Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I would love to work with Sir Anthony Hopkins. How and why that would happen in a comedy I'm not sure - why he would be dragged over to my side, or I'd be be dragged over to his side.
There's the exciting part about comedy - if you catch an act just before they go mainstream, that's the best. After they hit the mainstream, everything gets watered down a little bit.
I don't need therapy. I'm not going to see a therapist; comedy acts as my therapy. I put my problems out there. I talk about them. I talk about everything before anybody has a chance.
As a spectator, I have very eclectic taste, whether it's comedies or action or very small, intimate films. And I feel as a filmmaker I should be able to have that same eclectic taste.
I don't know what the next frontier is, but good comedy should put its toe into taboo waters. You have to transgress a little bit, and that area shifts with culture and with the year.
To the extent that there is anything properly identifiable as dignity in our society today, our present writers of comedy would be inclined to treat it as a proper object of ridicule.
In my career spanning over two decades, I've never felt that comedy is a department everybody can excel in because it's an art and only a few are blessed with the talent to entertain.
When I started stand-up - and this is in the '90s - there was definitely people hadn't watched decades of Comedy Central, where people are really much more educated on stand-up comedy.
I think, in comedy, timing is everything. You and I could tell the same joke, but if one of our timing is off, it won't be as funny. You've gotta know when to deliver your punch-lines.
In comedy terms, usually when the weather's bad, it goes much better. When it's sunny, people don't come to see comedy gigs because they're all really happy and don't need cheering up.
I actually feel that all drama has an element of comedy in it. A great deal of that I learned from writers like Chekhov who called his plays his comedy even when they touch on tragedy.
I enjoy doing physical comedy. I'd love, you know, them to throw me some shtick that way. I'd love to do that, if they need physical comedy, if they'd let me display my wares that way.
You're on stage and because stand-up comedy is one of the few meritocracies in the entertainment industry, there's some kind of - at least for me, there's some kind of idea of control.
All I mean is, I'm not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it's not very loud. That doesn't mean I don't like the movie.
Like Dilip Kumar, I've never run after money but only after good roles and that's why have always rebelled against those directors who wanted me to do buffoonery in the name of comedy.
My influences are a wide variety: from Dave Chappelle stand-up comedy specials on YouTube, to watching chick-flick comedy movies, to scrolling through stuff people say on the Internet.
The joys of making a comedy are that it feels very playful and silly, and the energy is totally different because they want you to feel free enough to come out with something a bit mad.
A lot of people think I'm difficult to work with. It's not like I really want to do that much stuff, so it doesn't really matter. I guess I'm somewhat difficult when it comes to comedy.
My mother was always the one with the dark, really filthy sense of humor. She was a vulgar woman. She used to tell me to do comedy before I even tried it. She was always up for any gag.
A whole generation was raised to learn about comedy from The Simpsons. To get to be in a booth with Homer and Marge and be in Springfield - it was unimaginable the emotions that I felt.
People who know me , they know I have a sense of humor, I'm a bit of a joker, a bit of a clown really, and I would love someone to exploit that side of me and send me a romantic comedy.
I am a big fan of the old Howard Hawks films from the 30s and 40s, I was a big Hepburn and Tracey fan for a while and Woody Allen films that are a very different kind of romantic comedy.
'Eagle vs Shark' was about keeping myself sane. I wanted to go back to my comedy roots with people I trusted and had worked with before and do something low-budget and more experimental.
People have very specific opinions of comedy. Slapstick was an art form in the '20s and the lowest form of show business in the '50s. Who's right, who's wrong? Who's an idiot, who's not?
I wasn't a comic book aficionado at all when I was a kid, but my cousin Weed was. Every time we went to visit him on the farm, he had two really fun things: comedy albums and comic books.
I just like comedy in general. My film work, which has been at times more dramatic, has been satisfying. But I never feel quite as good and as light and blissful as when I'm doing comedy.
I would say, generally speaking, though it is not always the case, comedy is probably the least gratifying for most composers because it is more specific about what the music needs to do.
I don't feel those limits when I'm on stage. For some reason, audiences let me get away with things. Remember, it's all comedy. Words. Thoughts. All thoughts are safe and worth exploring.
Comedy can reach many more people than, say, a serious lecture on the topic. And comedy might just be the access point to reach people who want to be entertained and also learn something.
But I really like hosting, I think it's a strength of mine. It allows me to improvise, and I love the spontaneity of that, and I think I'm funny behind the desk when interviewing someone.
I started to develop my comedy skills when I became resident singer at the Boggery Folk Club in Solihull. My career blossomed from there, and I became a big draw on the folk-club circuit.
It used to be that in comedy you had to play the clubs and work your way up, but now, before you do the clubs, you can put something up on the Internet. It's public access times a million.
You'd see Asian faces on TV, but it was so rare, especially in the comedy space - that for me was Ken Jeong doing stand-up... it's amazing that I can call him a friend now and a colleague.
It is hard to keep a straight face during comedy scenes. It's considered really bad form to laugh at someone else because you can ruin their best take. But sometimes it's very hard not to.
I think 'Mean Girls' was a kind of significant movie. It was a very successful comedy, and it was also before 'Bridesmaids,' and it really launched some of today's biggest women in comedy.
I've never disguised the fact that I wasn't happy in teaching. But the reason was that I wanted to do comedy. I would have been a very unhappy security guard or a very unhappy greengrocer.
When I was a student I was very, very ambitious, completely immersed in my comedy career. I never had that period of reckless hedonism that you should get out of your system in your youth.
The bottom line of comedy is to be funny, and the bottom line of drama is to be truthful. You can be truthful and funny, but if you're not truthful in a drama than the audience leaves you.
Watching comedy for the first time I felt absolutely on fire. I just couldn't believe there was this environment where people were being applauded for the weirdest things about themselves.
The nature of comedy is 'just do it.' But I think what's interesting about it is this joke has been around and why. And it's just saying what's wrong and how wrong can you be if you say it.
In the process of looking for comedy, you have to be deeply honest. And in doing that, you'll find out here's the other side. You'll be looking under the rock occasionally for the laughter.
We kind of lost a lot of that and puppeteers were sticking to the script and we thought everything needed to get a lot funnier, so we thought we would go to a good improv comedy instructor.
I can't do jokes. I've always come from left field and tried to subvert conventional comedy. I started as a rebellion against that - albeit a very soft and surreal rebellion. It's escapist.
Laughter is a way of really letting out all this pressure that you could face in your daily life in the suffering of your people, and comedy is almost like a medicine to your soul in a way.
Comedy doesn't have to be loud and obnoxious and beat you over the head. It can be this really small detail that, when it computes in your brain, you think, "That's great. That's masterful."
I can't claim to feel like I've been under some man's thumb in comedy. I've sort of always done my own thing for better or worse, and have been lucky enough to be able to perform ever since.
Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.
It is quite true - in fact, obvious on the surface - that the vast majority of dramatic shows and comedies, as well, advocate a liberal and humanistic and relativistic lifestyle and concept.
Anyone watching '30 Rock' always knew Tina Fey was playing a fictionalized version of herself, a workaholic comedy writer who also plays one on TV. She's the boss; Liz Lemon just works here.
The best kind of comedy to me is when you make people laugh at things they've never laughed at, and also take a light into the darkened corners of people's minds, exposing them to the light.