Top 35 Jay Roach Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview – how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how to design the style and tone.”

— Jay Roach

2. “Sometimes you fall in love with some things and then you fall out of love with it.”

— Jay Roach

3. “I’m pretty opinionated sometimes although my political views change all the time, too. So I’m not very zealous.”

— Jay Roach

4. “The success of the second ‘Austin Powers’ caught us by surprise a little bit. We had decided not to do even a second one, unless the audience wanted it and we could do something better.”

— Jay Roach

5. “I’ve recently enjoyed the Paul Thomas Anderson commentaries and the David Fincher commentaries.”

— Jay Roach

6. “I like to shoot a lot of choices. I like a lot of stuff – and so I push to go faster, to shrink the time between the takes so that the takes are what you’re spending all your time on.”

— Jay Roach

7. “The DVD does make it a little easier for myself to trim things that are otherwise very difficult to let loose of – knowing that they’ll make it on the DVD.”

— Jay Roach

8. “I love making people laugh. It’s an addiction and it’s probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there’s no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.”

— Jay Roach

9. “You can make an idea spread for good but you can also make an idea spread for bad and the power to make an idea spread, memetics, you know which now people talk about memes.”

— Jay Roach

10. “You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people’s interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain.”

— Jay Roach

11. “I’m a patriot, and I think democracy is the best system available. It’s very flawed, but it works better than anything else.”

— Jay Roach

12. “Once you’re a public figure, there’s a certain amount of privacy you do give up.”

— Jay Roach

13. “There’s people who actually have a whole science devoted to what makes a sticky meme and that idea of that question of why some ideas about how civilizations work catch on and others don’t.”

— Jay Roach

14. “I think we’ll all keep pushing each other, which is a great thing.”

— Jay Roach

15. “I wish I was sort of someone like Woody Allen who can stage everything in one long master shot, no coverage; just, you know, that’s it.”

— Jay Roach

16. “On the other track I got to talk with Jon Poll, my editor, and we go into more detail about the decisions we made in both the production and the post-production. So I hope the combination becomes something worth collecting.”

— Jay Roach

17. “I figure if it’s turns out well the film will have its own momentum and will carry into the video release. So it’s hard to really picture the DVD version when I’m in production.”

— Jay Roach

18. “I hope we’re all kind of influencing each other now to keep the quality up on those things. They seem to be getting better and better and better as there’s not only sort of a film geek audience, there’s also a general interest in the overall film consuming population.”

— Jay Roach

19. “But I couldn’t cut that whole septic tank scene out because the audience liked it so much. So I sort of fell right back into getting a cheap laugh, but I still loved it.”

— Jay Roach

20. “But I always reassure them that as far as my contractual rights can go, I will protect them and make sure that they have approval over every bit of it so that they know I won’t show something that’s embarrassing.”

— Jay Roach

21. “I’m not one of these directors, so far, that wants to have a whole separate director’s cut of these things. So far they’ve turned out to be kind of the length that they wanted to be.”

— Jay Roach

22. “It was an interesting process trying to get Bob to talk about the film because he’s such a shy person. He generally likes to talk when he really knows he has something to say.”

— Jay Roach

23. “Sometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else.”

— Jay Roach

24. “I think sequels should be earned and we won’t do it unless the script is better than the first one.”

— Jay Roach

25. “We had to do the same thing here. To top that sequel was quite a task. Mike had a couple of good conceptual humour and character ideas, which got me back into it.”

— Jay Roach

26. “I always had a respect and an admiration for people who got into politics. I certainly have always been interested in law and political science.”

— Jay Roach

27. “I’m developing some other things in other genres, including one dramatic piece. So, anything’s possible.”

— Jay Roach

28. “As long as we, again, kind of keep earning the sequels with material and I’m confident Mike can, I’m in. You know I always want to do those. But I also want to keep going in some of the direction as Meet the Parents has.”

— Jay Roach

29. “When I’m shooting, really the audience I’m thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.”

— Jay Roach

30. “Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that’s really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.”

— Jay Roach

31. “I do love DVD and I’ve always taken them seriously. You know, on the Austin things, we really put a ton of work into them because there’s so much design involved. And in this one, we thought a lot about it and what could go in.”

— Jay Roach

32. “I just always look for stuff that has a character-driven thing.”

— Jay Roach

33. “It seems like you can’t actually have really bad hair or be bald and run for President of the United States.”

— Jay Roach

34. “My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn’t even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy.”

— Jay Roach

35. “I don’t stay in the genre because I just like all stories that have a smart hook in them and I can find a comic way through if it’s a comedy or a suspenseful way through it if it’s a drama.”

— Jay Roach

36. “I really enjoy the consolation when I’m having to cut loose stuff I love, of saying ‘Well, at least it will make it onto DVD.’ There’s a couple of scenes which I liked very much, but couldn’t fit them into the film that are on there.”

— Jay Roach

37. “I learn so much from watching films like that with commentary and then when you get to hear another filmmaker talk about their films it’s a really great experience.”

— Jay Roach