MuppetSpot
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I thought it was really awkward to hear what happened to Billy.
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The New New Quote Thread
- Thread starter D'Snowth
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antsamthompson9
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But it's good for the people who's opinions about Steve changed when the news of his firing came out to know that he's not evil like how those stories portrayed him.
Grumpo
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Yup. I thought gossip was all those hints to ominous untold "stories" people get when they are not asking these questions of people who actually know what they are talking about.
Grumpo
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Very valid point. All the more decent of them to take the time and effort to set the record straight. I always respected these guys, this is one more reason to do so.
antsamthompson9
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Matt Vogel: We should talk about probably the most famous character that you play, and that is of course...
Ryan Dillon: Don Music!
Matt: I was gonna say the Sensitive Nose Dwarf.
Ryan: OMG, Muppet Wiki!
Matt: That's right. Of course it's Elmo. That was 2013. What went through your mind when there was a call that said "Hey, we want you to come in and audition for Elmo"?
Ryan: I didn't think I was gonna do it. That's what I remember feeling. I think maybe the call came from you, but I remember thinking "IDK, I just can't do that". Elmo was never a character that I felt comfortable, I had done the puppet a little bit, if Kevin was directing, he'd throw the puppet to me, in the same way you'd been doing stuff like that as well. So I knew how to move the puppet enough, but Kevin's manipulation style is so specific and crisp and the character was so unique to him. It was never something I considered. So I fought with myself internally about even going in and then I went in and it's kinda a blur. I just remember it being you, me and Joey in a room with Elmo and Murray riffing. It was just a weird time personally, it was hard to know what was gonna happen. And I must have done a callback. And it just kinda happened from there. It's funny what life gives you and what you choose to do with it, because I never could've anticipated that character or that job.
Matt: No, how could you? None of us do, even when you're a kid and you see Jim and Frank and Dave and Jerry and Richard, you're thinking that they do that, that's their job. How do I fit into that? I can't do that. I would never assume that I could've taken over Big Bird or Kermit.
Ryan: Like I always thought the way it works is they develop new characters and those performers play those characters and it comes from them. You just think "I will add my characters to this group." And what has happened because of the nature of the medium, you need to have a small staple of characters, and what ends up happening is now the job has become that we take on legacy characters.
Matt: There are differences in creating a role from nothing and taking over for someone. And how do you make that still that character, how do you make Elmo still Elmo, but not make it be just an imitation? Because it can't be just an imitation, it has to be alive. Taking over a role and making that thing yours while not stepping who the character is is a little tricky.
Ryan: It's hard. I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about this, cause you had to do it a lot with lots of different characters. For me, I started to give myself a bit of a break. For the first year or two, it was very much an impression and it was like "Okay, well he goes up on the end of the thing." It was very clinical.
Matt: But that was your way in.
Ryan: It had to be. And just for continuity sake, it had to fit in with the rest of those shows. And for me it was like "Get it out of the way, do your 10000 hours of the mimicking to get that part outta the way." And it does happen, you get outside opinions from people, everyone's got opinions about these characters and rightfully so.
Matt: And we're all trying to help, cause I remember early on we were like "I don't know if Elmo does this." And you were very gracious and like "OK, thanks."
Ryan: It was important, because everyone was trying to hit the same exact target. What was frustrating was I didn't feel that I was there yet, and I knew what needed to happen, but I didn't have the tools. I love her so much, so I don't think she's gonna mind me telling this story, Carol-Lynn Parente early on came up to me and she goes "Just remember that he's 3-and-a-half." Because my Elmo's like a 47-year-old.
Matt: But Kevin would do that too, he would go on the Tonight Show, and he would kinda age him up a little bit to make it funnier for adult audiences.
Ryan: I have a hard time doing kid characters, cause they always end up being smarter than they're supposed to be. I guess that's part of that thing, just accepting it and yes, it's different now. But as you said, it kinda has to be different, or not different, but it's very hard to keep a character going and do a number of things: Make the audience believe that character's real, please the people who love these characters, and make it your own. I think there's value in making it your own. All of us have kinda taken the root of a character and said "How does that apply to my life?" In the sense that tons of people have played Ebeneezer Scrooge in a Christmas Carol. It's everybody's interpretation of a character.
Matt: It's just so much harder because, it is that actual puppet, it's that actual physical creation that people grew up with and learned the alphabet or learned kindness with and you're trying to now take that and be that, but also you have something to contribute, if you didn't let who you were or are creep a little bit into that character, it's just gonna be stale and it's not gonna be fun to watch or perform.
Ryan: And you just have to hope that the audience is gonna be cool with it. It means a lot to people, these characters are so personal, they're like family members to some people. So I just had to trust myself enough to say "I'm gonna make these choices." Actually it was very helpful to get away. The second year that I'd been doing Elmo, I went to England to do a spinoff called the Furchester Hotel, which was really challenging. Looking back, I should've been enjoying it a little more, but it was a little scary. It was freeing that I didn't feel the pressure of people watching me who've worked on the show for X number of years, but I was like in the woods. I didn't have a barometer of any "Is this right, am I doing this right?" It was a double-edged sorta thing. But it allowed me to take some of those liberties a little bit.
Matt: And you also had David Rudman there, who would come in every month or so.
Ryan: David had the best job on that show. I was so jealous of him, cause he'd come in and Cookie Monster would enter the scene and eat a cookie and he'd be done for the day. He'd be in one scene, I'm in every shot of that show. He'd come in and do his little thing and the rest of the day he could work on stuff in his room, I'm like "How are you getting away with it? This is amazing." He was really kind and very patient, people were very patient with me, cause there were a lotta parts of it that were scary. Because I was like "This is your thing now, this is gonna be on your obituary." Which is super dark, but this will be the thing that people know you for, whether you're ready for it or not, so you have to go full force into it, and then really make it something that you feel happy doing and comfortable doing. And a lot of that was allowing myself to come out, and a lot of it was doing those appearances, Jimmy Fallon and all those shows where you could improvise. You guys were all so generous and kind and patient, and I can only imagine how weird that whole experience was. I remember you and Joey and everyone just being really kind and helpful. So it was just a weird way to be thrust into that situation, I didn't expect it and I didn't anticipate it, but it's been amazing.
Matt: You were working with Louise Gold, and she certainly had some experience over the years, how cool.
Ryan: Louise is incredible, it was so scary, I was moving to England for the summer, I'd never been there, I didn't know what I was doing. And the first day of rehearsal, she was at the front door, with her arms wide open waiting to hug me. She never met me, she didn't know me, but again, I don't think I could've gotten comfortable if people like you guys and Louise and David and if there wasn't an element of like "You're gonna be fine, you're getting there." But it's been an amazing experience. Something else too, I didn't really have time to super panic about it, there wasn't a lot of time between getting the job and starting the job.
Matt: That's true, you were kinda being thrown into the pond.
Ryan: But it's been an amazing experience, you do things you never would have thought. I met Barack Obama, and I've got that picture of all of us with Michelle Obama. There's experiences you get to have that you never could have imagined.
Matt: And you performed all over the world with Elmo, you've been to Australia.
Ryan: I've been to the Philippines. I've been to Manila.
Matt: It takes you places you never think that you'd get to go.
Ryan: It's incredible. It's been the most fun thing in the world. It's the dream job, cause you know, you're getting to be the person who does these characters for people and you get to be the person who keeps it going, you can only hope that people are happy with it, but you just go out and perform and have fun and it's amazing.
Ryan Dillon: Don Music!
Matt: I was gonna say the Sensitive Nose Dwarf.
Ryan: OMG, Muppet Wiki!
Matt: That's right. Of course it's Elmo. That was 2013. What went through your mind when there was a call that said "Hey, we want you to come in and audition for Elmo"?
Ryan: I didn't think I was gonna do it. That's what I remember feeling. I think maybe the call came from you, but I remember thinking "IDK, I just can't do that". Elmo was never a character that I felt comfortable, I had done the puppet a little bit, if Kevin was directing, he'd throw the puppet to me, in the same way you'd been doing stuff like that as well. So I knew how to move the puppet enough, but Kevin's manipulation style is so specific and crisp and the character was so unique to him. It was never something I considered. So I fought with myself internally about even going in and then I went in and it's kinda a blur. I just remember it being you, me and Joey in a room with Elmo and Murray riffing. It was just a weird time personally, it was hard to know what was gonna happen. And I must have done a callback. And it just kinda happened from there. It's funny what life gives you and what you choose to do with it, because I never could've anticipated that character or that job.
Matt: No, how could you? None of us do, even when you're a kid and you see Jim and Frank and Dave and Jerry and Richard, you're thinking that they do that, that's their job. How do I fit into that? I can't do that. I would never assume that I could've taken over Big Bird or Kermit.
Ryan: Like I always thought the way it works is they develop new characters and those performers play those characters and it comes from them. You just think "I will add my characters to this group." And what has happened because of the nature of the medium, you need to have a small staple of characters, and what ends up happening is now the job has become that we take on legacy characters.
Matt: There are differences in creating a role from nothing and taking over for someone. And how do you make that still that character, how do you make Elmo still Elmo, but not make it be just an imitation? Because it can't be just an imitation, it has to be alive. Taking over a role and making that thing yours while not stepping who the character is is a little tricky.
Ryan: It's hard. I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about this, cause you had to do it a lot with lots of different characters. For me, I started to give myself a bit of a break. For the first year or two, it was very much an impression and it was like "Okay, well he goes up on the end of the thing." It was very clinical.
Matt: But that was your way in.
Ryan: It had to be. And just for continuity sake, it had to fit in with the rest of those shows. And for me it was like "Get it out of the way, do your 10000 hours of the mimicking to get that part outta the way." And it does happen, you get outside opinions from people, everyone's got opinions about these characters and rightfully so.
Matt: And we're all trying to help, cause I remember early on we were like "I don't know if Elmo does this." And you were very gracious and like "OK, thanks."
Ryan: It was important, because everyone was trying to hit the same exact target. What was frustrating was I didn't feel that I was there yet, and I knew what needed to happen, but I didn't have the tools. I love her so much, so I don't think she's gonna mind me telling this story, Carol-Lynn Parente early on came up to me and she goes "Just remember that he's 3-and-a-half." Because my Elmo's like a 47-year-old.
Matt: But Kevin would do that too, he would go on the Tonight Show, and he would kinda age him up a little bit to make it funnier for adult audiences.
Ryan: I have a hard time doing kid characters, cause they always end up being smarter than they're supposed to be. I guess that's part of that thing, just accepting it and yes, it's different now. But as you said, it kinda has to be different, or not different, but it's very hard to keep a character going and do a number of things: Make the audience believe that character's real, please the people who love these characters, and make it your own. I think there's value in making it your own. All of us have kinda taken the root of a character and said "How does that apply to my life?" In the sense that tons of people have played Ebeneezer Scrooge in a Christmas Carol. It's everybody's interpretation of a character.
Matt: It's just so much harder because, it is that actual puppet, it's that actual physical creation that people grew up with and learned the alphabet or learned kindness with and you're trying to now take that and be that, but also you have something to contribute, if you didn't let who you were or are creep a little bit into that character, it's just gonna be stale and it's not gonna be fun to watch or perform.
Ryan: And you just have to hope that the audience is gonna be cool with it. It means a lot to people, these characters are so personal, they're like family members to some people. So I just had to trust myself enough to say "I'm gonna make these choices." Actually it was very helpful to get away. The second year that I'd been doing Elmo, I went to England to do a spinoff called the Furchester Hotel, which was really challenging. Looking back, I should've been enjoying it a little more, but it was a little scary. It was freeing that I didn't feel the pressure of people watching me who've worked on the show for X number of years, but I was like in the woods. I didn't have a barometer of any "Is this right, am I doing this right?" It was a double-edged sorta thing. But it allowed me to take some of those liberties a little bit.
Matt: And you also had David Rudman there, who would come in every month or so.
Ryan: David had the best job on that show. I was so jealous of him, cause he'd come in and Cookie Monster would enter the scene and eat a cookie and he'd be done for the day. He'd be in one scene, I'm in every shot of that show. He'd come in and do his little thing and the rest of the day he could work on stuff in his room, I'm like "How are you getting away with it? This is amazing." He was really kind and very patient, people were very patient with me, cause there were a lotta parts of it that were scary. Because I was like "This is your thing now, this is gonna be on your obituary." Which is super dark, but this will be the thing that people know you for, whether you're ready for it or not, so you have to go full force into it, and then really make it something that you feel happy doing and comfortable doing. And a lot of that was allowing myself to come out, and a lot of it was doing those appearances, Jimmy Fallon and all those shows where you could improvise. You guys were all so generous and kind and patient, and I can only imagine how weird that whole experience was. I remember you and Joey and everyone just being really kind and helpful. So it was just a weird way to be thrust into that situation, I didn't expect it and I didn't anticipate it, but it's been amazing.
Matt: You were working with Louise Gold, and she certainly had some experience over the years, how cool.
Ryan: Louise is incredible, it was so scary, I was moving to England for the summer, I'd never been there, I didn't know what I was doing. And the first day of rehearsal, she was at the front door, with her arms wide open waiting to hug me. She never met me, she didn't know me, but again, I don't think I could've gotten comfortable if people like you guys and Louise and David and if there wasn't an element of like "You're gonna be fine, you're getting there." But it's been an amazing experience. Something else too, I didn't really have time to super panic about it, there wasn't a lot of time between getting the job and starting the job.
Matt: That's true, you were kinda being thrown into the pond.
Ryan: But it's been an amazing experience, you do things you never would have thought. I met Barack Obama, and I've got that picture of all of us with Michelle Obama. There's experiences you get to have that you never could have imagined.
Matt: And you performed all over the world with Elmo, you've been to Australia.
Ryan: I've been to the Philippines. I've been to Manila.
Matt: It takes you places you never think that you'd get to go.
Ryan: It's incredible. It's been the most fun thing in the world. It's the dream job, cause you know, you're getting to be the person who does these characters for people and you get to be the person who keeps it going, you can only hope that people are happy with it, but you just go out and perform and have fun and it's amazing.
LittleJerry92
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“ ‘Moo!’ said the cow!” - Ringo Starr
GHOST: Boo!
GARFIELD: Pardon?
GHOST: Boo. I'm a ghost.
GARFIELD: You don't say.
GHOST: Oh, yes. I'm quite frightening.
GARFIELD: No, you're not.
GHOST: I'm not?
GARFIELD: Not even close.
GHOST: Are you sure?
GARFIELD: I find you very pleasant.
GHOST: I wish I were dead.
GARFIELD: I'm not sure how to break this to you, pal. . . .
GARFIELD: Pardon?
GHOST: Boo. I'm a ghost.
GARFIELD: You don't say.
GHOST: Oh, yes. I'm quite frightening.
GARFIELD: No, you're not.
GHOST: I'm not?
GARFIELD: Not even close.
GHOST: Are you sure?
GARFIELD: I find you very pleasant.
GHOST: I wish I were dead.
GARFIELD: I'm not sure how to break this to you, pal. . . .
