Ty Burrell Quotes

Acting's fine if the script's written by Paddy Chayefsky and Martin Scorsese directs it, but unless you have something like that, I don't really enjoy acting.

It's interesting that instead of having to get tighter and more restricted for a collaboration, strangely enough, from the beginning, we've actually been more confident that we could handle this.

When I choose projects, I don't stipulate between film or theatre or television. I receive scripts and I read scripts - and when I read a script that's good, I then get married to it and talk to my agent about what happens next.

If there is someone to haul the fir-tree, there shall be no shortage of those willing to hold a branch to help.

I'm the type of actor that believes the director has to be in charge. I've been on sets where the actor's ego was the most important thing, and with a director that messes it up. But I don't like a dictator, I want it to be collaborative - the best idea wins. If I feel respected, and I'm going to give that back. If a director wants to try something, cool, I'll give it back. I also feel like they cast me for a reason, so I'm going to make my mark on it... let me do my thing.

If I'm collaborating with an artist I like to give them my point of view and if they don't want to take any of my recommendations it's fine, but it's hard otherwise.

Film is a collection of many mediums and collaboration and you're only as strong as the people you're working with - and everybody owns their mediums.

I always feel when you work with an artist and whenever I work with a really good photographer, I try to give him or her their own artistic freedom because that's the way you get the best work or at least the most interesting work.

The producer can put something together, package it, oversee it, give input. I'm the kind of producer that likes to take a back seat and let the director run with it. If he needs me, I'm there for him. As a director, I like to have the producer there with me. As a producer, I don't want to be there because I happen to be a director first and foremost, I don't want to "that guy."

One of the things that I learned in television, and one of the beauties of television, is that, if you have a strong writing staff, they rely on you just as much as you rely on them. They look to me or the other actors to help inspire them to take the character in interesting directions.

I'm working with a producer, Scott Jacoby, who co-wrote "Trouble" off No Beginning No End. Without giving away too much, it's a definite pop/r&b vibe, pretty strong melodies, and definitely about songs.

Advertising agencies come to you and they are great fans, they are great creative people themselves, but they ask you to do something, and you say, "Well, we will, we'll create something together." And it is work. It's like you're doing something and they're saying, "Change this" and "Change that." It's not hard, horrible work, but creatively it's not just freedom.

Just be nice to people and be someone people want to work with because if people don't like working with you it's just not going to work out.

I like working with family and friends and people I admire. All my movies are filled with family members of some capacity. I think it means more when you have a personal relationship with someone.

We have to agree beforehand to divide the funniest lines between us. But Tina [Fey] is so brilliant that I just love every moment working with her and also just hanging out together as friends.

And using that - the birth of a religion, it suggests that you have got two tests. You have the test of weakness. When you're weak, do you compromise, do you bend, do you give in, do you accommodate? And then the test of strength. When you're strong, are you merciful, are you generous, or are you cruel?

I’m like a psychologist, I can discover the panther inside a woman and then, boosh! I can give her power!

That's what gets me through the day. Knowing that I could do it. That I'm strong enough to do it and I can get it done.

There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they've ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything to others, but lose nothing of yourself.

When a director can give you a word that allows you to feel less tense about yourself, to make you feel like you indeed are good enough before you even get to the work, you can't ask for anything more than that.

Whatever we accomplish is due to the combined effort.

It's easier for me to sit with the producers and the writers and I give them my feelings and my thoughts and what I think I feel like singing about and then they go away and write it.

I wrote for Roseanne. I wrote her stand-up act with her. I wrote with Tom Arnold. There was a period when I was working with them pretty steadily. But I would take brief gigs here and there.

I have the good fortune of working with two brothers who are very accomplished, incredibly smart, and very capable. So thankfully there is not an issue in that regard where somebody isn't pulling their own weight. We collaborate all the time. We tend to take different paths, but we tend to reach very similar conclusions. It's actually great because it allows us to be much more creative in the process of getting things done.