Christopher Guest Net Worth

Christopher Guest's Quotes

• No. I don't talk about the family. This is kind of an on-going thing that gets, honestly, to be kind of tiresome, only because, you know, you meet people in Boston and they say, 'Boy, what's it like to wake up with Jamie Lee Curtis?' Well, you know what? We've been married for 12 years, and we have kids, and it's not like we're living some bizarre life here. We go home and we wear sweatpants and the baby takes a dump and we change the diaper. I don't mean to put you off here, but I just tend not to talk about it.
• Comedy is like music. You have to know the key and you have to find players with good chops.
• People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case. I rarely joke unless I'm in front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living.
• I spent more time in America, but I developed a very English sense of humour. I clicked into it deeply with Peter Sellers, who is still probably my favourite comedian. I loved The Goons and then I got into "Beyond the Fringe" and by accident I met Jonathan Miller and those guys. And, of course, they led straight to [Monty] Python.
• "Silliness framed in intelligence. Even when it's stupid, you know intelligent people are doing it and that makes it a different joke. Stupid comedy over here [in America] is just plain stupid. It's moronic and I don't find it funny at all." - when asked to define the tradition of English humor.

Interesting Facts about Christopher Guest

1. Guest became the 5th Baron Haden-Guest, of Saling in the County of Essex, when his father died in 1996.
2. Older brother of actor Nicholas Guest, who is heir presumptive to the family title. (As Christopher's children are adopted, they cannot inherit the barony).
3. Half-brother of journalist Anthony Haden-Guest, the bibulous English socialite and journalist satirized by Tom Wolfe in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).
4. Has two adopted children: daughter Annie Guest (born in December 1986) and son Thomas Guest (born in March 1996). Under the terms of the letters patent that created the Barony of Haden-Guest, they cannot inherit the title, but they can use the courtesy title of the Honourable before their first names.
5. His idol growing up was comedian Peter Sellers.
6. When a publicity photo of Guest and his co-stars from This Is Spinal Tap (1984) ran in Rolling Stone magazine, Jamie Lee Curtis saw the picture, fell in love and gave her phone number to Guest's agent. They dated and eventually married.
7. Brother-in-law of actress Kelly Curtis and Pamela Guest.
8. Son-in-law of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.
9. Guest shoots 10-minute scenes to let the improvisations unfold organically and ends up with about 60 hours of film, which is then edited down over a year and a half to 90 minutes.
10. Christopher's father, Peter Haden-Guest, was a British hereditary lord, an actor, and a dancer, who ended up a UN diplomat. Christopher's father's family was a mix of English, Dutch Jewish, German Jewish, and Scottish ancestry (including distant American-born ancestors). Christopher's mother, Jean Pauline (Hindes), was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants.
11. His character from This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Nigel Tuffnel, is partially a spoof of British rocker Jeff Beck
12. In 2005, announced his intention to stop making mockumentary films, because he doesn't find them funny anymore.
13. Lived in New York in the 1960s.
14. Was the muse for an Asian-American short comedic film entitled Pax Importi Modellus: The Rise of the Import Model (2004), which has gained international attention.
15. Christopher dropped the Haden from his surname when he started going to acting auditions in his 20s; he thought it sounded long-winded and distracting.
16. Attended the House of Lords regularly until the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 barred most hereditary peers from their seats.
17. Uncle of Elizabeth Guest and Julia Guest.
18. He has been a skilled guitarist since the 1960s and has displayed his talents in both Spinal Tap projects and A Mighty Wind (2003). He actually became acquainted with frequent co-stars and on-screen band mates Michael McKean and Harry Shearer at music venues before the three decided to make a career as comedic actors.
19. The five films that most influenced the director Christopher Guest: La Strada (1954) - Federico Fellini, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) - Stanley Kubrick, Broadway Danny Rose (1984) - Woody Allen, Cul-de-sac (1966) - Roman Polanski, Sherlock Jr. (1924) - Buster Keaton.
20. When he went to pick up his Tesla car with wife Jamie Lee Curtis, the technician instructed them to check out the air conditioning and audio controls, each of which maxed out at "11." Apparently Tesla CEO Elon Musk was a huge fan of the film This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and had the controls exclusively customized for the couple.