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
And we find people who can improvise in character and create a character that is totally tangible and real and still get laughs, but you're getting laughs totally within the confines of your character.
It's improvisation, you're learning to think on your feet, you're learning to write, you're doing a different kind of character in every scene you're doing on the stage,
There is a similarity in the kinds of characters I gravitate to that goes back to my earliest years in the business on SCTV, ... I have more fun playing guys who are not the sharp pencils. I like the characters who are just average, if not a little below average, so the average person can look at my character on the screen and feel a little better about themselves.
I didn't know whether Sam would come in and want to try to be funny or try to add to the comedy by creating a comedy version of the character people know him to play. He played it very straight, and that was his instinct and that was the right instinct.
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.
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.
I'm kind of a character actor, which lends itself more to supporting roles. Being front and center, you can't really duck down and hide behind somebody else's shoulder.
I've never shied away from a good fart joke,
You get a good creative release doing these movies with Chris, having the kind of experience of doing a movie with absolutely no interference, ... However it comes out, it's how you want it to come out. But by the same token, those aren't the movies that are necessarily paying the bills.
That was a fun scene for any number of reasons,
Listen, I'm not making a 90-degree turn here. For me, running is action. That's difficult enough. And in this movie, I was running, I was falling, I was jumping on cars, I was crawling across a floor padded up to the hilt. I got banged up a little.
I don't know whether (comics) have the opportunity to be as well-rounded, necessarily,