Pete suggests

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Is the masseuse here?

Thursday, 27th September 2007

I've always been puzzled by the fascination people have with actors. Unless they write their own material - and how many do that? - they are simply people who read out other people's words, albeit with varied emphasis, or who are good at pretending to be other people. (I mean, what's the big deal with impressionists? People who can make their voice sound similar to someone else's. Er, wow.)

So this comment by Jerry Seinfeld - one of the two greatest writers of the past twenty years (the other is, of course, Larry David, whose writing also takes the form of comedy) - is bang on:

Seinfeld never harbored dreams of being a movie star. "If you read something somebody else wrote, no matter how well you read it, you didn't think of that," says Seinfeld. "I once had a bit I was going to try and do. I love when people talk about movies, they go, 'Oh, I loved when Brad Pitt said ...' No, no, no, no, no. Brad Pitt didn't say anything. They told Brad Pitt what to say. Brad Pitt said, 'Is the masseuse here?' That's what Brad Pitt said."