Rob Corddry Quotes

On the last couple of movies I made - big-budget Hollywood movies - I really missed being able to create my own material.

It's a pretty great thing to have a record that at the end of the day you're not totally sick of and you're actually proud of. We're pretty lucky, because a lot of bands come out with their first record on a label and they're forced to make decisions they might not stand behind because someone's telling them it's a good idea. We didn't have to do that. I think that's one of the things I'm most thankful for.

I don't think fast enough on my feet in terms of the writing to change the script too much when I'm shooting it. I like to have it set and done and know that I feel good about it and I might add a few lines here and there while we're shooting, if I think of a new joke, I might toss it in, but for the most part, I try to stick to the written script and have all the latitude exist within that.

It's really liberating and fun to be writing stuff for myself, and really have the freedom to say what I want to say and not really have to think about what somebody else is going to say or have to edit myself to speak from someone else's vision.

I like to use a bit of chaos when I shoot. I think it may be something from the way I shot my first film - I was very scared, of course, and I prepared everything, I wanted to make sure that the characters did the right thing at the right time on the storyboard. But then I realised that in life, there is so much more than what you can predict or write in advance, that when you shoot the story, it's good to leave some gaps where you lose control. I think this combination of chaos and organisation gives a kind of quality.

I'm not sure I'll find acting satisfying creatively forever. If you get the good roles, it's great - if you have the freedom to choose your projects and not just do anything and everything. But I'd love to artistically commit to a project from beginning to end, which I think you can only do as a writer or director.

I think it's possible to be free in a big production. It's the eye of the director and the actor and the story.

There's this message to comedians in particular, that you shouldn't write it, and a television writer should write it. And that's a prevailing conventional wisdom that I think is really wrong. That's not to say that television writers aren't great, but I think that the belief that some comedy writer's going to be able to capture your voice is naive.

It's not the norm when creators have any protections with regards to creative control. And so it took some time, I think, for the strip to gain enough popularity where I had enough leverage to come in and say, "It has to be done in a certain way or it's not going to be done at all," and then have people willing to put up with that who were ultimately paying for it. You know, for them to be willing to kind of concede those kind of things. It just takes time, you know?

I think you have to write what you want to watch.

Even if you need, and want, a second opinion, it can be dangerous to have people telling you what they think you ought to add, or cut, before you've even finished telling your story. One loses heart; one loses energy and interest. Or at least I do.

I've found through experience that I'm only good when I'm writing something that, in essence, only I could write. The times I've written for hire, for other people, I don't think I've done very well.

I don't think I'd be a good director because people would ask me, you know, "What is it? What's going on here? Where should I put the camera?" Or, "What's my motivation?" And I would say, "Do whatever you want!"

I'm not really a full-time director, I just like to direct the things that I write because I think I'm going to know it better than someone else.

For me, directing is like writing with meat. I can write live, in real time, and change things and be confident that I'm helping the movie.

The audience is not your boss. They are your collaborators and when you collaborate with someone you don't have to listen to everything they think or say.

The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand participation in their vision.

I don't think that any scene [in Pineapple Express] is word for word how you'd find it in the script. Some of it was much more loose than others. The last scene with me, Danny [McBride] and James [Franko] in the diner - there was never even a script for that scene. Usually we write something, but for that scene we literally wrote nothing.

You really want to have a back-up plan, so when you don't feel like acting, or you're getting older and settling down, you can produce your own stuff. So that's when I set about forming my own company and getting creative control.

The heartbreak that it might not happen wasn't something that I wanted to face with any more weight. Then, when I got the call to go ahead I never thought for a second as I was approaching it who I would get - that would come later. Again, I think the idea was that I now had the rights to make the movie and I can start writing it but if I have to wait another 10 years before I find an actor that's right for it, I'd be very happy to do that.

I never had a movie that I wanted to do turned down in my whole life. I always write the script first so it speaks for itself.

Stand-up is really personal. It's not like somebody else is writing the script and you have to do what they write.

You've got to run your career. What happens is a lot of times artists have this talent and they're just looking for somebody to take it and do something with it. And you have to be the creative force.

Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning.

It's funny when you write a song - it's easy for me now - but there's almost a second stage where you take control of the song. You start writing it, and if you're not careful, it just finishes itself and it might not be what you wanted. It's very strange, it takes over itself. It has its own life.