A Quote by Harry Shearer
I never wanted to do a regular sitcom, because I'd be incredibly bored doing the same character week in, week out. But the beauty of 'The Simpsons' is that it's 15, 16, 17 characters. It's the variety that keeps it interesting. And hey, they're all my children.
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One reason I find all this character growth and narrative swerving so exhilarating is because I never got to do it when I wrote for TV. Our characters needed to remain consistent from week to week.
You put this face on television, week in, week out, they'd stop me and they'd say, 'Hey, Roy, how are you doing?' They'd know who I was, what I was, what I looked like, and what I did - all from seeing and hearing it at the same time on television.
I think, as an actor, I would find it a little run-of-the-mill doing procedurals where it's the same sort of thing week in and week out. Your character doesn't get to grow very much, which, purely from an actor's point of view, you want to see an arc of your character.
I was a repertory actor, which meant that I did a play every week. I was a different character every week; for a year, I was doing 40 or 50 characters.
I'm not doing a 9 to 5 job, so every week is different; one week I might be at home for three or four days, and another week it'll be busier. That's the beauty of my job.
Well, it was very interesting to play a character and stretch it over such a long time - 12 episodes. I had never done a TV show before, so week to week it was unclear what we would be asked to do.
Week-by-week you grow with your character and it's an interesting challenge.
Basically, we used to have a rule at 'Saturday Night Live' that you're not allowed to bring up 'The Simpsons' at the rewrite table, because 'The Simpsons' has done every joke there is. Every week there would be guys going, 'The Simpsons did that.' I go, 'C'mon.' And 'South Park,' too.
'Narnia' has opened my eyes to a lot of things. I feel lucky that I'm able to travel; I'm not stuck in my hometown, meeting the same kind of girls and saying hi to the same people, week after week. There are so many interesting, intelligent girls out there.
Traveling is definitely something that your average 17-year-old doesn't get to do. One week we're in Japan, one week we're in Australia, one week we're back home going to football games.
Procedurals are interesting to watch, but they're not as interesting to play because there isn't an opportunity to delve into any backstories. You're instead supporting the story week by week.
I think if you have a series for a long time, it's in some ways like being in a play with a long run - in that the character stays the same - and so you are constantly posed with the challenge of making it interesting and unique week after week, year after year.
It takes a week to do a sitcom in Hollywood. I do a show a day in my studio, three or four shows a week.
When you do a TV show, the cumulative intimacy you develop with the audience through your characters is pretty profound. It may be the most profound storytelling there is, because the character gets to live and roll around in the audience's mind week after week.
Doing the same old thing every day, week in and week out, it gets boring. I'm all about new challenges, new opponents.
I think I'm better wired for television. I love variety as far as a project. I'm easily bored and the schedule of a television show, it just keeps you going. I love theater and I think doing a sitcom in front of a live audience is the closest you can get to theater, and it's really the best mix of like standup and theater, is really a sitcom. I started as a standup and I still continue to do that as well, so I think I'm just a TV guy and happy for it. I think my movie career is kind of like my social life, I'm picky and not in demand. So it perhaps is working out.
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