Rob Corddry quotes: cash-y content from actor and comedian Rob Corddry.
“You’re encouraged to pitch your own story. That way, you’ll have more control over what you do.”
“If you have a secret, people will sit a little bit closer.”
“I’m a complete egomaniac. It makes me feel terrible to say being interviewed is hard. It’s taxing in a way. Just ’cause it’s a lot of mental energy just to keep focused. I actually think it’s harder for journalists.”
“Anything that you can do a tiny bit of research about, I’ll turn it into an obsession.”
“For most of my life, I was a worrier and an over-thinker. I had pretty bad social anxiety.”
“I landed on this thing called GTD (Getting Things Done). It’s David Allen’s thing about how to write a better to-do list. And it’s basically getting everything out of your head onto some sort of device or piece of paper. The idea is that your mind is calm and still for ideas and creativity to happen. ‘Cause if you’re like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got to do X,’ and you don’t write it down, it’s in your head… you’re a little afraid that you might forget it. And that causes a certain amount of stress whether you know it or not.”
“I like GTD because if I keep up with it and constantly tweak it to fit my particular career it truly creates a ‘mind like water‘ environment. I really do find that I have more ideas than before, and it’s taught me that a truly prolific person is one that has many different ideas brewing at many different stages at all times. The randomness of my job is one of the most interesting things about it but that randomness feels less chaotic if I have all of that disparate clutter out of my head and categorized. And I think most people in entertainment would like you ‘regs’ to feel like their days are hectic. Mostly it’s boring.”
“I’ve always wanted to be an actor. I didn’t get into this game to be the best improviser in the world. I didn’t choose improv as a stepping stone, it just happened to become one.”
“I didn’t hang any pictures in my office for a year because I thought that I would be jinxing myself and have to take them down the next day.”
“Every time I go through something like a cancellation, I learn about the reality of the business. The younger you are, the more hope you have that someone is going to discover you at the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal… and turn you into a star, girl! I’ve gotten comfortable with failure and the whole rejection aspect of the job.”
“I always believed that if I did what I loved, the money would come, and luckily it turned out to be true. I had no Plan B. I was only going to be an actor or a writer – that was it for me. You kind of have to put blinders on, in terms of achieving success.”
“I always fancied myself more of an actor than a comedian before I realized that only assholes make that kind of distinction.”
“It started off for me as just wanting to be an actor and sort of resenting in a weird way being expected to write as well as be a comedian and an improviser. And then you think about it for a minute, and I smartened up and realized that the only way to sustain a career is to generate your own material. Or to be in control of your career as best you can. And in allowing yourself to do that, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. And then you’re like, ‘Oh, producing is a thing.'”
“Once I found out how much an Off-Off-Broadway actor makes, I was whoring myself out the next day.”
“[On the HBO series Ballers] It feels like an award in itself, and before you just brush that off as being as cheesy as it sounds, after having been in the business for 20 years, this is the closest I’ve gotten to my childhood version of ‘making it.’ That’s as close as I can get to saying everyone on the show will get an Emmy. It’s a great role with a great cast with a great team that pays me well and is picked up for 10 episodes. That right there, that just doesn’t happen. I feel very lucky.”
“I just want to do cool stuff.”
“Well, I’m a Hollywood actor so I can afford it. I have money all over the place.”
“I really think of it – acting and writing and producing, whatever – as shipping. You gotta ship. Put the widget together in the easiest, quickest way possible and ship the product.”
“I have to stay true to myself.”
“I don’t feel rivalry. I’m the least competitive person you’ll meet ever, to a fault.”
“If anything, there’s more at stake when you’re older, and more responsibility and more legitimate things to worry about.”
“I have a wife and two daughters; people who depend on me. Everything is more important than it was when I was 20. But now I’m like, ‘Eh, I made it this far.'”
“My version of ‘happiness‘ is realizing that it’s okay to feel everything. That sort of comfort is happiness, I guess. But it’s also about – it sounds kind of trite – gratitude. I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I’m in a movie. I get to go to work every day and watch Will Ferrell!’ It all hit me right there like, ‘Holy sh*t!’ An I-made-it moment. I don’t pray necessarily, but I just started saying, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ and it’s now an unconscious practice when something like that happens. I’ll say it until it just becomes a word that I don’t believe anymore. I’ve lost the feeling, and I’ll go on with my day feeling good.”
“Just be kind to each other. It’s that easy – not just marriage, but everything in life. Just be kind.”
