And in 'Frisco Kid' and in 'The Woman in Red' I had to ride badly. Then you have to really ride well in order to ride badly.

In fact, [Gene Wilder] had made a hysteric seem considerably less funny in his film debut as a terrified undertaker in "Bonnie And Clyde." And neurotics soon became his stock-in-trade, whether he was playing the weird title character in "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory..."

If the physical thing you're doing is funny, you don't have to act funny while doing it...Just be real and it will be funnier

[ Zero Mostel] would tell anyone anything, not to be impolite, but he'd show that he wasn't at all afraid of however much money that person [had] or whatever title they had in a company. It didn't scare him. Mel [Brooks] was very much the same way.

But the acting process - create a human being - was real, not only to the audience, but real to me.

When your mother gives you confidence about anything that you do, you carry that confidence with you.She made me believe that I could make someone laugh.

Gene Wilder characters wanted to be calm, but to the great delight of audiences, they rarely succeeded.