David Krumholtz Quotations

Ultimately, I think the movie's about working as a means of finding meaning in your life. It's about the lesson, the great lesson, of just working, working and being productive.

[Numbers] made me feel like a real person instead of a guy who shows up for two days on a movie, does some funny stuff, and then doesn't see anybody until the premiere.

I think ever since Numbers ended, I've been trying to find a way to get back in a situation like that. It was lovely to drive in traffic with other people going to their jobs every day.

First of all, it was wonderful to have a home. Consistent work when you're a journeyman actor, when you're a character actor, is really hard to come by. When you can get it, you have to cherish every moment of it - cherish the crew, cherish the cast, cherish the stage, cherish everything. Because when it's over, it's really hard to get back.

I wish that I had gotten a chance to do another season of [ Gigi Does It], to see if I could explore the story more, or the character more, and also find an easier way to make the show. We never got that opportunity. But I'll always be super, super proud of it.

The Josh Brolin character in that movie [Hail, Caesar!], he's given a choice to leave, to do something where he wouldn't have to work as hard. And he'd rather work and deal with the madness of what he's doing because it thrills him, because it gives him meaning.

Someone is spending their life and their passion and their ingenuity on something that's seemingly potentially trite. But it's what they're doing, and it's what's important to them and what's beautiful to them.

There's this cornucopia of potential, and it can't be realized until someone works their ass off for it. Even on a Nickelodeon sitcom.

[Gigi Does It show] flew so drastically under the radar. I kind of hold it in my back pocket as this thing that I got the opportunity to do that no one really knows I did and that I'm really proud of.

I'm sure in less than 10 years there will be several streaming services or whatever you want to call them that are dedicated to retro television, like rare retro television, and maybe we'll end up doing something with that. Maybe Gigi will find popularity there, because it was fun, it was kitschy and very stupid and very dirty. But it had heart. I hope people will watch it one day.

That experience [in Hail, Caesar! ] ruined me for all future experiences, because the Coen brothers are the best. They're arguably the greatest of all time, if there is such a thing.

Everyone that works under the Coen brothers , in every department - makeup, hair, production design, wardrobe, so on and so forth, grip, lighting, tech, everything - they're the best. So to be on a set when you're working with the very best in the industry was a real privilege.

Still, at the end of the day, I was really proud of [ Gigi Does It]. I wish more people had seen it. I wish it was more available, so people would see it now.

I would do prosthetics again, but not on a schedule like that [in Gigi Does It]. It was grueling and brutal and it almost killed me. That show almost killed me.

I got scared away from the whole writing and producing thing, because of how really, truly difficult this was.

In this case, I don't know why they [Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg] thought I would be a good lavash wrap or I would do a good Middle Eastern accent. They just assumed I would. They called one day, and they're like, "They're doing this read-through for Sausage Party, and you're going to play a lavash wrap in it." After I looked up what a lavash wrap was, I was like, "Oh, cool."

It was easy and fun [filming in Hail, Caesar!], and I think it's easy to be intimidated by the Coen brothers, because they're quiet. They don't heap praise, especially upon themselves. It's not like they're walking around thinking they're the greatest thing on Earth.

At that time in my career, everything ended up moving so fast, honestly. Within the first five years of my career, I think I did two TV series and four big movies, and I've never been that hot again in my career.

That was pretty cool [Life With Mikey]. Michael J. Fox at the time was huge. I was like, "Whoa, he's a real bona fide movie star!" I was a kid. It was a huge deal. That's kind of it. We shot it in Toronto, and a little bit in New York.

The play I was doing [on a Broadway ], I was playing an obnoxious, outspoken kid, so [the director James Lapine ] saw me do the play, and he was like, "That's what I'm looking for." I tested for the part [in Life With Mikey]. Back then, I used to do screen tests. I mean, they still do every once in awhile, but it was a big deal.

I was doing a Broadway play, and I was really new to this business. The Broadway play was my first job, literally. The play next door was a musical called Falsettos. The director got hired to direct this Michael J. Fox movie and was looking for a kid who could play brash and salty and mean [in Life With Mikey].

Personally, it's not my thing, and I don't love it. But I have a soft spot for it now. Who knows? Maybe the lavash market will explode after this movie [Sausage Party]. Lavash will become an everyday thing for people.

I tried one [lavash], just because, I was like, "I should know what it is," once I got the part. And it's all right. It's like if a matzo and a flour tortilla had sex and had a baby. It's a dry flour tortilla.

I have actively called them [Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg], and been like, "Will you put me in your next movie?"

I think we all feel lucky, or at least I feel lucky, to get to be in their [Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg] movies, and I'm not going to lie, I've nudged them.

We [me and Seth Rogen] have always wanted to work together. That was the whole point. We talked about it actively, and then we finally got the opportunity to do that, over and over again. It's kind of a dream come true.

I did a pilot for Judd Apatow when I was 20 years old, so 18 years ago. The same year that he did that pilot, he made another pilot called Freaks And Geeks.Judd felt bad for me because I was living in L.A. by myself. Not only did he put me in an episode of Freaks And Geeks, but he was like, "Hey, just come hang out. I'm on set, getting to know everybody." I started hanging with everybody, and they were all either my age or a little younger. Seth and I just got along really well - Jason Segel and I, too - and before you know it, it was a really strong, solid group of friends.

We essentially spent our college years together [with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg], so those were the kind of lasting friendships and the bond you form during those years, and those friendships last a really long time.

I enjoyed working with everyone on the cast [of the Ghost Team]. We knew we were making a pretty weird movie.

The freedom of knowing that you're doing something off-kilter is liberating.

It's strange, because Long Island is still New York, but the farther you go out on Long Island, the more creepy it gets.

[the Ghost Team] is an ensemble comedy. It's about people who are searching for meaning in their lives, and they end up doing this stupid thing after they're inspired by one another.

[The Ghost Team] is basically about people who have nothing to do, and so they do something really silly and stupid. It's about the nature of nothingness, how people deal with that, and how sometimes going down a rabbit hole of your beliefs can put you in some serious trouble. It can also free up a side of you that has been repressed. At the end of the film, they're all disappointed, but they're also jazzed that they got to know each other.

Amy Sedaris [in the Ghost Team] plays a Miss Cleo-esque character - Miss Cleo just died, so that's kind of timely - but she plays a Miss Cleo-esque TV psychic who's also kind of a bullshit artist. One of the most triumphant character turns in the movie is when she realizes that even though she's a bullshit artist, she does have something to offer. She helps save the day at the end of the movie.

[Amy Sedaris] is awesome to work with. She's an amazing person. She makes her own line of catnip toys, and she gave me a bunch for my cat. It meant the world to me. She also got me stuff for my daughter, but I was more enamored with what she gave me for my cat.

[Amy Sedaris] probably can't sit still, that type of thing. She's a force to be reckoned with.

I've been with that project [ Sausage Party] since its inception, since they wrote the script. It took them four years to get anyone to make the movie, because it was so filthy and there was this firm belief that there wouldn't be a market for an adult animated film, even though 10 or 15 years prior, South Park [Bigger, Longer, And Uncut] did really well.

It had been awhile since anyone had made a movie like that [ Sausage Party], and it took them a long time to get anyone to agree to do it, because they were unwavering on the tone of the movie being so ridiculously filthy. Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg], for as successful as they are, this was their passion project that they couldn't get off the ground.

Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg] finally convinced a company to finance the film [ Sausage Party] and Sony to distribute it.

I've always played Vash [in the Sausage Party]. I played him at the table read. We probably did five or six table reads over the course of the first five years of trying to get it made and finally getting it made. I saw a lot of actors come and go, but I stuck around, so I guess they were happy with what I was doing. No one could play a lavash wrap like I could.

There's nothing I could say that would make it so anyone is disappointed when they see it. In other words, I can trumpet it all I want, but it's just that good. It's a really layered film [Sausage Party], strangely enough.

Anyway, we had a blast, and the movie [the Ghost Team] turned out really, really funny.

We smoked a lot of weed together [with Seth Rogen and Jason Segel]. Lonely potheads will literally spend every day with each other until they get a girlfriend. That's essentially what happened.

It was just like, "What am I going to do today, in L.A., as an actor? Well, I guess I could go to Seth's [Rogen] apartment and smoke weed and hang out." And that's all we'd do. We'd smoke weed, hang out, play video games, and talk.

Seth [Rogen] had written a script with this guy, Evan [Goldberg], who none of us knew, and he was prepared to move to L.A. to try to get a script made. It had no title. I actually gave them the suggestion of naming it Superbad, which they did. I just thought it was a weird, interesting name for it. Evan came to L.A. to live with Seth, to be his roommate. It was kind of like, "Who's the new guy?" Within days, we all loved Evan. Long story short, both of them were groomsmen at my wedding.

Ghost Team approached me. They said, "Hey, it's mid-October, do you want to go shoot a movie on Long Island for three weeks about stupid people chasing ghosts?" I had never done anything like that before. It's kind of a mock-horror movie. What I didn't realize was the whole thing takes place at night, as a horror movie should, and so I didn't realize that we'd be working until 6 in the morning every night, or morning.

I had no idea I was hot. I was just like, "Oh, this is normal. You make two movies a year. This is easy." And of course, I have since learned that acting has its periods of unemployment, and ups and downs. The first five years were really good to me.

Addams Family blew my mind because it was the first time I was in L.A. and Hollywood, and I grew up a huge fan of movies.

Halfway through Numbers, I got really jaded, and I had these unrealistic expectations about what Numbers could be. I thought it should be Emmy-nominated. I was in my mid-20s, so I was kind of shortsighted and silly.

What happened was that none of that [Emmy nomination] really happened. Numbers flew under the radar, and so around the fourth season, I got really jaded and I wanted to quit.

After the writers' strike, I came back with my tail between my legs and apologized to everyone. I had been telling them I was going to leave, and I said, "I'm never going to leave," and that I'd stay with them as long as I can. And I really enjoyed the last two and a half seasons of Numbers more than before.

It was a frying-pan-to-the-face moment for me where I had to get humble and really cherish it. I was really sad when [Numbers] was over. I'll just say that. Really sad.

[10 Things I Hate About You] was the most fun I ever had making a movie. Everyone got along really, really well from day one. It was like summer camp.

I remember at the time, there were all these teen movies being made. It was this resurgence of John Hughes-esque teen comedies. I was sent a lot of them to audition for, and a lot of them at the time didn't really impress me. I remember I was sent one called East Grand Rapids High, which ended up becoming American Pie, and I didn't like it. Although I think I did audition for it.

I was sent this thing called 10 Things I Hate About You, which I thought was really sweet and female-centric and kind of cute and smart, with a really smart script. So I auditioned for it and got it, and I'm really glad I did, because the movie has a life of its own.

[10 Things I Hate About You] keeps popping up, and it's become a go-to film specifically for adolescent girls who are trying to find their voice, which is a really important thing, and the characters in the film, the two sisters played by Julia Stiles and Larisa Oleynik, they became archetypes for young teenage girls to look up to and emulate.

I don't know when we made [10 Things I Hate About You] that we ever thought it would last in popularity as long as it has, but I think that speaks to the strength of the bond of the cast when we were making it. I think you can tell that we adored each other and that we were real friends. To this day, Joe Gordon-Levitt is a good friend, and obviously Heath [Ledger] was a great guy.

Anytime I see any of those people [from 10 Things I Hate About You], it's always lovely.

[10 Things I Hate About You] is a smart and grounded film about a real, well-rounded girl. I think the only other teen film that came close to getting that right was Can't Hardly Wait.

[Lauren Ambrose's] character [in Can't Hardly Wait] feels real and unexaggerated and becomes sort of a heroine archetype. I think that was cool. It wasn't in every one of those comedies.

Obviously [Can't Hardly Wait] wasn't in American Pie, which was a movie about some teenage boys.

I hope I'm not sitting on a bench in a retirement home talking about what was: "Oh, I worked with this guy and that guy." I hope I'm still doing it for a really long time.

I came away from that set [ Hail, Caesar !] super inspired, and like I said, it ruined all future endeavors. I'll never have as good an experience as that.

That's basically what I did every weekend when I was a kid, just go and see two movies per weekend.

To go to L.A. and be on the Addams Family set? It was beautiful production design and an illustrious set. I'm focused on never losing that sense of privilege. I'm still like, "I'm super lucky."

Sausage Party is my first animated film, and there's a doll of me. There's a doll of all the characters. There's a doll of me, and I found it on Amazon. It just came out. I ordered it, and I just got it the other day. I was like, "I'm going to order 25 more of these." My daughter really loves it.

There's going to be a Halloween costume [of lavash from Sausage Party]. The whole thing is just so ridiculous. It's nice. It's silly, and it's surreal.

Basically we learned not ever to do a show like that [ Gigi Does It] again. That took me to a limit that I didn't know I had. First off, I show-ran the show and was the head writer. I had never done anything like that before. It was an immense responsibility.

We had very, very, very little money to make the show [ Gigi Does It]. We shot every episode in two days. It was non-WGA, non-DGA, so we couldn't write anything. The whole thing had to be improv.

It was so hard [to do Gigi Does It show]. On paper, that formula is almost impossible to create a winning show with, but then you add four and a half hours of prosthetic makeup every morning, three-inch nails, acrylics, the whole thing, and it nearly killed me.

The only lesson I really learned from [Gigi Does It] was that I shouldn't bite off more than I could chew. I've written a bunch of scripts and stuff - every actor has - and that was the first thing that got made.

I'm not sure I enjoyed doing [Gigi Does It]. I'm cool with just being an actor. If anything, I learned to be proud of being an actor.

In fact, one of the funny stories from that set [of Hail, Caesar!] is we were shooting my scene, and around lunchtime, Terrence Malick shows up on set. He was uninvited and no one knew who he was. But I knew, just looking at him. I was like, "Holy moley, that's Terrence Malick!" So I went and told the PA, "Hey, Terrence Malick is here, and I think he wants to see the Coen brothers. He wants to talk to Joel and Ethan." He just showed up unannounced, uninvited, and I guess they spent their lunch hour with him.

Hail, Caesar! is about, in my opinion - I love that movie - but I think it's about the idea that as glamorous as the business is, and for as much hoopla that surrounds moviemaking, ultimately it's just a job. If you focus on it, you can do it really well, and it takes a lot of hard work.

It looks glamorous and wonderful, but it's a job like any other. And I think that's their humility coming through, Joel [Coen] and Ethan's [Coen] humility. I think they really believe they are tradesmen, craftsmen, and they're just pursuing their trade, their craft, and doing the best they can with it.

There is only so much I can understand and not screw up.

My parents went crazy when they found out that I had gotten the part in 'Conversations With My Father!' I'd never given acting a thought. They were proud of me and very encouraging.

The rest - all the hoopla, the acclaim - doesn't really matter a lot to Joel and Ethan [Coen]. They just want to get the chance to continue to work. And that blew my mind. To be at that level and to have that humility, it was eye-opening and inspiring.

Me, I look in the mirror and all I see is this Jewish kid from Queens.

What's great is that because math is such a universal language, really, our fans come in all shapes and sizes, all ages and genders and races and backgrounds and cultures.

So many shows out there dumb-down the country. It's so admirable to be part of a show that wants people to think.

I feel like I'm just starting though. It's weird, because I like feeling like I'm just beginning. I hope I feel that when I'm 75 or 80.

It's really cool to know that you've put something together that isn't for a particular audience. It's so often that a TV show can really only speak to one sect of the population, and this really is something that appeals to a worldwide fan base. People who are into the pursuit of knowledge. Their reaction has meant the world to us.

I lost some weight, grew my hair and now every woman in America over 40 wants to date me. It's their daughters I want to convince.

The role of Charlie Eppes has changed me. I never imagined I would play a role like this. I lost some weight, grew my hair and now every woman in America over 40 wants to date me. It's their daughters I want to convince. The truth is all this talk makes me blush. Me, I look in the mirror and all I see is this Jewish kid from Queens.

Shooting this show is pretty intense. You lose your life. But I have no life, so it's perfect!

Charlie's not your conventional mathematician... we sexed him up a little bit.