a movie interview, and the first part was all about Walt Whitman, I'd love that article.
You're not a slave to those test audiences.
First off, no one award-wise ever rewards comedy, which is... whatever. I don't care about that.
I think when a lot of actors hear improv, they think of throwing a line in or doing a slightly different take.
Everything in America is so stratified by class now. We have the 93rd level of income inequality in the world. You're already seeing highway lanes that are for pay and ones that aren't.
When you do comedy, you get impervious to good and bad reviews.
When I was at 'SNL,' I would constantly get in arguments, 'Why aren't we more political? We're not going after Bush.' Then look what happened - that Sarah Palin season, they were on fire. It was about something.
You have to be able to fail with the improv. You have to not care.
Sony is the coolest studio. They are really amazing. I think part of it comes from they're not an American corporation. They don't work by quite the same rules. And their studio heads have a lot of autonomy.
Sometimes I know a joke I'm going to yell out ahead of time, but most of the time it's stream of conscious. You never really know it until you've got everyone dressed up, the set is built, all the extras are here.
Actually, 'Wayne's World 2' I kind of liked. I think 'Wayne's World 2' does have some creative things in it, some ideas in it.
We, Will Ferrell and I, were approached by Sequoia, which is a big financing firm up in Palo Alto; they do a lot of Internet stuff, and they came to us and said they had an idea for a comedy site, and Will and I were sorta like, 'Yeah, we don't know. It's the Internet, we've seen it come and go.'
My wife is pretty geeky and will occasionally quote 'Anchorman' at me.
You can't really do a big character in an action film; you're already suspending your disbelief in the action, then to suspend your disbelief in the character is too much.
You think of movies like 'Midnight Run' and '48 Hours', those are great movies, especially 'Midnight Run.'
I always thought George Bush was more oblivious than mean, but oblivious can quickly go to mean.
I like to remind myself how hard acting is. I do parts in friends' stuff.
I'm a huge hip hop fan going way back, like, back to '83. I had my Gemini mixer listening to Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow.
You need the audience to go on the ride with you. You can't just isolate them.
I'll tell you one thing... no doubt about it, my favorite kind of comedy is talking head comedy. I mean, if it were up to me, I'd do a whole entire movie that was just around a dinner table.
Having a guy on a microphone yelling lines at you is counter to a lot of acting techniques.
Sequels are desperate.
Wal-Mart is the biggest distributor of DVDs out there, but personally, I think their manufacturing policies have destroyed our economy, and they don't pay their employees enough. I have massive problems with them.
I was shocked when 'The Hobbit' ended where it ended. I wasn't paying attention to what they were doing; I didn't know they had another movie, and I couldn't believe it was when the dragon came out.
I always say the classier cousin of 'Anchorman' is 'Mad Men,' because when you really look at it, why do people really love Don Draper in 'Mad Men?' He's just a terrible guy. But we know why he's terrible, and I think that's really key to why you can be sympathetic to a character.
White-collar crime has been marketed - billions of dollars have been put in to have us be bored by it.
A dry stretch of commentary in the middle of an 'Anchorman' movie would have been a terrible thing.
