Paul Reiser
Paul Reiser
Paul Reiseris an American comedian, actor, television personality and writer, author and musician. He is best-known for his role in the 1990s TV sitcom Mad About You. He is ranked 77th on Comedy Central's 2004 list of the "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time". The name of Reiser's production company, Nuance Productions, is inspired by one of his lines in the film Diner, in which his character explains his discomfort with the word "nuance"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth30 March 1957
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Peter Falk and my father are very much the same.
One time I met him backstage to see him after a performance of a play he was in, ... He grabbed me by the shoulders.
It was funny to write for Peter Falk.
When I did, it was very casual, but I never told him about the project because at best I knew he'd say, 'Great, let me read it' and I'd have to say, 'It's not written yet.' So I didn't say anything,
We're five years into the lean journey, and it is really starting to reveal big opportunities for us.
There was nothing you could come up with that would possibly be wrong.
There's a certain similarity between me and him, and his generation and my father's generation, so to think of us together doing the film together wasn't such a big jump, ... I could hear Peter say the kind of things my father said. He talks like my father a little bit anyway.
Any issues my parents went through are very prominent in the movie, even though they enjoyed a happy relationship, ... The story actually started for me when my mom told me a few years ago that because she got a job, she never made it to the World's Fair in New York, and that's a missed opportunity that always stayed with her.
It changed my perspective. I understood what the father was thinking in making sure that he was providing for his family. I understood what my own father was thinking. It's a better movie now because I waited.
It is not important to know what facts are true, ... The relationships portrayed are real. My mother did have a job interview with my father. She worked alongside him for awhile;, they dated, were married and had a family. She never did get to the World's Fair.
I was visiting my parents, and I walked into a room where my father was watching a Peter Falk movie on TV, ... I think it was 'The Cheap Detective.' Anyway, my father was belly-laughing, and he never really did that. I thought, 'If Peter Falk can make my dad laugh, then I'm going to come up with a movie in which Peter Falk plays my father.'
We made this movie for $17, and nobody got anything. So it never dawned on me that we would get real people.
Guys need a little help in knowing how to care for a kid. It's not that I think: Gee, parenting is beneath me. It's just that I wouldn't think of it.
He is an undervalued treasure of American cinema, ... What I'm finding as we're traveling around is that everybody loves this guy. He's been so good for so long. I see it in people's faces. Women want to hug him and guys want to give him a pat on the back. I think that's one of the reasons the movie starts off so well. As soon as you see his mug on the screen, people are at ease. They go, 'I know this guy. This is comfortable.'