A Quote by Nick Kroll
The first movie that I ever said was my favorite movie - and I've said for the longest - is 'The Producers,' Mel Brooks' original 'Producers.' The two lead performances from Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are both unstoppable performances and then supported by amazing supporting characters throughout.
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'The Producers' is my favorite movie, and my favorite performances of all time are Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and I feel like I strive to be a combination of those two guys.
On screen, Gene Wilder could often be summed up as an accident waiting to happen, that frizzy, flyaway hair, the eyes darting this way and that and then something would set him off, Zero Mostel, say, in the movie that made Wilder a star, "The Producers."
Gene Wilder made his movie debut in "Bonnie And Clyde," starred in the Mel Brooks films "The Producers," "Young Frankenstein" and "Blazing Saddles," played opposite Richard Pryor in "Silver Streak" and "Stir Crazy" and portrayed the candy-maker in "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory."
I was immediately into all the great movie comedians - Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Richard Pryor, Gene Wilder. Everything those guys had anything to do with, from I don't know how young. Super young.
With Mel [Brooks], only one time and that was later on during "Young Frankenstein" - never with Zero [Mostel] and never with Mel except I was writing every day, and then Mel would come to the house and read what I'd written. And then he'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, yeah, OK. But we need a villain or we need whatever it was.
It can really vary from movie to movie what the producer's role is and there are all kinds of producers. There are line producers who do a lot of the nuts and bolts work on the set.
This is not a movie about smelling the urine! It's another kind of movie." Volker Schlöndorff got Billy Wilder to agree to these conversations - you can buy it - because Volker spoke German at times. And he said to Billy Wilder: "What is in your mind?" And he said: "If you're going to try to tell the truth to the audience, you'd better be funny or they'll kill you." And I haven't forgotten that.
Producers say things that they would like to see in the movie but they don't see the full picture. In the end if you ignore everything the producers say, of course, you get fired; but then if you listen to a producer on everything then it's like 'Hey - why don't you direct your own movie?'
Nic [Cage] is more than just a fantastic actor. He will get your movie made. The first thing that we did is that we went to producers and there were a lot of great producers.
My favorite movie is 'The Women' from 1939. It's been my favorite movie since I was like 12 years old. I love the dialogue, really. It's just a lot of really strong female performances. Rosalind Russell kills it, you know.
I worked so hard on that role [of Debra in Dexter]. And I barely worked on Rita. But I read for casting - both parts - and they said, "That's great, we're going to bring you in for producers." So I read for some producers - both parts - and they said, "That's great, we're going to bring you in to meet the creator." And I went in, and as soon as I walked in the room, he looked at me and he said, "Oh my god, you're our Rita!" And I said, "No! I'm Deb! I'm a total Deb!" "No, you're Rita!".
John Logan was kind of wrapping up - "Well, thanks for coming in..." - and I thought, "Oh, God, this is over and I'm out of here, and I really don't want to leave."So I said, "Can I ask you a question?" He said, "Sure." "What movie do you think you've seen more than any other movie?" And he said, "Wow, let me think about that. I guess probably The Searchers." And I said, "Well, oddly, that's the movie I've seen more than any other movie." And I wasn't just BS-ing. It's true. It's my favorite movie.
The producers and I first talked about the Big Fish musical, right before we did the first test screening of the movie. I said, "I think there's a Broadway musical here." And really, from that day, we started figuring out how we would do it.
And Mel [Brooks] - you have to understand this important point - he had done "The Producers" for $50,000 over two years, and he didn't make a penny from it. And then he did "The Twelve Chairs" - $50,000 for two more years and didn't make a penny from it. That's four years of work. And then they offered him quite a bit of money to direct "Young Frankenstein," and he took it.
I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
[ Zero Mostel] would tell anyone anything, not to be impolite, but he'd show that he wasn't at all afraid of however much money that person [had] or whatever title they had in a company. It didn't scare him. Mel [Brooks] was very much the same way.
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