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
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 have tons of rescuing fantasies based on the movies I saw when I was growing up. I wanted to be Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers and the Scarlet Pimpernel.
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.
I want to explore marriage without the usual Hallmark Card platitudes. Life is difficult, and I like movies that acknowledge that.
I try to measure the amount of truth in a work rather than just looking at the generic distinction between comedy and drama.
Most people live somewhere on the spectrum of anxiety and depression.
Whatever bliss we think we're going to find, we may find it in brief flashes, fleeting moments that come and go. There's an impossibility to nailing down any good feeling.
The comic impulse is sometimes a reaction to sadness. You feel like you can make one choice or the other.
You can perceive life as tragic, or you can laugh at the tragedy of it and that turns it into comedy. It doesn't change the circumstances.
When I've written for Bill Murray - I've written six films for him - people would read it and say, "Oh, that's so perfectly Bill." He'd read it and say, "Are you kidding? I can't say these words." So it's all about perception.
At a certain point, you have to convince the actors that you've done the right thing. The way I work, if I can't convince them, I've got to move on. I can't coerce them or browbeat them.
Groundhog Day was pretty clean. It may have to do with some puritanical feeling that comedy is a forbidden pleasure in a certain way. They make you laugh, and laughter is somehow an inferior emotion to tragedy.
If you're doing six takes, instead of doing six variations on the same words, why not just throw out the words and make them up as you go along, if you're comfortable with it? It gives the movies a slightly rangier feeling, and more of an accidental feel, but it also makes them edgier.
There's something very edgy about Bill Murray out there improvising.