Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, 'So today I'm driving the bus.' And everybody's like, 'What?' And you're like, 'I'm gonna drive the bus.' And they're lik...
I would be so mad if I saw something called a memoir, and then it was Mike Birbiglia. It would be so infuriating. It's like, 'Who is this guy, and why does he have a memoir?' David Letterman could write a memoir. Joan Rivers could. I'm just a nobody....
We lived, until I was 12 or so, in communal apartment with five different families and the same kitchen, in two little - my brother and me and my parents. It was hell, but it was a common thing. My father was not general or admiral, but he was colone...
I'm not always up to date on everything that's going on, but I am somewhat informed. I listen to NPR. And I actually watch Fox News, because I believe, if you just listen to the things that agree with you, you're not really seeing anything else.
My name is Matt Besser, and I'm an Arkansas Razorback. My father is a Jew from Little Rock, Ark., my mother was a Christian from Harrison, Ark., and somehow I'm an atheist now living in L.A. I am a Razorback living in the Razorback diaspora.
...And so we go and I meet his parents. And it's a very strange thing meeting your girlfriend's boyfriend's parents for the first time. Part of you is angry for obvious reasons and part of you still wants to make a good impression. On a side note, th...
I don't mind if somebody comes up to me and shakes my hand, but if I'm in the middle of a restaurant and somebody asks me for a picture, I can be a jerk and say no, or I can say yes and draw more attention to myself, which is exactly the opposite of ...
What a lot of people don't realize about gangs, in my opinion, is that a gang is not there to attack you. Eighty percent of the people in a gang are there to stop anyone from attacking them. You join a gang for protection, not to go out and hit someo...
You can see all sorts of things in film acting if you know where to look and what to look for. One thing I often notice is that the actor is looking for his mark, the place where he has to stand to be in the right place in the shot.
I think I have the secret of a successful L.A. restaurant, especially now that so many Europeans live there. You have to have a place where they can see out the windows, see the world passing by. Europeans fancy that.
Suddenly I was writing a lot of screenplays, and I was no long in New York, so I stopped acting in plays, and it just became too tricky to find a part to play, either in a play or a film that coincided with my schedule writing and or directing.
I paid my way through school doing set construction for film and television. I'm a member of Local 44. I was a construction coordinator on 'Beverly Hills 90210' for 4 1/2 years and ran their whole construction program. I did two other pilots as a coo...
We all know from growing up with TV that John Wells shows are usually very large ensembles with amazingly written characters. He tends to redefine the way stories are told in a specific genre, whether it's 'China Beach,' 'The West Wing,' or 'E.R.'
I've had journals ever since I was really little. Sometimes I write poems and stuff, but for the most part I write down what happens to me during the day that I don't want to forget. So I have books filled with little things like that.
When you are acting, you are just one piece of the puzzle. You don't see how everything fits together. It feels like you have less authorship over the entire product. In directing, you take the entire picture into account, so you're challenged in a d...
I've started doing my Kathak, and I rehearse every day. Also, I'm eating right and keeping in shape. I'm a non-smoker and non-drinker and essentially a happy person. That's what counts the most. Your well-being is reflected in your personality.
A lot of people cannot dance because they are inhibited. 'Oh, I can't dance' or 'I have two left feet' or maybe someone has commented on their dancing a while back. When you enjoy something, you might be doing the simplest of moves, but they still lo...
It's usually the exact same three things which are, the Scripts, the Director and the Role those are the three things I look for and really any two of them, If I get two of them that's usually enough, but definitely those are the things I look for.
If you are writing a story and trying to draw an audience to come and hear you tell it, it's got to in some way relate to them. Who wants to come and hear about your specific problems? It's not therapy - it's supposed to be a communal piece of entert...
We get caught up in all the stress - 'Got to do this, is this the right thing for me to do?' - but what about the thing you want to do? That's what'll keep you young. It's empowering, not becoming a prisoner of some other person's idea of what you sh...
I do get bottled up in interviews. You're thinking about what you're saying, and suddenly you get all tangled. So people think I'm sullen, or that I don't have much to say. But my friends will tell you: a lot of times I talk too much.
