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In silent movies, they tended to put the camera down, and everybody walked in front of it and acted, and then they all walked off. Cutting was quite infrequent.

I'm literally driving in the middle of the night, and my phone rings, and my manager says, 'How would you like to be the host of the 'Daily Show?'' I get out the car, and I didn't have legs. You know in those movies where there's an explosion? But instead of the sound of the explosion, you hear the silence. That's literally what happened.

When I went into film, it never occurred to me that I wouldn't be able to do whatever I wanted to do. Maybe that was a good thing in the beginning. I had blinders on, and I charged forward.

I would've been a really big silent movie star.

Silence is the sure sign that you're on your way out in Hollywood.

I've gone far in the movie business, but no matter how far I go, every time I pick up the phone to call Tom Hanks or Robin Williams, I wonder if they'll call me back. And you know what? Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

When I drove up on the set one day, and they'd put up a sign that says 'The Bill Engvall Show,' I stood there for 20 minutes just staring at it. The director, James Widdoes, came up and said, 'What are you doing?' And I said, 'Look at this! There's my name on a stage door in Hollywood!'

They had the music being piped right out on the street. I'd be three or four blocks from there and I couldn't get there fast enough because I'd hear old Joe holler them words.

There's something scary about acting always, because basically you do all this work in a vacuum, and then suddenly there's a lot of money spent making a film, and there's suddenly a camera here, going, 'Right? What are you gonna do?'