Eugene Levy
Eugene Levy
Eugene Levy, CMis a Canadian actor, comedian, producer, director, musician and writer. He is the only actor to have appeared in all eight of the American Pie films, with his role as Noah Levenstein. He often plays nerdy, unconventional figures, with his humour often deriving from his excessive explanations of matters and the way in which he deals with sticky situations. Levy is a regular collaborator of actor-director Christopher Guest, appearing in four of his films, commencing with Waiting for...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth17 December 1946
CountryCanada
Detroit is still seen as the tough city, a city that has a reputation for high crime, ... The tough city thing is fine. Its always had a reputation as that. ... You know, Gordie Howe, when I was watching hockey, was the toughest guy in the league playing for the Red Wings. He represented that tough aura.
I let the comedy come through the character and just try to make sure that everything is kind of rounded in a truth, in a reality, because that's what I need to make a character work.
I am the common man. I'm polite, I love my family and I play by the rules. And sometimes I get pushed around. That's my lifestyle, and that's what I try to bring to characters.
American Pie' was a big movie for me. No one knew it at the time, but it allowed me to be offered such movies as 'Like Mike' and 'New York Minute' with the Olsen twins
We went through all the scenes and they became kind of funny and they expanded a little bit and because it seemed to be working so well in the movie, they added a couple of things later on in the movie and that's how it turned out.
At the end of the day, even if my part is a bit goofy, the key thing is that I'm doing what I love to do, and that's to make people laugh.
I like to have a regimen. I don't like to be fancy free.
I really enjoyed working on 'Dumb & Dumberer' with Cheri Oteri, maybe because we are both into improvisations. We were meant to act together.
I'm not a joke guy; I'm not a stand-up comic.
But I've never really done anything that implies any kind of danger. I wouldn't skydive, I wouldn't deep sea dive, I wouldn't parachute. I think you're really just rolling the dice. Who packed your chute the night before?
I can't do comedy that is cutting and vicious. If I knew I'd said something that was going to make someone feel bad, well, that supersedes everything.
I would love to work with Sir Anthony Hopkins. How and why that would happen in a comedy I'm not sure - why he would be dragged over to my side, or I'd be be dragged over to his side.
One of the biggest misconceptions about me is that I'm a comedian, which I'm not. A comedian is someone who can stand up in front of an audience and make you laugh. I've never done stand-up and I never will. I'm a comic actor. My comedy comes through my characters.
I'm not a comedian. I don't do stand-up. I don't tell jokes. I'm a comedic actor, and approach my work that way. The comedy comes through the character.