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
It's a great luxury for me to be able to write on the films that I direct, and kind of a nice thing to be able to write enough to get credit, which is difficult for a director.
Multiplicity was a movie that tested really well. People seeing the movie really liked it, but then the studio couldn't market it. We opened on a weekend with nine other films.
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?
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.
Parents tell us things to protect us, or they educate us from their own misinformation or misconceptions.
Never hit anyone in anger, unless you're absolutely sure you can get away with it.
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.
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.
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.
The comic edge of Ghostbusters will always be the same. It's still treating the supernatural with a totally mundane sensibility. In the world of ghostbusting, there are certain givens. You're always going to have some new invented technology, some pseudo-science that sounds right because we drop enough familiar terms from physics and engineering, and pseudo-methodology, something that people will think they may have read something about before.