The success of the second ‘Austin Powers’ caught us by surprise a little bit. We had decided not to do even a second one, unless the audience wanted it and we could do something better.
JAY ROACHI really enjoy the consolation when I’m having to cut loose stuff I love, of saying ‘Well, at least it will make it onto DVD.’ There’s a couple of scenes which I liked very much, but couldn’t fit them into the film that are on there.
More Jay Roach Quotes
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In his life, [Dalton] Trumbo uses wit and comedy to fight these very high-stakes battles.
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Sometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else.
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When I’m shooting, really the audience I’m thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.
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I love Dr. Evil [from Austin Powers] as a walking, talking, narcissistic manifestation of everything screwed up about human existence – his desire to take over the world, and have the world reflect his own power lust.
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It was an interesting process trying to get Bob to talk about the film because he’s such a shy person. He generally likes to talk when he really knows he has something to say.
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Once you’re a public figure, there’s a certain amount of privacy you do give up.
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I wish I was sort of someone like Woody Allen who can stage everything in one long master shot, no coverage; just, you know, that’s it.
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Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that’s really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.
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From our perspective now, there is a not a huge understanding about the totalitarian Communism that Soviet Russia practiced during the 1950s – it was an atrocious system.
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The commentary track became a lot like the movie and there are some funny, long, awkward pauses that you can tell we’re just trying to find stuff to say. None of us had gotten to really talk about the movie until that moment and they were in New York and we were in L.A.
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[ Dalton Trumbo] always said he fought so many fights, all seemingly different, but all about the concepts of fairness and justice.
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To his credit John Wayne was open about it, he even portrayed a member of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in a film called ‘Big Jim McClain.’
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When Dalton Trumbo and his friends joined the Communist Party it was 1943, and Russia was our ally in World War II. This was connected to a very popular movement of artists and intellectuals at that time towards anti fascism, and an alliance with the union movement.
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[Dalton] Trumbo himself was a terrible Communist.
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Hedda’s Hopper attitude was ‘once a Commie, always a Commie.’
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I really enjoy the consolation when I’m having to cut loose stuff I love, of saying ‘Well, at least it will make it onto DVD.’ There’s a couple of scenes which I liked very much, but couldn’t fit them into the film that are on there.
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John Wayne was never shy about that fervor, but because he was never overly zealous about his politics, and of course his status as a movie, he was embraced by both the right and the left.
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For Bryan [Cranston ] to go back in time and become this larger-than-life and somewhat theatrical guy, who performed his ideas and rhetoric in public in a melodic and flashy way, was a bit of a risk.
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There’s people who actually have a whole science devoted to what makes a sticky meme and that idea of that question of why some ideas about how civilizations work catch on and others don’t.
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I’m developing some other things in other genres, including one dramatic piece. So, anything’s possible.
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[Lyndon Baines Johnson ] technique in negotiation would be that he’d lean into you and take away your personal space, it didn’t matter your party affiliation when he was trying to convince you of something.
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When something so unjust as the black list happened, [Dalton Trumbo] would come to life in a certain way.
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It’s hard to imagine in this day and age the accent in Dalton Trumbo speaking voice, the Mid Atlantic mixture of an English and American dialect, so flowery and oratorical that it almost sounds theatrical. It would be uncool today, no one would ever speak that way.
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But I always reassure them that as far as my contractual rights can go, I will protect them and make sure that they have approval over every bit of it so that they know I won’t show something that’s embarrassing.
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One of the series of decisions that the great screenwriter John McNamara made was about who to depict. [Ronald] Reagan had a role in HUAC, he was a friendly witness, but never went over-the-top about it.
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I like to shoot a lot of choices. I like a lot of stuff – and so I push to go faster, to shrink the time between the takes so that the takes are what you’re spending all your time on.
JAY ROACH