S. J. Perelman Quotes

Well, I haven't really been able to shoot in California for a while. Little movies yeah, but the big movies we can't shoot there. It's just a shame that Arnold Schwarzenegger can't deliver on this level.

My dad couldn't connect to my wanting to be a filmmaker. He was very connected in entertainment, and through him I met Steven Spielberg and got rides on his private plane to California. I'd see Spielberg's people reading scripts. I was like, 'That's what I want to be when I grow up.'

Anyone who has any kind of success in Hollywood wants to make more expensive movies and spend more money, be bigger. I think it's unusual to have success and want to stay small.

There's no formula for success in Bollywood, whether you are sharing screen space or getting the ultimate launch.

I would love to be producing movies, acting in more movies, and doing projects that are Oscar-worthy... have kids, be married, all that, being a normal human being as well, balancing it all out.

I remember a meeting I had at MGM. It was at the end of their reign. They say we have you under contract, and because you’re under contract, we’d like to you to work. I said, well, that seems fair. But if it’s a really good movie, they were going to give it to a particular actor that was not under contract. The bottom line was they were going to pay you more if it was a bad one and pay you less if it was a good one.

Hollywood, we decided, was a nice place to die, but we wouldn't want to live there.

We don't shoot in L.A. much anymore. You know, TV and movies, most everything's shot other places.

Giving your book to Hollywood is like turning your daughter over to a pimp.

My technicians are my most important tools. Once I establish a rapport with them, then they would understand me in my next film. I wouldn't have to train anyone new. I give a lot of respect to all my technicians, because I'm a technician too. I wouldn't be able to convey a feeling if the writer didn't write it well, and the cameraman didn't shoot it well.

California is like the Mecca of the film industry. Everyone's seen California.

Films were never on my agenda, may be it was written in my destiny. And since I am here, I would like to give it my best try.

I would like to do more feature work. I intend to do that. To be really honest, it's an economic thing because when you make a film that doesn't make what it cost back, it's very difficult to get back in the ring.

Sage,” Adrian declared. “These hands don’t do manual labor.

In the States it's more and more difficult to get an independent film off the ground, and you certainly wont get the opportunity to play something like that in a studio movie.

Should women be on any pills besides birth control? We should just give them all sugar pills for everything, they're so suggestible.

In making a movie, you're part of a big machine. Even in a small movie there are still so many people involved in the process, and it costs so much money to make. There is so much more invested in it for a lot of different people, so much money is sunk into it that they usually want some guarantee or promise that it's going to be able to do something on a financial level. There's just a lot more messing with you in film. I love movies and I love to watch movies and being a part of the whole film experience.

L.A. is this huge epicenter of the most popular person. Can you imagine, every single high school in the world where someone says, "You're so beautiful, you could be a movie star," all of those one people move to this town called L.A.

It is unnecessary to understand electromagnetic theory before wiring a lamp or to study physics in order to repair a pump. We count on our fingers and give no heed to the proliferating implications of the act.

So I told my mum that I'd opened a theatre. She said, "Are you having me on?" I said, "Well I'll give you an audition, but I'm not promising you anything."

I was shooting Beyond Redemption, I started shooting American Horror Story, so I was going back and forth between Northern California and LA. That was not bad at all - that flight is like getting on the subway, it's nothing. And then during rehearsals.

I have to give props to my stunt double, who is the real deal and gets to do all the fun stuff and make me look good.

It looked like it might not work out with Michael Keaton, so they asked Joel Schumacher, 'Who do you want for Batman?' When he said me, I asked my agent, 'Why? Who did they not get?' I'd met with Joel a couple of times before about other (movies). I didn't know anything in terms of the cast, story or anything, but I said, 'Sure, sounds like fun.' - On accepting his role as Batman.

In California virtually everyone has had their teeth whitened. If they all smiled at once, they would give us a headache.

Hooray for Hollywood.