[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: In another podcast interview, you touched on how comedy makes people’s lives better. Kind of a serious topic about something funny.
David Zucker, Director/Writer/Producer: Yeah. In fact, I’ve stopped giving anything to charity because I’m already making people’s lives better.
So, yeah, I find that they should have as some kind of a monument to me.
I don’t know. It makes people’s lives better, but I think laughter supposedly is good for you, it’s healthy.
I don’t know any of the facts and figures.
I know that I laugh a lot, and I’ve remained pretty healthy into my 90s, so yeah. No, I’m not. I’m not.
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Film Courage: Can you deduct it on your taxes all you’ve given away?
David: I wish. No, I would do that, but I get audited. And they would find all the money that I hide.
So, yeah. Okay. Can’t do it.
Film Courage: What do you think of playing a comedy like a tragedy and a tragedy like a comedy? I’m not sure if Charlie Chaplin said that.
David: I think it’s a great idea, but that’s not what I do really.
Who’s the guy that did Life is Beautiful?
Roberto Benigni did Life is Beautiful.
He turned tragedy into comedy and comedy into tragedy.
Amazing movie. I loved that.
But there again, it’s like the way I don’t want to do that.
I kind of stay in my lane and I’m happy doing that.
Film Courage: Is that something that you would advise other filmmakers coming up? Stay in your lane or you talked about Woody Allen, how he’s evolved…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
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About:
Born on October 16, 1947 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, director/writer/producer David Zucker, along with brother Jerry (Ghost, 1990) Zucker and longtime friend, Jim (Hot Shots, 1991) Abrahams, has established himself among Hollywood’s (or at least Wisconsin’s) most successful filmmakers. Starting out after college, with a borrowed video tape deck and camera, the soon to be legendary trio created the Kentucky Fried Theater, on the UW Madison campus, and moved to California in 1972, quickly becoming the most successful small theater group. in Los Angeles history.
After parlaying this success into The Kentucky Fried Movie, the three conceived the idea that would create a whole new film genre. Airplane! (1980) broke all conventions, featuring dramatic actors like Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen performing zany jokes with straight-laced sincerity. The spoof became the surprise hit of 1980, beginning a streak of hilarious movies including Top Secret! (1984) and Ruthless People (1986), after which David branched out on his own to direct The Naked Guns (1988, 1991, 1994), BASEketball (1998), Scary Movies 3 (2003), and 4 (2006), and others.
David also found time to produce the successful, but somewhat less hilarious A Walk in The Clouds (1995) and Phone Booth (2002), and recently completed a feature script, The Star of Malta, a comedy set in the Film Noir era, and an international spy thriller, “Counter Intellijence!”.
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