Bill Hader Quotes

I was into writing and directing. I was a bit of a reluctant actor. I would always ask friends to shoot or direct their movies, but then they'd want me to be in them.

I'm not a fan of the Eagles, but I've watched their documentary numerous times and everyone who's watched it with me has sung along to the songs, much to my dismay.

If a guy doesn't like a funny girl, something is wrong with him.

I can't do Twitter or Facebook, mostly because I feel like I'm the type of person who has to regiment the amount of time I spend doing certain things or I'll just wade in it, and then I'll never come out.

All the stories have to do with emotion. Emotion is driving everything.

I never resented anybody for being successful.

My mom, dad, grandparents, we all do voices.

I started making little short films with friends, and then I decided I wanted to get into the school play in high school.

If I get a chance to write a comic book or do a voice in an Adult Swim show, I do it. It's much more fulfilling to me and I get to work with people who I'm a fan of.

Even though it doesn't look like it, I run. On a treadmill. And I bounce around to all the songs on my iPod - the Pixies, Wagner, Richard and Linda Thompson, even books on tape. Just not self-help ones.

I don't think I could do what Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood or Ben Stiller do, where they direct a movie and they star in it. I would just be like, 'Oh, I don't even want to look at my face.'

There's a movie called 'Pod People' that has a weird little anteater alien. That was a good alien.

Oddly enough, I have really bad stage fright - getting up in front of people. And I made a living going on live television.

The nature of 'SNL' is that it's so in-the-moment.

Seth Meyers and I wrote a 'Spider-Man' comic.

Good directors give short and specific instructions to their actors.

I really enjoyed playing Vinny Vedecci, the Italian talk show host. He was the first character I ever came up with where I gave him a name and a way of dressing.

I was always self-conscious about the fact that I didn't have as much comedy experience as other people at 'SNL,' and I kept thinking they were going to realize they'd made a mistake by hiring me.

Every two months, I would get an email, 'Skeleton Twins update: still don't have the money!'

'Superbad' was such a personal movie.

In Tulsa, it was sports or nothing.

I've seen people who come to work say, 'No, I'm doing it this way, and that's that.' I'm the opposite - I like being out of my element; it's where I like to live.

I remember I could do - I did Bart Simpson once on the bus. I did, like, a really good Bart Simpson voice on the bus, obviously before I hit puberty. And everybody went, 'Whoa, that sounds just like Bart Simpson.'

I hated pitch meetings. Pitch meetings were my least favorite part of the week. I just gave up. I was so terrible at them.

I was offered a lot of supporting crazy parts in comedies because that's all I had done.

A lot of times I think people, when they're doing a movie that's a family movie, they're worried about this being too esoteric or too dark or too weird.

Turns out typecasting is a real thing.

I'm never going to say, 'Well, I'm never going to do comedy again.' I love comedies, and it's what people know me for, so I love doing it ... I don't really think about it in terms of 'Well, I should do this because it's comedy or drama.'

For our anniversary, my wife and I went to see Godzilla, and then we ate at Barnyard Venice, and it was like, 'We are crazy! The Kardashians have to keep up with us!'

I - at the table reads, I break constantly. If something is up there that I'm not expecting, I tend to - I can't help myself; I'll start laughing.

When I got to 'Saturday Night Live,' it was a lot like going from pre-school to Harvard, and it took a long time to figure stuff out.

My life is different since I moved back to L.A. from New York, mostly because I have a family and I don't go out.

I work a lot, and it's kind of like, you meet people, and you just click. It's not like I'm looking at something and thinking: 'South Park' - how do I get on that?' I just became friends with those guys first. They're nice guys.

Richard Grieco once asked for a bunch of M&M's

Yeah, improvising only really works 100% when you're with somebody.

I like when you are telling a story and fall into an impression.

It is funny that people always assume you have a bigger part in a movie than you actually do. I remember a lot of people thought 'Adventureland' starred me and Kristen Wiig. But we were like, 'No, we're only in the movie for like ten minutes!'

I'm very close to my sisters.

I'm the only one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that has Final Draft on my computer. Then you show up and go to any coffee shop in L.A., and there are a hundred people your age with Final Draft.

I remember being unbelievable bummed when 'Freaks and Geeks' was canceled.

Fred Willard still makes me laugh.

Pete Davidson - he's in the movie 'Trainwreck.' He has a small part in it. I told Lorne Michaels about him, said he was really funny.

In 'Winter's Bone,' it's literally the director and the camera operator. That's it. Just a super-small Kubrick crew. You know what I mean? Like, 8 people.

You can be the lead in a movie just for the sake of being a lead in a movie, or you can just be in a good movie.

I remember getting in the elevator for my audition and there was a guy next to me who had a backpack full of props and wigs and things, and I went, 'Oh, my God, that guy is so prepared, I have nothing, I have no props.' And that was Andy Samberg. And Andy Samberg said he was looking at me going, 'Oh, that guy has no props. He doesn't need props.' And that was the first time we met, was in that elevator.

My parents were supportive. I didn't have good grades, but they could tell I wasn't lazy.

At the beginning of each week at 'Saturday Night Live,' we have a full cast meeting where Lorne Michaels introduces the upcoming host.

To be honest, I don't know how comedy works.

I like doing a lot of research, and then you get there, you're in wardrobe, and then you're just reacting to what the other person is doing. The other actor is reacting to what you're doing, and it's this great back and forth. Because you've done all this research, you can use some of it or throw a lot of it out. You can get lost in it.

I get migraines a lot. I get them when I'm stressed out. My brain freezes, and I just try to get through that.

The best thing to do is to get out in front of an audience as much as you can, and learn from the experience.

Fred Armisen does a pretty good me.

Everything is so tech now; everyone is so connected that way.

I moved out to L.A. to be a filmmaker or director. I didn't even think about doing comedy or even acting. I wanted to be like Paul Thomas Anderson or Wes Anderson, but I wasn't going to a lot of comedy.

I have a lot of incomplete short films and incomplete scripts out there.

To be totally honest? I don't know if I'll keep doing more impressions. People told me I had a facility for it, and I was like, 'Okay, I'm the impression guy.' So you imagine the cast at 'SNL' is an A-Team, and you've got the explosives guy, and I'm the impression guy.

I loved growing up in Tulsa.

I saw 'A Clockwork Orange' when I was 11. When you watch 'Clockwork Orange' at 11, it either totally scares you from watching movies, or you want to become a filmmaker. I was the latter.

George Saunders is a complete genius.

The whole thing with animated movies is that it's very hard to get out of your head because it's very moving through each line systematically.

I was never that good on stage with live improv. I was much better on film or writing something and then thinking about it. I was too in my head when I was on stage.

'SNL' is really hard to do when you're single and living alone. And then it's pretty tough when you're married, because you don't see your spouse.

There are some really funny women at 'SNL,' man.

My dad was a big Frank Zappa fan, so I remember listening to a lot of Frank Zappa. Girls do not like Frank Zappa.

I was a production assistant in the post department on 'The Surreal Life.' And it's been reported before that I was an assistant editor on 'The Surreal Life.' That is not true.

I was at Second City L.A., going through the conservatory, and I graduated in 2004 and I got 'SNL' in 2005.

I think that's the thing I learned at 'Saturday Night Live' - any time I would try and strategize, I would always, always fall on my face. Things worked out when I tried to make it about what I was feeling at that moment and what I was into in that moment of my life.

When 'MacGruber' came out, David Wain was one of the first people who publicly championed it.

I'm always up before everybody else. I also crash at 3 o'clock when everybody's at their prime.

As far as post-'SNL' career, whatever kind of comes my way that looks interesting, I'll do it, you know?

I started 'SNL,' and I became the one who did impressions. I did that, but then I wanted to get an original character on, and that took a long time to get one on that stuck. And then I got Vinny Vedecci on - 'Oh great' - and then it took a couple more seasons to get Greg the Alien on. You have to have some patience.

I worked at a movie theater in Tempe, Arizona, when I went to community college there. And I got fired because a sorority had rented out a theater to watch 'Titanic,' and they were being really rude to me while they were waiting for the movie. So as I tore their tickets, I told them the end of the movie.

Top Ten lists make me insane. I just know they're going to change daily.

It doesn't occur to me that I don't drive a cool car until I hang out with Jon Hamm, who picks me up in what looks like a Transformer, and I think, 'Oh, that's what movie stars are driving. I guess I'm not a movie star.'

Getting 'SNL' was pretty amazing, so just to be able to have an eight-year career there and be really happy with everything I did, it was pretty big.

Jason Sudeikis is always chewing gum.

No one knows anything. You're going to make mistakes and you're going to do things that people think are stupid. You can't sit there and go, "I never want to make a mistake."

I love comedy, but it's dramas that stick with me.

Paul Rudd is a huge 'Hot Rod' fan.

A person being patient with an insane person is my favorite thing in the world.

I really liked John Candy in 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles.' He was so good in that movie.

'Vanity Fair' did this grid thing a couple years ago, connecting people who've worked together, and I had the most branches on it or whatever, because I'd worked with so-and-so and so-and-so worked with so-and-so, and I was kind of in the middle.

The only highlight of the evening was that I discovered flan.

The first time I met James Franco, he was dressed like James Dean. He was James Dean, literally, filming a biopic.

'The State' was a huge thing for me. I watched that and 'SNL' together when I was 15, 16.