John C. Reilly
I like working with people I know. It saves a lot of awkward conversations and getting-to-know-you kinda moments. You trust the people if you know them.Collection: People
Oftentimes, a funny situation is funny because it's uncomfortable or weird. The most memorable stories, or the stuff that you repeat to your friends, it's not like, "Oh, I had a pleasant day, nothing happened on the bus today." It's when strange things happen, when you become uncomfortable or knocked out of your own reality, those are the things that are interesting.Collection: Memorable
Improvisation, the main thing is it teaches you to be in the moment and present in the moment and be reactive and proactive for what's going on. Someone gives you something - a lot of actors are a little shut off, so they're just doing, "This is my character, these are my lines, I'm going to just send it to you then you send whatever you're sending." Improvisation teaches you to really be listening.Collection: Character
The less people know about me in reality, the more they can accept of me as a character.Collection: Character
I'm bored by repeating myself, and I would imagine that an audience would be bored by me repeating myself.Collection: Bored
I was thinking maybe about being a lawyer. I realized I was interested in becoming a priest at one point. I was just interested in stuff where I could do something I really believed in. And then, I realized if I become an actor, I don't have to choose. I get to do everything. It's worked out so far. But what I really want to do is direct.Collection: Thinking
I always get a headache the first time I watch a movie I'm in. Because you're staring at the screen so hard, your brain is doing all this work trying to put things in context of what the day-to-day experience of making it was. And the timeline that's in your head of when it was made, and on what day, how you felt. And then you're also trying to grasp what it's been edited into.Collection: Brain
Actors in general are pretty good bullshit artists; we're good at just chewing the fat, interacting with people. So we're good ambassadors for movies.Collection: Artist
It's a mystery why certain people find certain things funny.Collection: People
I get the greatest joy from just doing anything, being an actor. Doing music, and doing what I love to do. I don't make a huge distinction between comedy and drama. I think the whole point is just trying to be as honest, from moment to moment, as you can be. If you're honest about the material, and the material is ridiculous, then you're in a comedy.Collection: Drama
I'm alienated from this world because its weird and I don't want to be a part of it. I want to be part of the people that are more imaginative and crazy.Collection: Crazy
Life is often confusing and sad, and I'm a big fan of the slap and the tickle, as they say.Collection: Confusing
The kind of über-objective is to make people laugh. You always have to have that in the back of your mind, "Eh, I've got to figure out a way to make this funny."Collection: People
I love to improvise, but I always thought "Man, it's like the final frontier for improvisational actors, to really go for something emotional, something that's not just chasing the laugh."Collection: Emotional
I don't think I could ever stop doing serious movies and just do comedies, or vice versa, but there is something cool about going to work everyday and you're just trying to make your friends laugh. That's nice work if you can get it, you know what I mean? It's different than going to work and knowing that I've gotta slap someone in the face today, and then I've gotta cry, and someone's gonna die, I've gotta get myself to that place.Collection: Nice
Somehow that doesn't feel like a natural human thing to do, to go to those dark places, you have to kind of force yourself to do that. And comedy, it's like you're excited to get there in the morning every day.Collection: Morning
The truth is, when you're at the track, it was an interesting thing about stock car racing as a sport, is you almost get more out of it watching it on TV.Collection: Sports
Animation is a great way to work. No early morning call times, no make-up chair. In live action ,you're always fighting the clock; the sun is always going down too soon.Collection: Morning
When I first joined SAG, there was another John Reilly. My dad was John Reilly, too, but growing up I was John John. Nobody in life calls me John C. It's more like, "Hey you, Step Brother!"Collection: Brother
[Country Music] is the final destination for many punk rockers [...] Rockabilly is the mid-point and then [they] end up at Country [...] There's purity to that music and I think that appeals to a lot of punk rock people - the precision, the purity, and the directness of Country Music.Collection: Country
I've worked with a lot of great directors and often times they solicit your ideas.Collection: Ideas
I would say whisky or pills. Not both because that can have disastrous consequences.Collection: Pills
Unless you do the same thing, it's tough for stereotypes to stick. That said, whatever you've done that's most popular at a given moment is what people think "you do."Collection: Thinking
I'm not a huge sports fan in general, I don't spend a lot of time watching other people do stuff. I tend to like to go out and do stuff myself.Collection: Sports
I had [at school] my own little posse of people that all felt weird together so it wasn't so lonely.Collection: Lonely
I think that's some of the stuff that we kind of joke on in the movie, this obsession; number one, winning is everything, number one, number one.Collection: Winning
I like when people know exactly, have a good sense of themselves, and know exactly what's good for them, I admire that, but I don't have anywhere near that kind of perspective on my own.Collection: People
I mean I was very shy but I was also very extroverted because I was doing plays. I'd been doing plays since I was a little kid. But, I did feel like an outsider because I went to like a 'college-prep' kind of high school that had a really big football team and was known for its program so I was like this weird boy that did plays.Collection: Football
If you get made fun for the way you look, then maybe wearing the same thing every day is the best way to protect yourself.Collection: Fun
It's kind of liberating to be able to bring your own ideas to things, but it's also a lot of pressure, it's like screenwriting on your feet.Collection: Feet
A lot of times, mainstream critics are much tougher on small, independent movies because they can be.Collection: Independent
I'm a big fan of not letting the audience of off the hook, as they say. I like it when things feel real, and that's oftentimes not comfortable.Collection: Real
Kind of the exhausting thing about doing pure comedy, or something that's broader, is you're kind of a slave to the laugh. If it's not funny, then there's not much point in doing it. The kind of über-objective is to make people laugh. You always have to have that in the back of your mind, "Eh, I've got to figure out a way to make this funny."Collection: People
I'm much more character based. I try to just be really committed to what I'm doing.Collection: Character
I end up improvising in almost everything to some degree, 'cause it's often necessary on movies. The script is one thing, and it's this kind of theory of what you're going to do, and then you get there on the day and you realize, "Oh, the script is not appropriate to this room, the door's over here."Collection: Doors
I think just getting a movie done is an accomplishment in itself.Collection: Thinking
I do a lot of improvising on movies, actually.Collection: Improvising