Harry Shearer Quotes

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.

I'm gonna be pretty honest; there wasn't a lot of improv allowed on 'Eclipse.'

Frankly, as much as I love to improvise, it hasn't been difficult to stick to the script on 'Mad Men.' The writing is so precise, and the story so carefully crafted, that I don't think there's room - or need - for ad libbing. I could never come up with dialogue as lovely as these writers do, anyway.

I will admit I am a little bit of a line fudger. I will change the line a bit to make it feel better in my mouth. That is something they'll allow you to do on 'Veep' unless it's a particular joke where they're like, 'No, it just sounds better like this.' But with a lot of network shows, the script is law; you cannot change it all.

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.

'Big Bang' is very tightly scripted. Because we shoot in front of a live audience, it's basically like doing a filmed piece of theatre, really.

We have a full writers' room, and with something like 'MyMusic,' we've scripted it out with professional writers. There is some very basic improv from the actors, but everything is very to the letter, so it's easy to edit down to an episode. There are fun little things an actor might throw in there.

Those are the rules. To improvise in a movie with other people, when they're following a script, everybody has to know what's going on. I think a line or two we might change. Certainly, I do. But I wouldn't call it improvising. I'd call it fudging the lines.

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.

Mark and jay Duplass really like to improvise. Even if we beg them to go back to the script, they invariably ask us to go "off the rails," as they like to call it. It's just the way they work. You get a full written script. And it's really, really, really good, so that's why it's kind of peculiar that they always want you to improvise, because if I wrote something that good, I would want everyone to stick to the dialogue that was written.

I always try to stick to the script because I want to respect the writers, and I want to respect the director. But if the director and my fellow actors are okay with me playing with it a little bit, then I definitely want to play with it. I definitely want to do that, because I tend to... when I put things in my own words, it comes out way better. It flows naturally, it just feels better. I can put some weight into the words. Even in comedy, it just comes better.

When you're a stand-up comic, you live and die by what you say on stage. There's no director or writer or producer who can tell you what to say and not to say. Once in a while, a club owner will ask a comic to work clean, or not say something, but that's few and far between.

Television will always err on the side of making something not quite as classy as it could be.

I did a guest appearance on 'Entourage.' That was horrible, because I'm used to analysing the characters, working with all the details... and they said, 'No no no, walk and talk, walk and talk! It's energy energy energy!' - so it didn't quite suit me.

Like a good play-caller, a good TV guy, if you get going on a good conversation, you can ad-lib a little bit. You keep it going. Just like in a game, if you call a couple plays and they're working, you come back to them.

I'm not very good when I'm given scripts.

I'm really impressed every time Kanye comes to perform at 'SNL' because he finds a new way to make that space work for him.

In acting, one should look at the film in totality. Improvisations should only be made keeping in mind the limits of a character. Always believe in team work.

I essentially have always directed everything on my TV show without using that title; I edited and wrote all my stuff.

'Dinner' is completely scripted. There are some improv elements, but I'm not interested in pranking people. It's more like a play than standup.

One of the most positive takeaways I've had from 'SNL' is when we'd make videos back in the day: we'd just write material as we were inspired, and so, in a given year, we'd only put out two or three videos.

It's really frustrating when you write a show and it's really funny and someone and from Standards and Decency says, 'You can't put that in because it has a naughty word.'

On '8 Out Of 10 Cats,' myself, Jimmy Carr and Jason Manford have got the producers around to our way of thinking - which is to trust us and allow us to ad-lib.

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.

My shows have room for a bit of improvisation. In a film, you can't have that risk; you can't have someone taking 10 seconds longer.