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" With comedy especially, it feels like such a clear-cut thing to be a writer-director. There is so much nuance and tone in a comedy that it's hard to contextualise it in a script. "
Todd Phillips
Comedy
Tone
Nuance
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" I remember that when I got to NYU, everyone was writing scripts. But I was 18 at the time, and when you write a script, so much of it is about what you pull from life, and this sounds sort of cheesy, but I felt like I didn't have enough life experience at that point to write a movie. "
Todd Phillips
You
Experience
Writing
" I'm first and foremost a company man, surprising as that is. I love Warner Brothers. That's where I have a deal. That's where I've been for years. So I don't really interact too much with other studios and do things with other studios and I don't necessarily read scripts from other studios. "
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" There are movie sites that love movies and there are movie sites that are just bitter people that just hate movies. I find Movieline to be in the latter. The tone is bizarrely hateful. "
Todd Phillips
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Love
Find
" I tend to make movies about my peer group. I couldn't see myself now going back and making a movie about a bunch of college kids, necessarily. I kind of always operate in the things I'm observing around me, whether it's friends having babies now in my life or what have you. "
Todd Phillips
College
Myself
You
" Directors tend to be more underrated than overrated because it's a quiet job and people don't really understand it. "
Todd Phillips
Understand
Job
People
" You know, if I started worrying about what the critics think, I'd never make another comedy. You couldn't pick a less funny group than critics - you couldn't find a more bitter group of people! "
Todd Phillips
Know
Think
Group
" I take it very seriously, music. I think it's one of the tools that a director has with which to kind of paint. The right music can sometimes do five pages of scripted dialogue. "
Todd Phillips
Music
Think
Kind
" I really got into filmmaking through photography. "
Todd Phillips
Through
Photography
Filmmaking
" The worst thing you can do as a comedy director is be on set and think of something ridiculous, or an actor comes up to you with something ridiculous, and you say 'No, no that's too much.' Let's not worry if that's too much, let's shoot it, and then decide if that's too much when we see it. "
Todd Phillips
Say
Comedy
You
" I like - there's a better word for it, but I like the danger that a comic brings to a role. It has a feeling, even though everything's scripted and everything's planned what you're going to do. When I see Will Ferrell or Sacha Baron Cohen, there's a feeling that anything could happen. "
Todd Phillips
Better
Danger
Feeling
" Bangkok, like Las Vegas, sounds like a place where you make bad decisions. "
Todd Phillips
Bad
You
Vegas
" There's a darkness under 'The Hangover' because ultimately there's a missing person and it's not really that funny. There's a sort of darkness under it that I love, and still people are laughing as hard if not harder than they did in 'Old School.' "
Todd Phillips
School
Darkness
Funny
" I'd love to do a movie with females in it, and not necessarily the female version of 'The Hangover,' but I'd love to. If I did it it'd star Juliette Lewis, because she's the funniest woman in the world. She's my favorite actress on the planet. If we did a character-based comedy about women, I don't see it out of my range. "
Todd Phillips
World
Comedy
Love
" I think comedy directors tend to feel a need to justify the bad behavior, and I just never think that. I like bad behavior, I've always liked bad behavior, I'm a fan of bad behavior, and I don't think you have to justify bad behavior. "
Todd Phillips
Think
Bad
Behavior
" You're only as good as your body of work, and everybody has issues, whether it's Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese. I'm not comparing myself to those guys, but you learn more from the misses than the hits. "
Todd Phillips
Work
Body
You
" I never had a ton of male friends and it's always been something that's really interesting to me, what brings guys together? The bonding. 'Old School' is a good example of that. And even 'Starsky' and even 'Road Trip.' "
Todd Phillips
Me
Together
School
" I was taught that you didn't want to be part of the group - that it was better to do your own thing. "
Todd Phillips
Your
Group
Own
" I think reviewers have become particularly venomous because, in a way, the power has been sucked from them. A 15-year-old can write a review on the Internet and it means as much as Roger Ebert's review, and that just makes Roger Ebert mad, so he comes out harder and stronger. "
Todd Phillips
Mad
Think
Stronger
" Reality television hasn't killed documentaries, because there are so many great documentaries still being made, but it certainly has changed the landscape. There is this breed of gimmicky documentary that is basically a reality show. "
Todd Phillips
Reality
Television
Great
" I think any filmmaker looks back and thinks, 'Boy, if we only had four hours more on that day when the sun was going down,' or, 'If we only spent more time and went back.' "
Todd Phillips
Day
Boy
Down
" John Goodman's pretty dark - I love John Goodman. "
Todd Phillips
Pretty
Love
Dark
" Well, it's so cheesy to say but you can't find a comedy director who makes movies for critics. When a movie does $580 million worldwide, I'm not saying that proves anything except people were enjoying the experience. "
Todd Phillips
Experience
You
People
" Comedies are just never that expensive quite frankly. They really aren't. We aren't doing green screen shooting, so even Hangover II in Bangkok might seem like it's expensive, you're flying over and back, but they're just not that expensive to make when you do it the way we do it which is very focused and I've done it before. "
Todd Phillips
Done
Doing
Green
" When I was younger I was obsessed with 'Star 80,' and it's just a great movie - I think I saw it three times in the theater. "
Todd Phillips
Just
Three
Star
" I don't have a horror film in me just because I don't like to be scared. But I definitely have a documentary in me, and I certainly have dramas. "
Todd Phillips
Scared
Film
Horror
" I think people like comedies and I think concept driven comedies seem to be working when it's a clear concept and you deliver funny stuff. "
Todd Phillips
You
Like
Funny
" It's all about escapism. That's essentially what all movies are about. It's a vicarious thrill. "
Todd Phillips
Thrill
Escapism
About
" Comedy is so subjective. You could be in a room with 400 people laughing at a joke and you could just not think it's funny. You're just sitting there like, 'Am I in the twilight zone? Why is everyone laughing?' It's such a personal thing. People have such a personal visceral response to comedy. "
Todd Phillips
People
You
Why
" I think that 'Hangover II' is as funny as 'The Hangover I,' honest to God, but I think that it's a little bit darker, and the stakes are a little bit higher. "
Todd Phillips
Funny
God
Higher
" I find I like to work with a lot of the same actors, because I find that there's sort of shorthand there, and there is this unspoken trust, both ways. They trust me and I trust them. And I know what I'm going to get from them, to an extent. It's just fun, kind of creating this little family. "
Todd Phillips
Family
Know
Fun