Harold Ramis
Harold Ramis
Harold Allen Ramiswas an American actor, director, writer, and comedian. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbustersand Ghostbusters IIand Russell Ziskey in Stripes; he also co-wrote those films. As a writer-director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack, National Lampoon's Vacation, Groundhog Day, and Analyze This. Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, and he was one of three screenwriters of the film National Lampoon's Animal House...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth21 November 1944
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
The cutting room is where you discover the optimal length of the movie.
My first few films were institutional comedies, and you're on pretty safe ground when you're dealing with an institution that vast numbers of people have experienced: college, summer camp, the military, the country club.
No one will laugh at how great things are for somebody.
I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about.
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?
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.
If Chevy Chase had not been an actor, he might have been a very popular guy in advertising or whatever field he would have gone into, because of his charisma.
Well, for me, it's the relationship between comedy and life - that's the edge I live on, and maybe it's my protection against looking at the tragedy of it all. It's seeing life in balance. Comedy and tragedy co-exist. You can't have one without the other. I'm of the school that anything can be funny, if seen from a comedic point of view.
I've got to find a compromise where I don't feel compromised. I've got to find something equally good that they don't feel uncomfortable with. At a certain point, it's no longer about what I thought was right, but it's about this new discovery that happens with the actors. It's nice when the actor is also a writer.
Chicago still remains a Mecca of the Midwest - people from both coasts are kind of amazed how good life is in Chicago, and what a good culture we've got. You can have a pretty wonderful artistic life and never leave Chicago.
Parents tell us things to protect us, or they educate us from their own misinformation or misconceptions.
I never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit.
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.
Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.