Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Melvin James Brooksis an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, composer, songwriter and veteran. He is known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. Brooks began his career as a comic and a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows. He became well known as part of the comedy duo with Carl Reiner in the comedy skit, The 2000 Year Old Man. He also created, with Buck Henry, the hit television comedy series, Get Smart,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth28 June 1926
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I like people with big talents and small neuroses - not always an easy combination to find. I've discovered that if the neurosis is too big, it diminishes the talent and you wind up working too hard for what you get.
Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.
As far as songwriters, I've always been a fan of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin; those guys mean a lot to me.
When you come to Germany as a Jew you have an uneasy feeling, but I've always felt okay in Berlin.
I also try to surround myself with people I love - make a family out of the company. So I tend to use the same people over and over. There's a sort of Mel Brooks Repertory Company.
Not only should we laugh about Hitler. We must laugh about him. Especially in Berlin.
Oh, I'm not a true genius. I'm a near genius. I would say I'm a short genius. I'd rather be tall and normal than a short genius.
Coleman Jacoby and Arnie Rosen won an Emmy and Mel Brooks didn't! Niezsche was right! There is no God! There is no God!
All right, I am often brash, rude and brutally direct. Someday I'm going to die and I don't have time to toe-dance around the periphery of hatred.
Why should I waste my good time making a straight dramatic film? The people who can't make you laugh can do that.
Writing is simply one thought after another dying upon the one before.
If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively.
You're young forever when you write. Alfred Hitchcock directed until the day he died. As long as you don't have any dementia or Alzheimer's, if you have your All-Bran every day and clear yourself out, I think your brains are gonna be all right.
Comedy is serious - deadly serious. Never, never try to be funny! The actors must be serious. Only the situation must be absurd. Funny is in the writing, not in the performing. If the situation isn't absurd, no amount of joke will help.