The two times I had nervous breakdowns in my life were when I graduated from college and had my first kid. Nicholas Stoller More Quotes by Nicholas Stoller More Quotes From Nicholas Stoller Like everyone is either, "I grew up with it," or "I loved it," or loved them now. And when you watch The Muppet Movie now, it is so current. It's like The Simpsons before The Simpsons. It's not as cynical as The Simpsons would be but it's self-aware and there are a billion jokes, it breaks the fourth wall every five minutes, it's astounding, it's awesome. It's very exciting to be a part of that. Nicholas Stoller cynical wall self I remember like that scene with Pharrell where they're at the music video shoot, we have this on camera actually, Pharrell's confused because we weren't doing the script. We were doing all this improv and then Diddy says to him... Pharrell's like I don't understand what's going on and Diddy goes, "We do a lot of improv". (laughter) I remember being we just made him into a comedy nerd. We somehow turned Sean Combs into a comedy nerd, so. Nicholas Stoller nerd confused laughter When I was writing the script I thought he is this guy. I really hoped...I kept imagining him as that guy. And then he came in to audition and I was really nervous because I really wanted him to do Greek, you know? And he...I didn't know who else I could cast. And he was amazing in the audition. Really funny. Nicholas Stoller guy greek writing I'm like really bad at like remembering all these things, but basically we finished...we wrapped in August and we locked in February. It was like we did our first friends and family screening I would say 8-weeks after we locked...after we wrapped or 8-weeks after we wrapped. Nicholas Stoller family-and-friends august firsts It's interesting to have the awkward moments play out, and the real human interactions. The more you cut that down, you lose the joke, which is that this is painful and hard. Nicholas Stoller cutting real play And sometimes you're not noticing a little eye movement that's hilarious. So it all kind of gets figured out in post. And that guy you were watching was this guy Murray Miller, who's actually not an actor, he's a writer that Rodney and I are friends with. He's just crazily funny, especially when hitting on people. Nicholas Stoller guy eye people Because also, sometimes things that are really funny on the day, when you look at them in post can feel too broad, you know? Sometimes not, but it's kind of weird how that can change. Nicholas Stoller kind sometimes looks Sometimes a scene can elude you, and then, you also learn that the small moments are really what you're after. A big broad moment that gets the crew laughing, usually isn't going to translate to an audience. Nicholas Stoller small-moments elude-you laughing I like digital because you can shoot for longer. Nicholas Stoller digital Everyone forgets that what's fun about a romantic comedy is how these two people are going to fight with each other and how's that going to be funny. Nicholas Stoller fighting fun two I love the romantic comedy genre. It's a genre rich with many of the best movies ever made and I try to treat it with the respect that Shakespeare treated it with. Nicholas Stoller rich comedy trying I think people try to jam a lot of artificial plot devices into a lot of romantic comedies, and they don't treat it with the respect I believe it deserves. Nicholas Stoller believe people thinking I'm pretty brutal about getting rid of stuff. There wasn't anything where I was like, "Oh, I miss that," because usually it's for a good reason. Nicholas Stoller missing reason stuff I mean I certainly like when I'm like talking to people I'm like what did you think, what did you think, what did you think? You know that's always in the back of my head. Nicholas Stoller talking mean thinking But having said that, regardless to what reviews come out whatever, I like love the movie. I think it's great, and so people can think what they think about it, but I'm very happy with what we did. I'm really proud of whatever all the actors what we all kind of accomplished and so regardless of how well it does or whatever I'm very excited about it and I think we set out to do the thing and accomplished what we wanted to do. Our goal was met, so yeah. Nicholas Stoller like-love goal thinking And then my editor really likes that because he's left alone to do what...to create those things instead of me breathing over his shoulder and I like it because I don't have to sit in the editing room all day. I get to watch just dailies. Nicholas Stoller breathing editors editing And I watch all the dailies and I grade the jokes or the moments, you know, on a scale from... so I know exactly what we have. And so I can then go into the editing room and be like "I want you to do this moment, this moment, this joke, that joke. I'd like to see 3 versions." Nicholas Stoller editing want watches Every day is still exciting. I have like a very good system worked out with my editor. Some directors are in there every day, sitting there in the room with the editor. I lose perspective incredibly quickly, and so what I do is I watch...I come in the room and give very specific notes and then I go back to my house or in my office and I watch the dailies. Nicholas Stoller editors perspective giving And then afterwards I worked in advertising for a year which taught me about writing even when you don't want to (laughter) because there's never a moment that you want to write about an Erickson cell phone but you have to. And that's really important you know obviously for the...like if you really want to write, you have to write every day no matter how you feel or you know. And then, yeah, and then I ended up working in TV and then from TV into movies and then directing, so. Nicholas Stoller laughter phones writing And writing comedy and it really taught me how to kind of like craft jokes, it sounds like weird but really focus on crafting jokes and trying to make the writing really sharp. At the same time I did improv comedy in college, and that helped with understanding the performance aspect of comedy, you know, because it's different when you improv something vs. when you write it and they're both kind of part of my process now. Nicholas Stoller focus college writing
