Latest Scott Raab Quotes from Interviews

• Actors are the neediest people you're ever going to meet. And their relationship to real life, tenuous though it is because of all the wranglers, the money, everyone throwing everything at them every day of their lives -I think they're pretty much who they were before.

  Scott Raab

  Real, Real Life, Thinking

  Source: www.esquire.com

• The Clash, in particular, transcends any category.

  Scott Raab

  Categories, Clash, Particular

  Source: www.esquire.com

• As a viewer I came of age during a time when cast members were prone to fistfights. So I may be carrying a little of that kind of image in my head.

  Scott Raab

  Age, May, Littles

  Source: www.esquire.com

• One of the wonderful things about Portlandia - and I'm not just blowing smoke, although I can blow smoke, but I'm not - is that there is an expansive feeling to each segment. It's not reductive. It doesn't seem like sketch comedy.

  Scott Raab

  Blow, Feelings, Comedy

  Source: www.esquire.com

• The number-one show in America on Sundays will be Celebrity Apprentice. Monday nights, The Voice will be number one. Wednesday nights, Survivor will be number one. And Friday nights, Shark Tank will be number one. It just takes some time management for me to focus.

  Scott Raab

  Friday, Monday, Sunday

  Source: www.esquire.com

• For each show, we do maybe 15 versions before it goes on air. So I know every show microscopically.

  Scott Raab

  Air, Goes On, Shows

  Source: www.esquire.com

• In the steel-and-glass society that we live in, the value system would be that the lawyer, with the Mercedes and the fine suit and the Ivy League education, was more valued than the minority without the education. But on the island, the rules are changed. It's the person who can make a fire or who can make friends. A kind human soul is valued.

  Scott Raab

  Fire, Islands, Glasses

  Source: www.esquire.com

• Do I believe the execution will work out? Les Moonves said yes to Survivor based partly upon my show Eco-Challenge. He liked my way of filming outdoors. It was the first use of helicopters on a documentary with the gyro-stabilized lenses. And a certain beauty of filming, allowing the drops to fall from a leaf into a puddle, allowing a spider to weave a web. Taking the breath to allow that to happen rather than showing scene after scene.

  Scott Raab

  Believe, Fall, Work Out

  Source: www.esquire.com

• The first time I learned I could sell myself was when I convinced a wealthy American family to give me a job as a nanny. Childcare. Totally unqualified. But I learned to be ready for anything. And that I can adapt. That I can become the best diaper changer.

  Scott Raab

  Jobs, Giving, Nannies

  Source: www.esquire.com

• The reason I have managed to get so many shows on television is because I've tried to be authentic. When you're gonna spend millions of dollars to see that come to life, they better believe it's a good idea, A. B, they better believe that the person who's telling the idea is gonna put themselves into this.

  Scott Raab

  Believe, Ideas, Dollars

  Source: www.esquire.com

• I said [to my mom], "I want to go to the parachute regiment." She said, "Whew, that's tough. But okay, I understand."

  Scott Raab

  Mom, Want, Tough

  Source: www.esquire.com

• My mother never criticized any idea I had. She thought anybody could have anything. Even if I was in a poor family that worked at Ford Motor Company and lived in Dagenham. I could have told my mother that I wanted to work in pantomime. And she'd have said, "Great. I can help you."

  Scott Raab

  Mother, Ideas, Helping

  Source: www.esquire.com

• My dad is a little Scottish guy with tattoos all over his arms.

  Scott Raab

  Tattoo, Dad, Guy

  Source: www.esquire.com

• In the British military system, there is a very strict chain of command. Americans just want to win, and the correct strategy may be to speak directly to the men.

  Scott Raab

  Military, Winning, Men

  Source: www.esquire.com

• I watched American TV shows: Starsky & Hutch, Dallas, Rockford Files, Bonanza. And for many summers growing up, I worked on my aunt and uncle's farm in East Anglia. Down the street was an American cemetery for the Second World War, and every Memorial Day an American bomber would fly over that cemetery and drop rose petals.

  Scott Raab

  Summer, Memorial Day, Uncles

  Source: www.esquire.com

• When we went to war at the Falklands, Buck Kernan had to shake each man's hand as we boarded a boat for war.

  Scott Raab

  War, Men, Hands

  Source: www.esquire.com

• The Ranger who trained me at the time was [American] Major Buck Kernan, who became Supreme Allied Commander. I hadn't spoken to him in a few years, but he reached out to me and said, "I'm so proud of you."

  Scott Raab

  Years, Bucks, Proud

  Source: www.esquire.com

• I was a section commander in the parachute regiment [in the British army].

  Scott Raab

  Army, British, Parachutes

  Source: www.esquire.com

• If you are the leader, you don't have the right to say things like "Ugh, didn't eat this week I was so busy." "Haven't slept." I look sideways at those signs of bravado, which are intended to make one feel that the person is working so hard. I don't think that way.

  Scott Raab

  Thinking, Leader, Looks

  Source: www.esquire.com

• I'm consciously working very hard at not eating.

  Scott Raab

  Working Very Hard, Eating, Hard

  Source: www.esquire.com

• A movie is a miracle, even if it turns out to be a disappointment.

  Scott Raab

  Disappointment, Miracle, Turns

  "I'm grateful that I'm kind of a late bloomer, or someone who's still challenged by needing to work on things. I don't envy people who just don't have to kind of work on it". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. February 27, 2014.

• The comics I've talked to have varied styles as stand-ups, but the throughline is that it's the most intense thing they've ever done.

  Scott Raab

  Style, Done, Intense

  "Chris Rock: The ESQ+A". Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. February 18, 2011.

• Somebody'll be me, tomorrow or whenever. I've been doing this awhile. My time's limited. I've been doing this awhile.

  Scott Raab

  Tomorrow, My Time

  Source: www.esquire.com

• One of the best compliments I ever got was "You know what I like about you? You're smart enough to be scared. So many guys come on cocky, they don't want to go over their stuff, they don't want to do a pre-interview. You're always smart enough to be worried till the last minute."

  Scott Raab

  Smart, Cocky, Guy

  Source: www.esquire.com

• A Murphy [Eddie Murphy] movie is like a Sidney Poitier comedy - he's that intensely good... He revolutionized acting. He's literally black Brando. Before Eddie Murphy, there were two schools of acting for a black actor: Either you played it LIKE THIS or youplayeditlahkdis. He was the first black guy in a movie to talk like I am talking right now. That did not exist for black actors before him.

  Scott Raab

  School, Talking, Two

  Source: www.esquire.com

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