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
Somebody once told me that if you laugh at a George Bush joke, or you send an email cartoon to your friends that makes Bush look like a fool, you feel like you've done something significant. But really, what have you actually done? Just expressing contempt for your leaders doesn't really accomplish anything.
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.
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.
Everyone has experienced laughing at a funeral, and not even inappropriately. It could be a response to a moment of absurdity or some fond memory. We're human beings so we understand that laughter and crying aren't always disparate emotions.
I had developed a survival skill of using my wit to score for myself. If a scene was dying, I'd lob in these little bombshell lines that would get me some attention and a laugh without really helping the scene.
We were tremendously encouraged by the testing of Analyze That. Audiences loved it. They were telling us that they liked it as much as the original. We recorded the laughs in the theater.
Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.
As much as I liked acting for its playfulness and the reward of hearing big laughs wash over you on a stage, I always felt I should do something that I could control.
No one will laugh at how great things are for somebody.
I've never been a big believer in ghosts or the spirit world, and for me, that was part of the point of the movie, ... What the 'Ghostbusters' represented was the triumph of human courage and human ingenuity. People create their own monsters. Our fears come from within us, not outside.
Plus I'm not so sure Bill was wildly enthusiastic about putting the suit on again,
As much as we'd like to believe that our work is great and that we're infallible, we're not. Hollywood movies are made for the audience. These are not small European art films we're making.
You just make sure you don't screw it up. It's going to work as long as you don't mess it up. Hopefully you have plenty of those moments in a big comedy.
Dan has many interesting sidelines and he's fascinated by the world of paranormal. It's part of his family history, in fact, ... He has relatives he claims were spirit mediums. He also believes in alien visitation and there is some speculation that Dan is an alien. He's so genuinely enthusiastic about the stuff. That's what was on the page when he showed it to us.