Brian Huskey Quotes

The key is, if you're not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well.

As a writer myself, my job has very often been to also write on the job. So you get the script and a vague idea of how the scene might work, and you then add funny words or change the script. I'm not the world's best writer or the world's best actor, but I can do that thing where I can fix - or ruin - fix-slash-ruin, add quirk, add value.

Back then, it was more or less we couldn't change a line in our script. We weren't allowed to change lines. Today, actors change everything and won't do parts. It's very different today. Back then, the producers were in charge. Today actors are more in charge.

I wouldn't say I'm a very controlling person. For instance, when I talk to the actors, I don't tell them exactly what I want because I want them to surprise me. I even encourage them to change some of the verses of the script if they need to.

With 'The Crazy Ones,' we were really encouraged to improv and go off script.

There's probably a little more creative freedom in cable versus network, a little less of a committee looking over everyone's shoulder, but it depends on the network; it depends on the show; it depends on who the head writer or show runner is and what track record they have.

When I did 'Scrubs', we were able to always do one as scripted, and then we got to play a little bit and do some stuff. I thought that was pretty loose, but then coming on 'Happy Endings,' it's even looser.

We took up the offer with the BBC, and that was Monty Python's Flying Circus. I didn't have to submit my ideas to the group. I used to turn up on the days we recorded with a can of film under my arm, and in it went.

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it.

But television, when I was doing it, was all about scoring. You had to make these jokes bang, do whatever you could to make the material really pop. And if it didn't, there was something wrong with the material, or with you.

Podcasts feature comedians being as funny as they can be in a non-censored situation. It's really akin to standup in a way. When you go see a comedian in standup, that is the most pure, unadulterated form of their art.

In the year and a half I was on SNL, I never saw anybody ad lib anything. For a very good reason - the director cut according to the script. So, if you ad libbed, you'd be off mike and off camera.

The great thing about 'Justified' is that the writers will craft a scene, but if the actors come up with a great idea, they're 100% for it.

Comedians kind of write what comes to them. You can give yourself little assignments, but it's what inspires you.

I use a method approach to all my sitcom work.

We call ourselves comedy writer-performers, and that encompasses everything, and I certainly have a very open mind about it.

The trouble with the jokes is that once they're written, I know how they're supposed to work, and all I can do is not hit them. I'm more comfortable improvising. If I have just two or three ideas and I know how the character feels, what the character wants, everything in between is like trapeze work.

One of the problems with 'SNL' is that, if you tried to adlib, the director would put you off camera and off the mic, so only you would know that you ever did it. The director always directed to the script; he wasn't listening to what you were doing. He was calling shots whilst looking at the page.

There's a thrill in flying by the seat of your pants - trousers, actually: 'pants' in English means underwear - because most shows don't operate that way. Network shows are repetitive.

Oh, 'Sports Night' was tough because 'Sports Night' was... Well, you know, it's like Mamet. It's Sorkin. And I didn't realize that you had to immediately be off of the other actors' last line in their dialogue.

If I want to be a real comedian, I can't let you dictate my material, so I started creating more new material.

There's a certain order to network shows that doesn't exist so much in cable, which is, you know, if you want to change a line you've got to talk to the writer.

It's strange not to allow the actor some input and breathing room into what was written on the page - it is their job to make it come alive.

It's just a lovely way to do comedy, where you have the freedom to try stuff, but then you also have a really strong, solid script to go back to if you're brain dead and tired.

Often, when you're in some of these writing rooms for... and the most restrictive is network television, right? They say, 'Wow, that's a great joke, but we can't do that. Okay, let's try the second joke. Oh, you can't do that one. But the third joke you can do,' and hopefully it will be great, but it will remind people of what the joke really was.