Tom Shadyac
Tom Shadyac
Thomas Peter "Tom" Shadyacis an American comedian, director, screenwriter, producer, author and occasional film actor. Shadyac, who was the youngest joke-writer ever for comedian Bob Hope, is widely known for writing and directing the comedy films Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, and Bruce Almighty. In 2010, Shadyac departed from past comedic work to write, direct and narrate the documentary I Am, in which he explores his abandonment of a materialistic lifestyle following a bicycle accident in...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth11 December 1958
CityFalls Church, VA
CountryUnited States of America
There is no 'I.' That's an illusion we've got to get beyond.
To me, 'Ace Ventura' is as scriptural and sacred as any movie I've ever done because it's childlike.
Someone asked me the other day, 'What's the biggest influence on your filmmaking career?' And they started naming filmmakers. I went 'Naw, it's Jesus actually.'
Show business is part of a larger culture, a world-wide culture that must make up to the fact that the accumulation of things doesn't make a life necessary any happier or purposeful.
One of the challenges of the church is to accept humanity for all it is.
I don't see making films to entertain and making films to inform as separate things.
The second we define someone as a Democrat or Republican, it creates a whole set of limitations.
There's one fundamental law that all of nature obeys that mankind breaks every day. Now, this is a law that's evolved over billions of years, and the law is this: Nothing in nature takes more than it needs.
The truth is nobody can own anything. That was an unheard-of concept among indigenous people. We invented that.
Christ is in all, meaning that the divine spark is in all things.
Truth can be a matter of perspective, but I also think there's a truth that exists, that there are laws to the universe the way Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King believed.
I don't want to be your hero. I want to be your brother. You know, I want to be your family member. I want to be your equal.
If I end up homeless and penniless because of a shift in my behavior about sharing what's come to me, bring it on.
As a culture, I think we need to redefine what it means to be happy.