Paul Reiser
Paul Reiser
Paul Reiseris an American comedian, actor, television personality and writer, author and musician. He is best-known for his role in the 1990s TV sitcom Mad About You. He is ranked 77th on Comedy Central's 2004 list of the "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time". The name of Reiser's production company, Nuance Productions, is inspired by one of his lines in the film Diner, in which his character explains his discomfort with the word "nuance"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth30 March 1957
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
We had the boy's name picked out, but we didn't have a girl's. When he turned out to be a boy, we were so relieved. Literally, in the middle of contracting and pushing, and with my wife being drugged - out and half - lucid, we were still coming up with names.
You know what? The obvious is obvious for a reason.
I've come to realize that making it your life's work to be different than your parents is not only hard to do, it's a dumb idea. Not everything we found fault with was necessarily wrong; we were right, for example, to resent, as kids, being told when to go to bed. We'd be equally wrong, as parents, to let our kids stay up all night. To throw out all the tools of parenting just because our parents used them would be like making yourself speak English without using ten letters of the alphabet; it's hard to do.
Three has always been tougher than Two. Think of any of your famous threesomes. The Three Stooges? Look at the anger there. My bet is that before Curly was born, Moe and Larry could play together for hours without even a single poke in the eye. Huey, Dewey, and Louie? Donald Duck never had a moment's peace. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? I rest my case.
If a tree falls on your head in a forest and no one hears it, it still hurts.
It was trying to make my tennis game look mildly respectable, which I found you don't even really need to practice if you have a really good editor. They can edit it and you're like, "Hey, it looks like I'm playing really well." That was the fun part, but it was like going to summer camp.
Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.
The biggest thing I remember is that there was just no transition. You hit the ground diapering.
People often ask me, "What's the difference between couplehood and babyhood?" In a word? Moisture. Everything in my life is now more moist. Between your spittle, your diapers, your spit-up and drool, you got your baby food, your wipes, your formula, your leaky bottles, sweaty baby backs, and numerous other untraceable sources-all creating an ever-present moistness in my life, which heretofore was mainly dry.
Once in a while you get a moment of clarity -- an inspiration -- and they don't come that frequently,
Once I let the story brew, I was able to sit down and write it in a couple of weeks, ... I always envisioned Peter in the role, because there are few actors like him. I wrote pages and pages of stuff for Peter to do, knowing we wouldn't have time for it. I wrote these long scenes with Peter ordering food in restaurants and things like that, because I know what he can do with material once he has his way with it.
It was funny to write for Peter Falk.
The day after I finished writing it, I literally called him the next morning and asked him if he'd please read this,
And he's like a laser beam. Somebody says, 'We'll probably shoot in 5 minutes.'