There’s always going to be someone as funny as you or funnier.
You still have that competitive thing where you want to try to make hits. That won’t go away, unless the mayor of show business says my time’s up.
You tend to get reluctant to talk about anything until the day before filming.
Handling a painful situation in a comedic way is truly the funniest. That is extremely real to me and not kind of clownish. There is a thin line though; you can’t overdo it.
A lot of people have gotten into comedy because of certain influences in their lives or events that were painful, and I really have wracked my brain to figure it out. I pretty much have had a normal childhood. Maybe it was too normal.
I left ‘Saturday Night Live’ without a film to go to, and I’d filmed ‘Old School’ while I was in my last season of the show, and that hadn’t come out yet. I was a free agent, in a way, but I knew it was time to leave the show and test the water.
I remember going with my mom to a random garage sale as a kid and thinking what a cool treasure hunt that whole world was. Only to transition as an adult to think, ‘What a gross place that really is.’
I speak as much Spanish as anyone who has grown up in Southern California or Texas or Arizona. I had my three years of high-school Spanish and a couple of semesters in college.
I think ‘SNL’ was such a unique thing because it was material you created and you’re very comfortable with it, even though the setting was pressure-packed.
I think with the success of, like, every summer there has been a couple R-rated comedies that have done so well; I think it is so nice to see that people are turning out to see these movies, and it doesn’t seem to be as big a stigma with the studios anymore.
There are a lot of really funny guys who are very natural in what they do: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Seth Rogen.
I love watching people be totally committed in a very real way to stupid situations. I find it’s not so much trying to be funny, it’s trying to be real in a messed up context. That’s comedy to me.
Often times I’m confronted with a quote that I don’t remember saying. So, on one hand it’s very flattering, it is just so surreal.
I’ve always wanted to sail around the world in a handmade boat, and I built a boat.
I’ve never had a yard sale, ever, in my life. I don’t know if I ever thought about stuff I would get rid of.
I still regret that I never played soccer in high school. I chose basketball over soccer.
One of my first memories of being a kid was, ‘I want to have a real job when I grow up.’ And to me that meant you wear a suit and a hat and carry a briefcase and go to your job.
If you ain’t first, you’re last!
I’m really an artist of feeling. I like creating things when it feels right.
You know you can be having a bad day and someone will walk by and say: ‘Hey, I love you, Will.’ That really cheers you up. That’s a really lovely thing.