Adam mckay quotes

I gotta say - if I clicked on a movie interview, and the first part was all about Walt Whitman, I'd love that article.

Benito Mussolini created the word 'fascism.' He defined it as 'the merging of the state and the corporation.' He also said a more accurate word would be 'corporatism.' This was the definition in Webster's up until 1987 when a corporation bought Webster's and changed it to exclude any mention of corporations.

There's nothing the people love more than a Federal Reserve joke.

We're always looking for the backbone, the central idea, and once you have that you know everything can circle around it.

For my money, I don't think there's been a better comedy than 'Kung Fu Hustle' in a lot of years. That movie just knocked me over.

The way you really stop Al-Qaeda is by stopping their funding. It's not by carpet-bombing or land invasions or anything.

It so happens that America, according to all the polls that are out there, is pretty progressive. So you're not going to see messages that support Ayn Randian individualism at the cost of the whole, because most people don't agree with that.

It's just funny that Americans have to contend with 2000 channels, and 60 different specific news sources, and the confusion that it creates, and the junk that we get to see is hilarious.

White-collar crime has been marketed - billions of dollars have been put in to have us be bored by it.

I would never call myself cultural elite, but you might be cultural elite.

There's always way less improv than people think. The truth is something like 15 percent.

Creative freedom is a huge carrot.

The only way that Hollywood ever skews toward liberal is because part of what we make out of Hollywood involves writers, actors, directors, musicians, set designers, and photographers. In general, people like that are going to be more progressive, more open minded, a little more altruistic.

Every time a congressman or pundit says its 'class warfare' to increase taxes on the wealthy, it's a massive lie.

I grew up with a single mom who was a waitress. We were on food stamps. My mom then got Pell Grants, put herself through college to get a degree to get a better job. Because we were broke, I then had to go to a state school. I went to Temple University, and had to get loans. So I grew up in a world where I saw the government helping individuals pull themselves up, and saw it work very successfully.

We get so much information during the day that doesn't really tell us anything.

'Blazing Saddles' is one of the funniest movies ever made.

The one thing for sure is, I don't ever want to waste a movie. I don't ever want to waste effort.

Dave Herman as Michael Bolton is one of my favorite performances ever.

Animals talking are very rarely funny. But animals behaving as animals - always funny.

Hollywood has to appeal to the broadest audience, and when it comes to most social and economic issues, America is progressive. Because of that, the messages that are in Hollywood movies tend to be, for instance, pro-environment.

For a documentary it's so important to find the characters and to find people who will give you access to film

I'm just a giant film fan, so I love action movies out of all kinds of movies. As a film geek, it's amazing to be able to shoot this stuff.

We punch mirrors and we explore our darker selves. No, it's just an amalgam of all newscasters that we grew up with. Sort of like before there was cable, when these people were like gods.

I think that the job of art and culture is to jump on that time and realize that it's there and to push it just a little bit faster.

I have certain beliefs about how people should treat employees and how companies should be run, but I was really surprised though this process to learn that those beliefs are actually good business.

“Firewall” seems both scary and protective at the same time. And how often does that happen within one word besides “military” and “government?”

As for movies, what's great about comedy is that if your movie gets laughs and makes money, you have freedom.

I'm not against banking. Banking allowed our modern society to happen, it is essential. It connects the work through finance, so banking is good.

In general foreign invested companies who come to America to start a company, to open a manufacturing business or whatnot, they actually provide much higher wages than American companies.

Any time Chris Nolan wants to call me for advice, he can.

Every time I wrote a sketch that was in my voice, Ferrell would just do it better.

I've gotten like five laughs in movies, just off guy hugs.

Hollywood is for-profit, is what Hollywood is. All the studios are owned by big, megacorporations that are the furthest thing from liberal you can possibly imagine.

If all else fails, you can always be a pro.

I think what's dangerous [about comedy] is that you're coming into the room announcing your intentions.

I always give myself a little part in every movie.

I could see how people get addicted to animation, and I understand why it's so great for comedy. You can do whatever you want and it just happens.

I don't think there's ever been a moment in history where that, as an artistic message, has played very well, because people in their hearts know that's terrible and a lie.

If you make action movies, the critics will savage you, and then your movies are outdated the following week with the new wave of special effects.

Anyone in the comedy world knows that Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell are two of the funniest guys around.

When you screen it the first couple times, you're just trying to get the movie to work, trying to get the story to flow, trying to find out where your areas are where you have enough breath to laugh a little bit. So you're doing that the first two or three screenings, and then finally, you dial the movie in and it's working, and at that point, it's 50/50 as far as what's funny and what's working. Sometimes you'll put something in and it will just die so hard that it'll almost kill the movie.

All we have is our vote. But it's powerful.

Celebrities and 'famous' people are just regular folks. I know, it's a shocking and potentially dangerous statement.

As far as how much you listen to the audience, you listen to them when they really hate something.

You could feel America starting to ease up a little bit on racism, against blacks in certain pockets, and then suddenly The Cosby Show bubbled up and it was the right time for it.

Nothing is funnier than confidently doing the wrong thing.

All you can really do as director is sort of set a tone.

Blanket cynicism toward government has always existed.

I don't want to speak for my movies; you could say my movies are just completely silly and dumb, but in the case of 'Idiocracy' and 'Borat,' without a doubt there is a really subversive and sophisticated assault on American culture. It's one thing to mess stuff up and break stuff, but [Borat] is really pointing out the ideology of America. It's one thing to break stuff and damage people's possessions, but when you start aiming at the ideology of America, that's dangerous comedy.

The crush of lobbyists on Washington and purchase of the media by corporations has created a big business-run government and a worthless press leaving Americans screwed and ill-informed.

Can anything good come of a backward way of thinking like judging someone based on skin color? No way.

Everyone is sort of in their own little area counting lines and no one talks when film's not rolling. There's constantly actors coming to me back behind the monitor screaming at me, "Why did my line count drop?" It's a nasty tense environment.

Old man with an old phone. That's never not funny.

Obamacare is a private mandate that will drive billions to the insurance industry, much like the auto insurance mandate. Hardly socialism. In fact, it was a Republican plan to begin with.

David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director, but he's also a great writer.

Normally when it hits two and a half, three hours, the audience gets exhausted and start yawning.

The idea of 24-hour news, if you really step back, is pretty insane. Just even saying '24-hour news' almost has satire laced in it.

Most of what's tricky about comedy is the perception of it and the audience's expectation.

In general, the final filter of Hollywood is for-profit. Nothing goes through unless it can make money.

I think American culture had just become so disengaged from the process of government, and we'd been so fuzzed out by our pop culture around us, that I don't think people really saw this guy for what he was.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.

The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way, you can break the ice. It's crazy, but even at funerals, people will get huge laughs.

You have to be able to fail with the improv. You have to not care.

There's a lot of things you can't control. But you can always be a pro.

There are so many shoot-'em-up, action, jingoistic TV shows and movies that are made every year. I think the final line is that Hollywood is populist.

I got the sense that Alabama is a place where people don't want handouts and don't much care for people talking out of the side of their mouth.

There's such an aggressively apolitical movement in the US that anything that smells of being political - even the term "political" is so ridiculous, when you think about it. The worst part of governing, the political side, is the grossest part, so that's what they call it. So anything that reeks of that immediately gets tuned out by 70 percent of the population.

The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way you can break the ice.