Gags Quotes

The big comic performance is a very obvious thing to do. The bolder, more inventive thing sometimes is the subtler, understated performance with minute shades and variations. If you start to disrespect the character you`re playing, or play it too much for laughs, that can work for a sketch, it will sell some gags, but it`s all technique. It`s like watching a juggler - you can be impressed by it, but it`s not going to touch you in any way.

(on director Richard Lester`s filming of Superman III (1983)) (He) was always looking for a gag - sometimes to the point where the gags involving Richard Pryor went over the top. I mean, I didn`t think that his going off the top of a building, on skis with a pink tablecloth around his shoulders, was particularly funny.

(on the famous fight scene in Superman II (1980)) The Salkinds (producers Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind) wanted to make a splash. Their vision was really big. I remember much of that as being fun. The strong wind blowing the cars around, from the three baddies with their super breath, that was all staged by (Richard Lester). And it had an element of humor to it, so it was fun for us to think of gags.

On horror: "I don`t take stuff seriously. I saw `Hellraiser 3` the other day at Cannes; it`s OK, it`s a good film, I didn`t hate it or anything. I thought it was quite good, but it was all just so serious. Some guy walking round with pins sticking out of his face. I just can`t sit there and think ,`this is really scary.` If I made a `Hellraiser` film, I`d like Pinhead to be whacked against a wall and have all the pins flattened into his face. I immediately start thinking of funny things and gags - that`s just the way I am. I doubt I could ever control myself sufficiently to make a serious horror film."

On the (Simpsons) TV show, a joke has to pass muster about 100 times before it gets on the air. On the movie, it`s probably 1,000 times. There are jokes that were funny the first 350 times, and then, the 351st time, we go, `Ah, I`m kinda tired of that`, so we change it. And what stays in are the most obvious, dumb, visceral, knee jerk, mayhem gags. Any time a character falls down, gets kicked in the face, hit in the head... anything involving head injuries. We work so hard on the wittiest dialog, involving sophisticated references to books and movies, and then what gets a laugh is Homer belching after drinking beer. It keeps you humble.

Wasn`t it Whistler who said that a great painter was one who could hide the effort which he put into his work? The same thing goes for gags. It often takes hours to think up something that is said in seconds.

They`re doing different things. Some are little gags, some are moving, some are -- what can I say? Everybody does it their own way.