Updated September 12, 2023 2.5K votes 583 voters 57.1K views
Over 500 Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of What Co-Workers Have Said About Martin Short, The Nicest Guy In Hollywood
Voting Rules
Vote up the quotes about Martin Short that make you agree, 'What a great guy!'
Descriptions of Hollywood stars can run the gamut. Many of the most beloved Hollywood actors and actresses demonstrate why over and over again. They take part in philanthropic endeavors, speak out about passion projects, and generally prove themselves to be just plain nice.
To hear his friends, co-stars, and other colleagues tell it, Martin Short is just a good person - and that's without any qualifications or caveats. Short's life and career are characterized by his Canadian roots as well as his talent and seemingly endless enthusiasm for performing.
Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, and Martin Short gather together for "colonoscopy parties" regularly, but their socializing doesn't stop there. Hanks, who once ate a piece of food Jiminy Glick spit out, expressed his excitement when he knows he'll get to see Short:
I’m a Marty addict... When I see on my calendar "Dinner with Marty Thursday," I’m like, "Oh, hurry up, Thursday. Please hurry!"
Hanks remembered what it was like to visit Short's home for one of their annual Christmas parties, saying it was abuzz with happiness and "participation" by all involved.
Hanks's wife, Rita Wilson, echoed the positivity, describing Short as "the best person."
Martin Short's friend, co-star, collaborator, and creative partner Steve Martin has provided numerous insights into and thoughts about the actor over the years. While they've been in five movies together throughout their careers, that's a relatively small portion of the amount of time they've been onstage and on-screen together.
In 2013, Martin explained why Short has been so successful and why he's so well-liked in the entertainment industry:
What’s interesting is that Marty is not driven to be funny. It’s not competitive or needy or desperate.
On other occasions, Martin has described his friendship with Short as based on an understanding: "We have very few similar boundaries with each other, which are none."
As Short and Martin have done more and more projects together, they often take part in joint interviews. In 2019, as they discussed their upcoming Netflix project and live show, both actors said Short was the more "sensitive" of the two, but also the "confident" one.
In yet another interview, one in which Short and Martin were asked about each other's best qualities, Martin said of Short:
[H]e’s kind of the perfect person. He’s smart, he’s funny. He has many friends. He’s the most popular guy at your dinner party. If he’s coming to a dinner party, it’s a better dinner party. If Marty can’t come, you cancel the party.
In Judd Apatow's 2016 book Sick in the Head: Conversations about Comedy, he recounts being in the room with Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Bill Hader, and Martin Short. The encounter took place in 2013 and, after the surreal evening, Apatow marveled at the "level of intelligence and humor."
Apatow thought to himself, "Martin Short was the funniest person in that room; ergo, Martin Short is the funniest person in every room."
This same sentiment comes through in I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not, published in 2007. Chase sat down with author Rena Fruchter for the book and included an interesting insight into Chase's own view of his fame. When in a room, Chase often doubted his own ability to be funny, looking for "the funniest guy in the room" instead.
Joe Dante, director of the 1987 movie Innerspace, talked about making the film when it was released on DVD in 2015. During the interview, he was asked about working with all the actors - Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, and Martin Short. When it came to the latter, Dante was asked if Short improvised a lot on the set. He replied:
All I can tell [you] is that take 10 was so different from take one, you would wonder if it was the same movie. For me, it was a process of discovery. Marty was building his character and sometimes he would try different things. Sometimes an idea in the first attempt would blossom into something else in the sixth or seventh take.
Dante then qualified his response:
Sometimes that can be tough on the other actors, especially if they gave their all on the first couple of takes and they have to keep going through the motions. But in this case, it was such a copacetic movie and everyone was having such a good time that it became "The Marty Short Show."
In 2013, fellow Canadian and former SCTV alum Catherine O'Hara described what it was like to work with Martin Short:
[He] equally embraces his masculine, feminine, and alien sides... In read-throughs, you could rarely get what Marty was going for... we learned to trust that it would come out in performance.
After Short's wife, Nancy Dolman, passed in 2010, he did not attend the Emmy Awards that year. He was nominated for a supporting actor award for his role on Damages, and even though he didn't win the award, O'Hara had nothing but praise for Short, especially as a human being:
Marty is an amazing actor, and that’s the least of his talents. He’s such a beautiful, beautiful person. I love him so much, and I love his family, and I’m sorry he can’t be here tonight. I think you all know how funny he is. He’s just such a wise old soul, and in any situation in life, he’s the model of how to be. Even now.
In addition to appearances on screen together, Short and O'Hara both voiced characters in the 2012 movie Frankenweenie.
When asked about their 2021 series Only Murders in the Building, Selena Gomez marveled at her co-stars, Martin Short and Steve Martin, calling them both "brilliant." Her comments about the duo highlighted the affection between her and Short: "Marty calls me Bubbala, like: 'How's my little Bubbala?'"
Gomez continued in her praise of both Short and Martin: "They’re so quick and witty and established... I want to be where they are. I love when people challenge me, and they would tell me things I would never know. I think you’re going to see on screen how much we did love each other."
