A biography for Jay Chandrasekharhasn’t been written yet.
“I've never thrown a javelin. What kind of sport is that? It's hilarious.”
“The thing about our movies is, we write thirty drafts. That's a very detailed script. Which means that if you try to crank it out week to week in television, it's impossible.”
“If I were in charge of the Olympics, I would probably try to put something for the javelin guy to aim at. Not just length, but see if you could spear something.”
“My father and mother were both doctors, yes.”
“I don't like soft villains in comedy films.”
“Like hitting a baseball, comedy is very much about timing. To some degree, you either 'got it or you don't.'”
“Violence is totally accepted in this country.”
“Showbiz works well when you give the audience what they want.”
“Many films you see in theaters are financed through outside sources. With big films, the studio will pay, hoping to reap the reward of their big bet. But with medium and small-sized films, outside production companies and financiers often foot the bill.”
“The film you know as 'Super Troopers' is a film that almost didn't happen. The script was originally commissioned and developed by Miramax, but when it failed to get a green light, Harvey Weinstein was kind enough to give it back to us so we could make it elsewhere.”
“'Smokey and the Bandit' is tough and funny.”
“We can't make movies without scripts, and there's no cost to writing a script, so my advice to newcomers is do it yourself: Write your own script, shoot your shorts, edit your shorts.”
“The thing about people from Chicago and the Northwest suburbs is that they're very cocky. I think that serves us well in the show business world.”
“To me, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and my identity is of a suburban Chicago person. It's not like, 'Oh, I'm Indian.' I'm not. I'm American.”
“If a joke makes our tribe laugh, we assume it will make other friend-tribes laugh.”
“If you want to provide for your family, maybe show business is not a high degree of success. You will need to keep your day job until you make it, and know it's an odds thing just like the NFL. I personally wouldn't recommend anybody to go into this business.”
“I've come to the realization that you can entertain people both through making them laugh and making them feel. You can be quiet, and they can feel, and you will have scored as well.”
“If you're not doing something or saying something in comedy, the camera is going to go somewhere else.”
“We've always had a philosophy that we would always go wherever the joke is.”
“You can't halt time.”