I just admire everybody and sit in awe and watch them.
Suddenly you're like a pirate, you're 65 years old and you've got an earring.
I like to know who I'm going to be working with, so that I can think about them.
I have friends who will say, "Oh you gotta come and see our show." And the first thing I say is, "Is it sketch or improv?" I'll go in a minute to see a sketch show. I love sketch; it's my favorite form. But if it's all improv, they're either very good and it's annoying how good they are and it makes you feel bad, or they're not too good then you're sweating for them. And you don't want to sweat for them, see actors repeating each other's lines.
It's such a pleasure to work in these movies, it's almost like it's not really happening.
Cleveland is my hometown, and the Indians have a narrow but rich history.
I'll look through a script, and if there's a lot of night shooting I tend not to want to do it. If there's huge party scenes and I'll go through a few pages and say "Well, at least I'm not in this," then the last page my character walks in and says something, I say, "Uh oh, that's going to be three days on the set sitting around drinking coffee at the craft-service table." Unless it's a great part. All in all if it's a great part you'll do it and I'll say, "Well, I'm gonna be on the set for three days."
It's more fun in a way to do ensemble scenes, where you know your background, you know the scene, but you can't prepare because someone else is going to say something that is going to lead you off
I did Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman. It was a sequence where the president got captured and they made a doppelgänger of the president who was kind of goofy. They were Second City people who were the producers and writers, and they told my agent, "Well, we know Fred can do the kind of goofy, but we're not sure he can do be the straight president, kind of the Clinton-esque." So I really got my back up and I called my agent and I said, "Goddammit, I insist that I go in and read." And I did a great job and I got the part.
I think my wife saw a picture of the rock group Journey, and they're kind of aging, and the one guy had dyed blonde hair with black roots, and... my idea was to get a little earring, I wanted to have a dangling earring.
Someone I've always admired is Catherine O'Hara... I think she's one of the best actresses in the country, not only comedy. I just think she's just a step aside from everybody, she's just wonderful.
I don't know why my lines that were cut from the film didn't make it onto the DVD. I have offered to go into the editing room with Christopher and work shoulder to shoulder with him to fit all my lines in. I think he thinks I'm kidding. I'm only trying to help.
