A biography for Jay Chandrasekharhasn’t been written yet.
“There was a Burger King in Hamilton, N.Y., where Colgate is, that had three sizes: Small, Medium, and Liter. I would go in there and order a large. And they'd say, 'We don't have large; we have liters.' So they'd make us order liters of cola, which I found to be just anti-American.”
“The reality of show business - and I suppose a lot of businesses, but specifically show business - is that it is this business of 'no's.' It's mostly 'no's.'”
“Making an independent film is so great because you're your boss. And you have to be disciplined. You know? Because there's nobody telling you anything. But you have to kinda, you know, if you have an instinct to do something, you do it. There's nobody to run it by.”
“It takes a year for us to generate a script that is ready to shoot. There are maybe 20 drafts of a script. And, each time, someone saying 'I don't really love this,' we discuss it for 15 minutes.”
“I've been watching a lot of cable shows like 'The Wire' and 'Breaking Bad' and 'Downton Abbey.' I love how real the moments are.”
“That movie - 'Airplane!' - it influenced so many of us.”
“This career is a relentless hustle because Hollywood is crowded with too many smart, talented people pursuing the same dream and the same pool of entertainment investment dollars. And unlike in law or medicine, there are no college degrees required - no barriers to entry.”
“I find that there's so much funny stuff in real life, and I am much more interested in super grounded, real stuff, so now I just want things to feel real and authentic.”
“'Spinal Tap' influenced me, I think, specifically in making me really pay attention to tone.”
“What makes Broken Lizard, I think, is our timing.”
“I am convinced that tough villains help make a comedy sparkle because they provide a contrast to the funny guys.”
“'48 Hrs.' is very tough and funny.”
“Occasionally, we would shoot something and think, 'This is it; we are over the line.' But the test audiences didn't have a problem with it.”
“There has been a stigma around letting movies be seen on home screens on the same day as theatrical screens. Universal said they were going to do it with 'Tower Heist,' but they backed off when challenged by the theater owners. I understand where the theater owners are coming from on big studio movies.”
“What I do when I act and direct is I do a small version, go a little bigger, do a medium one, an over-the-top one, and then even bigger than that. I'll do six readings of the line. And they're not all the same. Just so I know if I was wrong about what I should have done, I luckily have this more subtle version.”
“I'm from Chicago. And I was an actor in high school and college, and I wanted to see if I could make a run of it in this job. So, I went downtown in Chicago, and I went up on a stand-up stage and did an open mic. It went well, so I'm like, 'Alright, I'll give it another try.'”
“I think there's a pedigree that comes with being from Chicago that gives you some cache outside of L.A. and New York, where, frankly, most of show business really is.”
“A lot of comedies in the 1980s and 1990s had all these colors and were so brightly lit. But John Landis had this dark style, like a Scorsese film.”
“I have always enjoyed outlaw films such as 'Smokey and the Bandit.'”
“We only ever write jokes that amuse us.”