Top 39 Quotes & Sayings by Harland Williams

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Canadian actor Harland Williams.
Last updated on December 3, 2024.
Harland Williams

Harland Michael Williams is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, and writer. After several years of stand-up in Toronto and Los Angeles he made his film debut in Dumb and Dumber (1994) before playing starring roles in the short-lived sitcom Simon (1995–96) and the Disney comedy RocketMan (1997). He co-starred in Half Baked and played a psychopathic hitch-hiker in There's Something About Mary in 1998. He later appeared in films such as The Whole Nine Yards (2000), Freddy Got Fingered (2001) and Sorority Boys (2002), and provided voices in works such as Gary & Mike, Robots (2005), and Meet the Robinsons (2007). He is also an author of children's books, and creator of the children's animated series Puppy Dog Pals.

I'd like to explore the more abstract side of people's minds, as opposed to the usual sitcom stuff. I don't want to do the typical sitcom-type humor. I'd want to do stuff like go bowling with pineapples.
I was walking around bored one day, and I started filming stuff with my cellphone. There are all these shows where people are trying to do these outrageous stunts, and I thought it would be funny to do all these stunts that aren't outrageous but then act like they are.
In 'There's Something About Mary' and 'Dumb & Dumber,' I ended up improvising quite a bit of my scenes, and later I didn't even remember what I'd said because I just winged it. When I went and saw the movie, I was as stunned as everyone else was.
I think a lot of people think I'm doing kind of a character onstage, but what you're really getting is just me.
I love seafood. Whenever I'm in Las Vegas, I love going to the Bellagio buffet because they have these great king crab legs.
I sort of write onstage. I'll throw an idea out there, like Home Depot, and just start talking about it.
I don't laugh so much at jokes and premises as I do at a guy who goes onstage and starts twitching and acting funny.
The thing is, you never know with any movie how it's going to turn out. It's always a mystery - you'll do pages and pages of scenes that will never make it onto the screen. — © Harland Williams
The thing is, you never know with any movie how it's going to turn out. It's always a mystery - you'll do pages and pages of scenes that will never make it onto the screen.
What's interesting about Stephen Baldwin is that me and Dana Gould were originally cast for 'Bio-Dome' - but Pauly Shore and Baldwin ended up doing it. So there's a little movie trivia for ya.
My roots are in stand-up, and stand-up is very freeing. There's no script involved; you just fly.
I don't go on tour tours - I just go randomly to cities to do shows if I have an opening in my schedule.
I used to do little sketches into my cassette tape recorder when I was a little boy. I would just turn it on and just start doing voices and characters. I just loved it.
I'd done a ton of movies here in Hollywood, and I realized that every movie I'd done was somebody's else's work and someone else's vision.
The thing I love about sketch is sometimes it leads you as opposed to you leading it.
I grew up on Don Knotts and Jerry Lewis and all the guys from Second City.
It was such a pleasure to work with Eugene Levy. What a treat. That's a guy I grew up watching as a kid. Guys like that, they were hilarious and didn't have to be super vile or X-rated.
If you're going to take a jab at someone, you should at least have a bit more of a personal relationship with them. I feel like you can be funny and clever, as opposed to just outright vile.
Without sounding negative, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of stand-up. I'm more interested in an absurd kind of theater.
I always improvise with the crowd. Sometimes it will be a 50 percent show, sometimes 70 percent, sometimes it's almost a whole show where I wing it. It depends on my mood, the energy in the room. For sure, a portion of it is just kind of winging it.
The problem with binge-watching on Netflix is that you lose three days of your life. — © Harland Williams
The problem with binge-watching on Netflix is that you lose three days of your life.
I just tried to create a life for myself that's full of fun and fantasy and things that equal laughter. My life's been cartoons and comedy and acting, and it's just been a fun life, man.
I think life would be so much funnier if every day you saw someone walking down the street getting hit in the head by a monkey, don't you?
I hate when you go into a nice restaurant - someplace where you're going to spend good money - and there are kids in there crying. — © Harland Williams
I hate when you go into a nice restaurant - someplace where you're going to spend good money - and there are kids in there crying.
If you were to come out and hang out with me, just having fun at a nightclub or a party, that's kind of the version of Harland you'd get - silly, kind of always saying wacky things.
I try to take normal things - whether it's a serious subject or something as obscure as a piece of toast - and put a very weird twist on them.
Canada has been a breeding ground for great comedic actors, sketch artists and stand-up comedians. We grew up with a different perspective on the world.
I'm an American citizen now, but I will always have Canadian pride.
I get a lot of people telling me that I'd make a good 'wacky neighbor.' I wouldn't mind that, if it was a starting-off point.
Everything's a conspiracy and everything's not a conspiracy. You could look at this planet and go, "This is all a conspiracy. God made this to test us to see if we'll use the nukes." You can let your mind believe anything.
Pumpkins are the only living organisms with triangle eyes.
I love the theater of the mind because you can go anywhere. You can say anything, and you pull people in. [You] can be jumping out of a window or riding a cow or having bubble-wrap sex or spraying your body with Pam and sliding out of your chair.
I don't go on tour tours, I just go randomly to cities to do shows if I have an opening in my schedule.
Animation wasn't my love, but drawing was. I loved drawing, and when it came time to graduate from high school, I looked around and it was like, "Wow, I don't really want to study math. I don't really want to study science. I don't really want to study literature. Is there a place where I can go and draw cartoons?"
I hate when you go into a nice restaurant - someplace where youre going to spend good money - and there are kids in there crying. — © Harland Williams
I hate when you go into a nice restaurant - someplace where youre going to spend good money - and there are kids in there crying.
I think life would be so much funnier if every day you saw someone walking down the street getting hit in the head by a monkey.
The thing I love about sketch is sometimes it leads you as opposed to you leading it. So, I don't go out there [thinking], "Oh, I want to make this as silly as possible." In fact, sometimes I get the most enjoyment out of a sketch that plays very real - and it's so real that it's just funny.
I think people should maybe just go out into the garden and watch a ladybug crawl across a flower and relax their mind. That's about all you need to know about life, I think.
I just tried to create a life for myself that's full of fun and fantasy and things that equal laughter. My life's been cartoons and comedy and acting, and it's just been a fun life.
Executives and studios really like to have control over their product. They panic or they're not secure enough to trust in the powers of really amazing improv people.
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