I went to school with Steven Wright who was the shyest guy I knew, and one day someone suddenly told me that he was in a club doing standup comedy. I went down to his club and he was great. Another friend of mine, who was pretty much a thief by trade, was hosting the show. So I thought if these guys can do it then so can I.
Denis LearyCertain movies like 'Wag The Dog,' we used improv on every scene that we did. Pretty much, we would shoot from the script and then some stuff that we came up with in rehearsal, and then we'd have at least one or two takes where we completely went off the script and just flew by the seat of our pants.
Denis LearyIn my experience in series TV if you have a good crew and a great cast it's going to be a great group - similar to the theater where it's a bunch of people who are really talented and go to work each day and challenge each other and if you are lucky enough to get a hit then it's five or six or seven years of this kind of work.
Denis Leary