{"id":45809,"date":"2025-08-05T15:19:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T15:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/45809\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T15:19:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T15:19:10","slug":"the-easiest-way-to-ruin-good-comedy-according-to-leslie-nielsen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/45809\/","title":{"rendered":"The easiest way to ruin good comedy, according to Leslie Nielsen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Leslie<\/p>\n

(Credit: Jerry Angelica)<\/p>\n

Tue 5 August 2025 9:00, UK <\/p>\n

From his role as President Harris in the Scary Movie series and the inept Lt Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun<\/a>, who, despite always trying to do the right thing, always makes a mess of anything, to his infamous line, \u201cI am serious\u2026 and don\u2019t call me Shirley\u201d as Dr Rumack in the 1980 film Airplane!, Leslie Nielsen truly was the king of goofy comedy.<\/p>\n

The Canadian actor\u2019s long career, which spanned 60 years, more than 100 films, and 150 television programmes, portraying more than 220 characters, earned him the honourable accolade of being, in the words of film critic Roger Elbert, \u201cThe Olivier of spoofs\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite this reputation, Nielsen\u2019s comedic career didn\u2019t take off until the 1980s, when Airplane! was released in cinemas. Ironically, he never intended to adopt this persona but rather fell into it when he arrived in Hollywood from Canada in the 1950s as an awkward and uptight young aspiring actor. <\/p>\n

Nielsen told American film critic Leonard Maltin that he was so panicked at MGM discovering \u201cat any moment that I had no talent and were not only going to throw me out of the studio but have me packed and shipped back to Canada! So I was very tight and tense, and it affected my way of speaking.\u201d <\/p>\n

The actor called it his \u201cDonald Duck period\u201d, which eventually earned him his reputation as the comedy actor who never cracked a smile. In fact, Nielsen took his acting incredibly seriously, having studied with the renowned Sanford Meisner at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York.<\/p>\n

This awkward sincerity resulted in some of the funniest movies of all time, with his characters\u2019 deadpan earnestness becoming a defining feature of his career. Hence, it\u2019s no surprise that when asked how to make a great comedy, Nielsen credited a \u201cserious\u201d disposition as the most important factor in a good spoof.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the secret to the success of films like The Naked Gun and Airplane!<\/a>, both by American parody film director David Zucker, Nielsen told Maltin, \u201cYou must be serious about doing your spoof, and you must always go for credibility. If the audience for one second starts to feel that you are in on the joke, that\u2019s the end of it and it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n

He often carried this into his interviews with the press. In a 1994 interview on Kenny Live about his autobiography, The Naked Truth, which includes tales of a marriage to actor Michelle Pfeiffer and a telephone affair he had with Elizabeth Taylor, the actor told presenter Pat Kenny, \u201cEverything in that autobiography is true except for the facts\u201d. <\/p>\n

He later joked with the press, \u201cI have no goals or ambition\u201d, seemingly playing off any hints of seriousness you could ever associate with him.<\/p>\n

A follow-up to The Naked Gun<\/a>, starring Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson, is coming to cinemas this August, with Neeson playing the role of Frank Drebin\u2019s son\u2014an equally bumbling and inept man, who must solve a murder case to prevent the police department from shutting down. Despite big shoes to fill, the iconic actor has been praised for doing justice to one of Nielsen\u2019s most iconic roles.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: Jerry Angelica) Tue 5 August 2025 9:00, UK From his role as President Harris in the Scary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,20227,7521,2839,23950,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-45809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-leslie-nielsen","tag-liam-neeson","tag-movies","tag-naked-gun","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}