Harry Shearer Quotes

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.

I hired Tina Fey for 'SNL,' which was certainly a good match. She took off right away there.

The whole thing about doing TV is that you never know what's going to happen. You just have to go with it and go with the flow.

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.

I tend to think that there is a sophistication to everything at 'Saturday Night Live,' including the sketches.

With comedy, if you write something for me, I'm better at it. I'm not sure I'm so good at improvisational stuff.

You can go on 'Saturday Night Live' now and not even play live.

Because these show are live, script pages are being switched during the program and new commercial teases might be yelled in your ear with just enough time to scribble them on scrap paper before reading them.

I think that if you're improvising on TV, it's a great way to help the dialogue between actors and writers.

People think "The Office" was improvised, but it's all on the page. We do that because what we found is that in the early days of "The Office," we went in with it sort of 80 percent scripted and we did some things and then we improv'd and we did - you know, and it gets a laugh on the floor because it's the first time they've heard it.

Like with 'Parks and Recreation,' it's so much fun because the people writing it are funny and they're open and you just go in there and have a good time. It's pretty much the easiest job I've ever had.

There are no rules in live television.

With a sitcom, everyday you do a run through, and people are judging you, and the scripts are being changed nightly, nightly, nightly.

I think 'SNL' was such a unique thing because it was material you created and you're very comfortable with it, even though the setting was pressure-packed.

When I was in high school I was a really huge 'SNL' fan. I remember the cast around the time I started watching it - Will Ferrell, Ana Gasteyer, Molly Shannon, Cheri O'Teri, Tracy Morgan. I did research to find out how people got on the show. Their bios always said they came from an improv team, so I started taking classes.

I went to Second City, where you learned to make the other actor look good so you looked good and National Lampoon, where you had to create everything out of nothing, and SNL, where you couldn't make any mistakes, and you learned what collaboration was.

On 'Saturday Night Live,' I never really wrote. You know, I would just - I would let the writers cast me into the show. So my strength - and I put all my energies into performance. I just couldn't deal with the rejection, you know, getting your sketches cut, and it was hard for me.

I have to give the SNL crew props - it cannot have been easy to work with me.

I've done a lot of drama in my career, but I'm actually more comfortable doing comedy.

But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script.

I mean, sitcoms shouldn't be doing 'Saturday Night Live.' You can't just do bit after bit after bit. You have to string it together with tight writing and performances. Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to do this.

My years on 'SNL' had reconfirmed that what I do best is play for a sort of edgy comedy.

In my experience in series TV, if you have a good crew and a great cast, it's going to be a great group - similar to the theater where it's a bunch of people who are really talented and go to work each day and challenge each other, and if you are lucky enough to get a hit then it's five or six or seven years of this kind of work.

I started in live television and I've done a lot of live TV and that's really the thing that I love best. I love flying by the seat of my pants.

In television, a sitcom is probably the closest thing to what it's like working in the theater.