I went to Second City, where you learned to make the other actor look good so you looked good and National Lampoon, where you had to create everything out of nothing, and SNL, where you couldn't make any mistakes, and you learned what collaboration was.
Interpretation
Collaboration in creative environments is essential for mutual success.
In this quote, Bill Murray reflects on his experiences in various influential comedic institutions, emphasizing how learning to work together with others enhances individual performance. The lessons he learned about collaboration, creativity, and the importance of supporting fellow actors contributed significantly to his development as a performer.
In practice
During a workshop on teamwork, I shared Bill Murray's insights on collaboration.
You know the theory of cell irritability? If you take an amoeba cell and poke it a thousand times, it will change and then re-form into its original shape. And then, the thousandth time you poke this amoeba, the cell will completely collapse and become nothing. That's kind of what it's like being famous. People say hi, how are you doing, and after the thousandth time, you just get angry; you really pop.
My first movie, I got nominated for a Canadian Oscar-for Meatballs. For MEATBALLS. And who am I up against? George C. Scott. So he wins the award and I stand up and go, 'That's it-let's get the hell outta here.'
There's definitely a lot of trash that comes with the prize of being famous. It's a nice gift, but there's a lot of wrapping and paper and junk to cut through. Back then, when a movie came out and people saw you on the street, their reaction was so supercharged that it was scary. It would frighten other people. It used to really rattle me. I mean, everybody would love to have their clothes torn off by a mob of girls, but being screamed at is different.
Like: 'Don't walk out there with one hand in your pocket unless there's somethin' in there you're going to bring out.' You gotta commit. You've gotta go out there and improvise and you've gotta be completely unafraid to die. You've got to be able to take a chance to die. And you have to die lots. You have to die all the time.
Friendship is so weird. You just pick a human you've met and you're like, 'Yep, I like this one,' and you just do stuff with them.
Golf was my first glimpse of comedy. I was a caddy when I was a kid. I was on the golf course rather than being in lessons, but I can play better now than I could then.
A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old.
I often feel like a nutty professor, like I'm going to try this experiment and see if it works. My hypothesis is, people in the West can absorb African women stories without any shaken or stirred mixer. It can come directly from the source.
The thing is, 'Discworld' had been going on for a very long time, and I've written children's books as well. Usually when people have a really big series they franchise it, which I thought is a bit of a no-no, so I thought what I'd do is I'd franchise it to myself.
It doesn't matter at all for me that I work in hospital or anywhere with limited space. Every day, I'm creating new works with all my might.
Imagining [The Wizard of Oz] without Judy Garland is a bit like dancing on wet cement: you can do it, but why would you want to?
There is force and vitality in a first sketch from life which the after-work rarely has. You want a picture to seize you as forcibly as if a man had seized you by the shoulder! It should impress you like reality!
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.