Quotes from Bill Hader

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 I met Judd Apatow, he told me I should start writing screenplays. They'd be really bad at first, but the more I did it, the better I'd get.

Voices are a good way to get in and out of things. James Carville constantly calls my wife to say I'll be home late. Mandy Patinkin and Al Pacino call to get me restaurant reservations.

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

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

Paul Rudd is a huge 'Hot Rod' fan.

I learned a lot just watching people perform.

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.

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.

Sometimes you're working with somebody, and you can tell they're just waiting to say their line.

When you saw Jon Lovitz or Dana Carvey or Phil Hartman doing something, they were acting. It was real acting. Like, they were acting like that person. They weren't like - it wasn't even like they were really trying to go for a laugh, especially in Phil Hartman's case.

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.'

People ask me, 'Did you always want to be on SNL?' No, actually, it never crossed my mind. It didn't even seem possible. It would've been like saying, 'Hey, do you wanna go to the moon?'

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

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

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.

My first real job, I sold Christmas trees when I was twelve for extra money. I did that until I was fifteen. Then I bagged groceries, and I worked at the first Borders ever in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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

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.

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

You know what, I remember being on my T-ball team and telling people about 'Platoon.'

When you're performing, you're playing to the back row. With acting, you have to be more nuanced.

If a movie doesn't even have financing yet, they'll do a table read for it at a casting director's office with actors, for the producer and the writer, just to hear if the movie is working.