by Sam Wasson
278 “was the key to Ghostbusters”: Ivan Reitman to author.
278 “Ghostbusters,” Aykroyd said: Mike Bygrave,“The Exorcist,” Time Out, December 6, 1984.
278 “I feel that even as slight”: Margy Rochlin, “Behind the Scenes,” Los Angeles Reader, September 28, 1984.
279 “the money,” Frank Price said: Frank Price to author.
279 “everyone was clamoring for SNL people”: Blume, “The Making of Ghostbusters.”
279 Judd Apatow could remember: Ibid.
279 “In the beginning,” Tina Fey said: Tina Fey to Eric Spitznagel, Believer, November 2003, http://www.believermag.com/issues/200311/?read=interview_fey.
279 “My brother was eight years older”: Tina Fey to author.
279 “I knew Edith Prickley was funny”: Ibid.
279 “I knew that most of the actors”: Fey to Spitznagel, Believer.
15. 1984–1987
283 On Halloween of 1982: Charna Halpern to author.
283 “white-lighting” against danger: Charna Halpern and Jason Chin, “Episode 64: The Life and Legend of Del Close,” Poor Choices Show (podcast), hosted by Mark Colomb, Nerdologues, March 7, 2011, https://www.nerdologues.com/podcasts/poor-choices-archive/episodes/episode-64-life-and-legend-del-close.
283 “You had a lot of nerve”: Ibid.
284 “In reality,” Close concluded: Johnson, The Funniest One in the Room, 240.
284 “Hey,” she said to Close: Charna Halpern to author.
284 the secrets of the universe: Halpern and Chin, “Episode 64: The Life and Legend of Del Close.”
284 “He just embarrassed”: Ibid.
284 “I know there has to be”: Ibid.
284 “little game theater”: Ibid.
284 “If we made a structure”: Charna Halpern to author.
285 “You never knew what he was going to do”: Ibid.
285 “You gave me your money”: Ibid.
285 “Why would you be arrested?”: Halpern and Chin, “Episode 64: The Life and Legend of Del Close.”
285 “(a) I might gross you out”: Ibid.
286 “I didn’t have a plan”: Scott Raab, “The Master: Bill Murray,” Esquire, December 1, 2004.
286 French grammar: Catherine Belmont, “Paris 1985,” February 26, 2014, Bill Murray Stories, http://www.billmurraystory.com/2014/paris-1985/.
287 George Gurdjieff: Lynn Hirschberg, “Bill Murray, in All Seriousness,” New York Times, January 31, 1999.
287 favorite chocolatier: Gavin Edwards, The Tao of Bill Murray: Real-Life Stories of Joy, Enlightenment, and Party Crashing (New York: Random House, 2016), 22.
287 “like a thunderbolt”: “Under the Influence: Elvis Mitchell Interviews Bill Murray,” Turner Classic Movies, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q14JhdJ7QHI.
288 “a combination of things”: Andrew Alexander to author.
288 “I was getting to the point”: Thomas, The Second City Unscripted, 152.
288 “If you’re not interested”: Andrew Alexander to author.
288 “I’m going to go talk to Joyce”: Ibid.
288 “In the line of eternity”: Neil Strauss, “The Subversive Joy of Stephen Colbert,” Rolling Stone, September 17, 2009. http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/the-subversive-joy-of-stephen-colbert-20090917.
289 “The world didn’t make any sense”: Stephen Colbert to Howard Stern, interview, August 18, 2015, audio recording, https://soundcloud.com/user-959658576-310443415/colbert-on-stern.
289 “I think that really helps if you’re”: YouTube Video, Stephen Colbert on getting to play himself, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2QLoGc6pjc.
289 “Belated grieving is what it was”: Charles McGrath, “How Many Stephen Colberts Are There?,” New York Times Magazine, January 4, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/stephen-colbert.html?ref=magazine.
289 “poet-jerk”: Cate Plys, “The Real Stephen Colbert,” Northwestern Magazine, Winter 2010.
289 “I was just incredibly depressed”: Stephen Colbert in conversation with Tim Goodman, Herbst Theater, San Francisco, January 16, 2006.
289 “There was something viscerally attractive”: Seth Mnookin, “The Man in the Irony Mask,” Vanity Fair, September 24, 2007, http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/10/colbert200710.
289 “I think you could probably use”: “An Interview with Stephen Colbert,” August 11, 2003, IGN, http://www.ign.com/articles/2003/08/11/an-interview-with-stephen-colbert.
289 “Well,” Colbert explained matter-of-factly: Plys, “The Real Stephen Colbert.”
290 “We didn’t have a TV”: Ibid.
290 “Stephen was fascinated”: Anne Libera to author.
290 “And I think some of that comes from my mother”: Strauss, “The Subversive Joy of Stephen Colbert.”
290 “I have to do this”: Plys, “The Real Stephen Colbert.”
290 “I’ve done musicals and plays”: Richard Christiansen, “Sills & Co. Games Still Work Fine,” Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1986, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-06-09/features/8602110214_1_paul-sills-second-city-99-seat-theater.
291 “and we started playing”: Ibid.
291 “I’m going to crack you!”: Carol Sills to author.
291 “Nobody,” Sills said: Christiansen, “Sills & Co. Games.”
291 “You remind me of Elaine,” he told her: Charna Halpern to author.
292 “It was new to him too”: Dana Delany to author.
292 Day one, Del started them off: Sydney Pollack, “January 7, 1986,” Sydney Pollack Collection, “Bill Murry [sic] Improv Group Undated,” AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library.
292 “We were learning the Harold”: Dana Delany to author.
292 “Breathe in the events of the world”: Sydney Pollack, “January 9, 1986,” Sydney Pollack Collection, “Bill Murry [sic] Improv Group Undated,” AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library.
292 Newtonian pool table physics: Ibid.
292 “Has anyone had a nightmare recently?”: Ibid.
292 “When you’re in somebody’s dream”: Sydney Pollack, “February 10th Eve LA Odyssey,” Sydney Pollack Collection, “Bill Murry [sic] Improv Group Undated,” AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library.
292 Kurosawa’s Red Beard: Sydney Pollack, “January 16th Sheridan Square,” Sydney Pollack Collection, “Bill Murry [sic] Improv Group Undated,” AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library.
292 “Is there a way,” he asked: Ibid.
293 “an automatic editing process”: Sydney Pollack, “Los Angeles 2–10,” Sydney Pollack Collection, “Bill Murry [sic] Improv Group Undated,” AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library.
293 “You go from improv to improv”: Ibid.
293 “I got beat up once before”: Sydney Pollack, “February 12th—Odyssey,” Sydney Pollack Collection, “Bill Murry [sic] Improv Group Undated,” AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library.
294 “I really felt like an outsider”: Andrew Alexander to author.
294 “You know what intimacy is?”: Martin de Maat, interview, Monthly Aspectarian, August 2008.
294 “I think many of us go through our life”: Ibid.
294 “I’m way out in theory here”: Ibid.
295 “Humor is simply the lubricant”: Martin de Maat, “Notes from Martin,” May 15–July 30, Boiling Point Improv Blog, July 24, 2014, https://boilingpointimprov.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/the-last-days-of-martin-de-maat/.
295 “Look,” Kern said: Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby, The Chris Farley Show, 55.
295 “The total commitment Farley”: Brian Stack to author.
296 “Some of the funniest stuff Farley”: Ibid.
296 “I want to be a good Catholic”: Erik Hedegaard, “Chris Farley: On the Edge of Disaster,” US Report, September 1997.
296 As she underwent chemotherapy: Gilda Radner, It’s Always Something (New York: Avon, 1990), 164.
296 “Five minutes, ten minutes”: Dustin Hoffman to author.
297 “Wait, wait,” Beatty said: Ibid.
297 “an enormous amount of film”: Stephen Rotter to author.
297 “Elaine had this whole network”: Ibid.
297 “It was about creation for Elaine”: Dustin Hoffman to author.
298 “The thing that makes Elaine stop”: Stephen Rotter to author.
298 “You know,” she confessed: Ibid.
298 “Could you take the S from”: Ibid.
298 “We never shot it the same way”: Dustin Hoffman to author.
298 “Every movie I made except”: Elaine May, “Elaine May in Conversation with Mike Nichols,” Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 2006, published in Film Comment, July/August 2006, https://www.filmcomment.com/article/elaine-may-in-conversation-with-mike-nichols/.
298 “This was her sandbox”: Dustin Hoffman to author.
298 big wooden desks: Michael Kirchberger to author.
299 Blind Faith Café: “For Stephen Colbert, Chicago Roots Run Deep,” CBS Chicago, http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/09/09/for-stephen-colbert-chicago-roots-run-deep/.
299 “Stephen was very, very depressed”: Anne Libera to author.
299 “Stephen,” Libera said: Ibid.
299 “Once I was there for a while”: “An Interview with Stephen Colbert,” IGN.
299 “Damaged people are very interesting”: Ibid.
299 “He was actually a great”: Stephen Colbert to Howard Stern, interview, August 18, 2015, audio recording.
300 “Those three were inseparable”: Anne Libera to author.
300 “We wanted the joke to stay the same”: Colbert to Stern, interview, August 18, 2015.
300 “Paul and Amy allowed”: Anne Libera to author.
300 “And I made a conscious effort”: Stephen Colbert to Terry Gross, “A Tribute to Stephen Colbert, A Self-Proclaimed ‘Junkie for Exhaustion,’” Fresh Air, NPR, December 18, 2014, http://www.npr.org/2014/12/18/371659078/a-tribute-to-stephen-colbert-a-self-proclaimed-junkie-for-exhaustion#.
300 Scoozi: Mike Thomas,“How Chicago Shaped Stephen Colbert,” Chicago Reader, http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/stephen-colbert-second-city-late-show/Content?oid=18958403.
300 “What was interesting about my day shifts”: Behan, “A Man of Character,” Daily Kos, September 24, 2010, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/24/904944/-.
301 “You try so many different scenes in the improv sets”: Thomas, The Second City Unscripted, 202.
301 “It’s not a great joke”: Stephen Colbert, interview, ADD Comedy with Dave Razowsky, November 21, 2012, audio recording, http://addcomedy.sideshownetwork.libsynpro.com/stephen-colbert.
301 Colbert whispered to Razowsky: Ibid.
301 “and hugged each other”: Ibid.
301 “like a deflating teepee”: Ibid.
302 “Because in straight theater”: Plys, “The Real Stephen Colbert.”
302 “because if there can be this much joy at a moment”: Colbert interview, ADD Comedy with Dave Razowsky.
302 “I will do comedy and not drama”: Plys, “The Real Stephen Colbert.”
302 “Hey, wait, look”: Pat Finn to author.
303 “Being with Chris was like walking”: Ibid.
303 “What do we do?” Farley asked: Ibid.
303 “a major sacrifice for Chris”: Ibid.
303 “We liked the style of both”: Ibid.
303 “was more blood-and-guts improv”: Ibid.
303 “I really didn’t like him at first”: Charna Halpern to author.
303 “I want to be on stage”: Ibid.
304 “Charna was mesmerized”: Pat Finn to author.
304 “I don’t know how that could possibly be”: Charna Halpern to author.
304 “He learned,” Finn said, “that it’s better”: Pat Finn to author.
304 “Oh,” he said to Charna: Charna Halpern to author.
304 “Try to kill the audience”: Erik Hedegaard, “Chris Farley: The Wild Ride and Sad End,” Rolling Stone, February 5, 1998, http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/features/chris-farley-the-wild-ride-and-sad-end-19980205?page=2.
305 “[Farley] didn’t have to learn”: Mark Caro and Allan Johnson, “For Farley, Comedy Was His Life,” Chicago Tribune, December 21, 1997, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997-12-21/news/9712210153_1_chris-farley-lorne-michaels-cook-county-medical-examiner/2.
305 “Chris was an athlete”: Pat Finn to author.
305 “When Chris took a suggestion”: Ibid.
305 “It truly was a family”: Jimmy Carrane to author.
305 “Sharing that camaraderie”: Pat Finn to author.
306 “talk about what we saw”: David Razowsky to author.
16. 1988–1994
307 “to float with it”: The Full Harold Ramis Audio Interview, Sheridan Road Magazine.
307 a single word: Erica Ramis to author.
307 “negative human energy”: Martin, “Harold Ramis Gets the Last Laugh.”
307 “What was really great”: Ivan Reitman to author.
308 “If the guy can do this”: David Ehrenstein, “Ramis on the Serious Side of Silliness,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, June 16, 1989.
308 “It made it all clear”: Ibid.
308 “Do you think I’m passive?”: Buck, “Live Mike.”
308 “Did you hear Diane is marrying”: Diane Sawyer, “Mike Nichols,” 60 Minutes, hosted by Lesley Stahl, aired March 10, 1996, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-nichols-remembered/.
308 “I am, and have been, terrifyingly lucky”: Mike Nichols to author.
308 “I did everything I did with them because of guilt”: Ibid.
308 “As actor training,” said student Diane Paulus: Diane Paulus to author.
309 “completely present in the moment”: Ibid.
309 “He would tell stories”: Kathy Hendrickson to author.
309 “I think those master classes allowed Mike”: Ibid.
309 “Sills, in the end, really didn’t like me”: Mike Nichols to author.
309 “Mike’s hope,” wrote his student: Johnny Zito, “Remembering Mike Nichols,” BIRTE (blog), January 9, 2015, http://irteinfo.blogspot.com/2015/01/remembering-mike-nichols-by-johnny-zito.html.
309 “Look at this”: Rick Thomas to author.
310 “I don’t think he was being ironic”: Ibid.
310 “He was really struggling”: Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby, The Chris Farley Show, 82.
310 “There was heavy betting”: Alex Tresniowski, “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” People, January 12, 1998.
310 “Then, fourteen hours later”: Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby, The Chris Farley Show, 90.
310 “Belushi’s in heaven?”: Ibid., 92.
311 “I went home”: Bob Odenkirk, Improv Nerd with Jimmy Carrane, no. 114, http://www.feralaudio.com/114-bob-odenkirk/.
311 “Coach,” Farley called him: Ibid.
311 “Doing this sketch with Chris Farley”: Ibid.
311 the easiest decision Lorne Michaels: Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby, The Chris Farley Show, 101.
311 “He was such a slob, a child”: Reed Tucker, “That Was Awesome,” New York Post, December 16, 2007, http://nypost.com/2007/12/16/that-was-awesome/.
311 “There is, in effect”: Caro and Johnson, “For Farley, Comedy Was His Life.”
311 “Although I love this kind of comedy”: “What a Wiseacre,” People, February 4, 1996.
312 “I’m Matt”: Brian Raftery, High-Status Characters: How the Upright Citizens Brigade Stormed a City, Started a Scene, and Changed Comedy Forever (Orange, Conn.: Megawatt Press, 2013).
312 “learn to love the bomb”: Rebecca Ascher-Walch, “The Right Stuff,” Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2009.
312 “You gotta learn to love when you’re failing”: Antoinette Bueno, “Stephen Colbert Reveals the One Thing He Won’t Make Jokes About on the ‘Late Show,’” ET Online, August 17, 2015, http://www.etonline.com/news/170104_stephen_colbert_covers_gq/.
312 “I like to do things that are publicly embarrass
ing”: Joel Lovell, “The Late, Great Stephen Colbert,” GQ, August 17, 2015, http://www.gq.com/story/stephen-colbert-gq-cover-story.
312 “We laugh at what you cry about”: Dan Via, “Amy, Paul and Stephen Get Wiggy,” Washington Post, June 6, 2003.
313 “I like characters that can’t be easily defined”: Steve Carell to Eric Spitznagel, “Steve Carell: The Playboy Interview,” June 2008, published on Eric Spitznagel (blog), June 1, 2008, http://www.ericspitznagel.com/playboy/steve-carell/.
313 “was literally trying to rape Jackie”: David Razowsky to author.
313 “We tried it a few times”: Steve Carell to Eric Spitznagel, “Steve Carell: The Playboy Interview,” June 2008.
314 “I look at improvising”: Tad Friend, “First Banana: Steve Carell and the Meticulous Art of Spontaneity,” New Yorker, July 5, 2010.
314 “we understood the history”: Jimmy Carrane to author.
314 Treat your audience like artists and poets: Charna Halpern to author.
314 “It was a religion”: David Koechner, Improv Nerd with Jimmy Carrane, no. 21, http://www.feralaudio.com/21-david-koechner/.
315 “One of the cool things”: Brian Stack to author.
315 “Just placing improv”: Pam Victor, “Geeking Out with Jazz Freddy,” My Nephew Is a Poodle (blog), May 22, 2013, http://pamvictor.blogspot.com/2013/05/geeking-out-withjazz-freddy.html.
315 “forgive all of Mesopotamia’s”: Jack Helbig, “We Made a Mesopotamia, Now You Clean It Up,” Chicago Reader, June 6, 1991. http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/we-made-a-mesopotamia-now-you-clean-it-up/Content?oid=877741.
315 “started to workshop”: Pat Finn to author.
315 “We approached it like it’s a theater show”: Jimmy Carrane to author.
316 “The scene work”: Brian Stack to author.
316 “If you had an interesting character”: Jimmy Carrane to author.
316 “Del really liked the stuff”: Pat Finn to author.
316 “We’re in the midst of a real”: Tony Adler, “The ‘How’ of Funny: Chicago’s New Wave of Improvisation Aspires to More than a Punchline,” American Theatre, December 1993.
317 “people who worked office jobs”: Tina Fey to author.
