I really like 'Batman.' Not the TV show, but the dark 'Batman.'
— Denis Leary
I write what I think is funny and I write from a sense of popping a balloon or a sense of injustice, whether it's about yourself, or whether it's about something else. It's my worldview; it doesn't mean that everybody has to agree with it.
I went to school with Steven Wright, who was the shyest guy I knew, and one day someone suddenly told me that he was in a club doing standup comedy. I went down to his club and he was great. Another friend of mine, who was pretty much a thief by trade, was hosting the show. So I thought, 'If these guys can do it, then so can I.'
I think it's a shame when you come across young actors and musicians who haven't had the time to learn their craft. It doesn't matter if it's acting or music; you really have to learn how to do it from the bottom up because unless you have a great work ethic... fame is a terrible thing to have.
What firefighters and people in our military and cops do is separate from what the rest of us do; basically these people say, 'I'm going to protect all these strangers.'
If you do good work, it tends to stick around. People still come up to me and say, 'The Ref' is my favorite Christmas movie.'
I wanted to be a hockey player. Where I grew up, the basketball courts were rarely used. I was terrible in school and actually said, 'I'm going to be a hockey player.'
The thing with movies is, because you have so little time, I always feel like there are more things we could've done with the character. If we'd done a sequel to 'The Thomas Crown Affair,' what would that have been like? But for the most part, you try not to think of that, because it's just going to break your heart.
Here's the problem with Easter. The Catholic Church needs to pick a date because it keeps moving. And I think the reason they always have Easter moving to different dates is to catch us.
Everyone's got skeletons in their closet, and I've got a million in mine, believe me. I tested the envelope; I pushed it. Whenever somebody in authority told me not to do something, I did it just to find out why they said not to do it.
You can't teach somebody how to be funny. You're either funny, or you ain't.
Science fiction was never my thing. I have no interest in it.
I'm really good at laundry, and I have no problem cleaning the kitchen.
I bought my daughter a Chihuahua and I fell in love with it. So now I carry Coco around with me all the time.
The things that make me angry still make me angry. George Carlin is 67, and he's still as funny as he's ever been, and he's still angry. And that makes me feel good, because I feel like if I stick around long enough, I'll still be able to work.
I want you to take away the hope because that's the thing that's killing me.
There we were in the middle of a sexual revolution wearing clothes that guaranteed we wouldn't get laid.
When I go to Batman movies, I always think, 'Man, I would like to be a bad guy in a Batman movie.' especially as they got darker when they go to the Christian Bale era.
Nobody can make more fun of me than I already make of myself.
I studied acting in school and then, of course, couldn't get an acting job.
In my experience in series TV, if you have a good crew and a great cast, it's going to be a great group - similar to the theater where it's a bunch of people who are really talented and go to work each day and challenge each other, and if you are lucky enough to get a hit then it's five or six or seven years of this kind of work.
I really, really like 'Eastbound & Down.' It's one of the few things that makes me laugh. It's almost too funny to get an award.
I think we're going to carry the 'Ice Age's up to 'Ice Age 15,' which means basically they'll be in the present decade.
I obviously identify with the anti-authority figure. I've pretty much always had problems with authority, ever since I was a kid. But, yeah, it's not identifying, I think it's more a part of my natural DNA that I question anybody who has a plan. Everybody's got to have an angle; that's the way I grew up.
One of those things that I like about TV is that if you get a group of people you like, you can work with these people for months at a time, and you can discover their strengths and weaknesses, and you can use those in the direction where you take the characters.
I did 12 years with nuns, you know. So I came out of it going, like, 'I think Jesus is all right.' The rest of it I think stinks to the high heavens.
The best comedy audiences in the country and this is tried and true, I'm not just saying it, in my opinion are Boston, Atlanta, and Chicago.
The biggest battle for a lot of people who come out of the theater, which is where I was trained, is that they can never forget that a camera is pointed at them.
Kathy Bates is sexy. It's partly because of her talent, but she's got a great face, and a great laugh.
I actually like talking.
Jon Stewart is exactly the same guy he's always been, only with money. He knows that the moment he really believes he's important, the funny goes away and he becomes Bill O'Reilly, except shorter and Jewish.
I do have to say that I think that President Obama is the greatest President in the history of all of our Presidents, and that he can do no wrong in my book. So how's that for prejudice on the Democratic side?
I've eaten things that didn't complain this much.
I will not bond. I will not share. I refuse to nurture.
Some people expect me to be funny all the time, and I'm not necessarily funny all the time.
I think daycare is great for people who have to work two jobs. My problem is with people who are dropping kids off at daycare because they want to go out and spend the day golfing or getting their nails done. You know what I mean? That's not why they invented daycare.
There's not going to be a 'Rescue Me' movie. Not a chance.
The best thing about series TV is that everyone you work with is hand-picked, as compared to working on a film.
Technology is changing, so the viewership is getting broken up. My kids watch everything downloaded; they have no idea what the numbers or the names of the channels mean, except 'FX makes the show that I see on my computer.'
Having dealt with a lot of real firefighters, I know there are a lot of guys who, for lack of a better term, become addicted to the grief because it has kept them connected to these guys that they felt responsible for having lost.
Certain movies like 'Wag The Dog,' we used improv on every scene that we did. Pretty much, we would shoot from the script and then some stuff that we came up with in rehearsal, and then we'd have at least one or two takes where we completely went off the script and just flew by the seat of our pants.
Bill Murray doesn't do anything. He barely shows up at the movies he says he's going to do.
I'm no day at the beach. And if it is a beach, it's Hampton Beach. Ever been there? It's not nice.
For us as writers, it's really important to have songs we believe in - even before sometimes we shoot a scene. If we have a song that's so perfectly designed for a scene on 'Rescue Me,' we'll play it on loud speakers during the shooting. It helps the cameraman and it helps the director, and it helps the actors know what the feel is.
With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you'll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.
No woman can be completely happy at any one moment in time. They're always anticipating the next thing to argue or complain about.
You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.
Most movies suck, even the independent ones. Hollywood is like baseball: Hit three good ones out of 10 and you're a Hall of Famer.
We live in a country where John Lennon takes eight bullets, Yoko Ono is walking right beside him and not one hits her. Explain that to me!
Not eating meat is a decision, eating meat is an instinct.
