Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Mike Myers as Austin Powers makes me laugh - that was genius - and Daffy Duck makes me laugh, but I like odd behavior. I don't like hip dialogue and one-liners and all that sort of cool, sophomoric comedy. It's just not for me.
My approach to comedy is that whenever it comes to me, I write it. With 'The Daily Show,' you have to write stuff every day, and that's a new experience for me, to not only write on someone else's schedule but a daily schedule.
I think that if you're serving yourself before you're serving a story then that's where you end up being not funny. It's not about being funny, it's about telling a story and then the comedy comes out of the situation, I think.
I am completely open to doing a romantic comedy, but I will never do something just for the sake of doing a specific genre or because it's the time or place to do a different type of movie. I think that would be a huge mistake.
The American audience has really opened up to women being A.) funny and B.) kinda crude. 'Bridesmaids' is R-rated, and I think it was a major coup for women to have an R-rated comedy that did really well. Same as 'Bad Teacher.'
Donald Trump had a university. Well, the state attorney general decided that the Donald Trump University was an unlicensed sham. And I thought, you know you're at a bad university when your commencement speaker is Whitey Bulger.
Imitation is the best form of flattery; people generally understand that my comedy is not intended to hurt anybody. Occasionally, an actor might take exception, but they should just understand that it is all done in good humour.
My background is all comedy. I've been doing improv since I was 17. It's funny, because when I meet people, I'm known as this guy who will punch you in the face or throw you out a window, when I also have a background in comedy.
I had a Jackson 5 wig that I would wear around, and I would do, like, the dances from the Jackson 5, and, you know, my mother thought that was hysterical. So of course, that seed got planted very early, the physicality of comedy.
I've been lucky because Hollywood can be harsh and try to pigeonhole you. I've done TV, films, and comedy, done it all... I think I'm spread out evenly among the film community. I've been lucky and keep working with great actors.
People need to be peppered or even outraged occasionally. Our national comedy and drama is packed with earthy familiarity and honest vulgarity. Clean vulgarity can be very shocking and that, in my view, gives greater involvement.
I have a tendency toward the pleasures of the flesh. It's a battle for me, as far as weight and things like that. But I'm curbing them because I want to continue to do comedy, and the two don't mix. So I try to fight those demons.
I look up to Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. I'm a huge fan of their work. I also like actors who really transform themselves, like Joaquin Phoenix. And I loved Robin Williams growing up. He does comedy and drama so brilliantly.
I think I could have a funnier, more economic sets. But that's the comedy I do. And I understand if people aren't interested in it and would rather listen to someone else. But I'll never understand the anger people have toward me.
A good cartoon is always good on two or three levels: surface physical comedy, some intellectual stuff - like Warner Brothers cartoons' pop-culture jokes, gas-rationing jokes during the war - and then the overall character appeal.
One of the wonderful things about Portlandia - and I'm not just blowing smoke, although I can blow smoke, but I'm not - is that there is an expansive feeling to each segment. It's not reductive. It doesn't seem like sketch comedy.
I was ballet dancing at four, playing piano by six, and doing commercials by 12. When I was 21, I was on the number one live comedy show in Puerto Rico. I told my parents, 'I'm going to New York to become a performer.' And I left.
When I look at comedy, it's all self-expression. I apply that same method to my music. I came up listening to N.W.A and Snoop. Like them, it's in me to express how I feel. You might like it or you might not, but I take that stand.
Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time - of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
I can do comedy, so people want me to do that, but the other side of comedy is depression. Deep, deep depression is the flip side of comedy. Casting agents don't realize it but in order to be funny you have to have that other side.
I one hundred percent recognize that comedy is a more narcissistic profession and that I cannot directly improve people's lives the way I could if I had stayed in the policy world. But the trade-off is that I'm happier doing jokes.
I think when I was young, let's call it high school, and even before that, I just loved comedy, and I loved comedians. I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy. That's really a long time ago. I loved Jerry Lewis. I just loved comedians.
I suppose I walk that line between comedy and cruelty because I think one illuminates the other. We're all cruel, aren't we? We are all extreme in one way or another at times and that's what drama, since the Greeks, has dealt with.
I stopped doing romantic comedies. I just stopped. They're terrible. They're bad. They're not funny and so they shouldn't be a romantic comedy because most of the time they're not romantic. They shouldn't be called romantic comedy.
There are only a few genres, horror and comedy, where you can get that immediate feedback from the audience. It's very gratifying when that's what you're going for, and you can hear the reactions in all the places that you intended.
Here's a message to all the employers out there reading this: if a comedian comes to you having given up comedy and wants a job; don't employ them. They're utterly feckless and incapable of handling any kind of responsibility. Fact.
Melbourne City is an awesome city. You can get everything: You can get open air. You can get city life. You can get cafes and bars. I started comedy here; I lived here for 10 years. I went to university here. This is my home ground.
I would love to do a small indie comedy, like a Wes Anderson movie or, like, an ensemble comedy like 'The Royal Tenenbaums' or 'Little Miss Sunshine.' I like comedies like that, that have a lot of heart and are about family dynamics.
A boring speech can be just a boring speech. But a speech with a joke that falls flat is awful. I hate it. That's why I think it's easier to hate a comedy. If a drama doesn't land, it's boring; if a joke doesn't land - you hate that.
I read that John Hughes script for 'Mr. Mom,' and I thought, 'This guy is a funny writer.' I went: 'You ought to stick around and direct this thing.' But he didn't; he left, and look what he became. A really legendary comedy director.
I've been doing comedy longer than I haven't been doing comedy, as I was performing for three years before I even got on 'The Tonight Show.' There's truly nothing like it; it's intense and exhilarating, even though it looks so casual.
I do come across people who don't like me, don't like my comedy, don't think it's funny, it's too cutesy, or whatever they hate. And it's like, 'Okay. That's your opinion. Somebody liked it, so that's good.' Hopefully it balances out.
I don't have anything saying, 'I'm going to do this many new films, and this many comedies.' But, it's always exciting for me, whenever it is a new character and something I haven't done before, and that's part of what draws me to it.
When you get down to it, at it's root, Comedy is truth, absurdity, and pain. One of my little mottos is: 'Do you remember the Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown kicked the football and kissed the Little Red Haired Girl? Neither do I.'
Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. We've been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. It's just like stand-up. It's best when it's just left alone. It doesn't translate always on TV. It's best live.
Awkwardness is where tension is, and tension is where the story is. It's also where the comedy is, which I'm interested in; when it resolves it tends to resolve toward melancholy, a certain resignation, which I find interesting as well.
I worked mostly in television drama for my first few years. I just kept guesting on NYPD Blues and CSI-like stuff, so when I started getting work in comedy, a lot of people in the business would say, 'Oh - I didn't know you did comedy.'
Comics know that they do best. They might not be best to rewrite to another person's comedy, but they know what is best for them. Luckily, I come from both a writing background - with 'Workaholics' - and I also act in what I've written.
Making Homeland series is not improvisational comedy theater, but it is improvisation. We might get a call that morning, while we're doing something, and the change goes in that is something that just happened an hour ago, in the world.
Comedy should be a source of positivity. I don't want to bully people, and I don't want people to come to my show to feel terrible about something. So I'm actually very open to having a conversation about what I should or shouldn't say.
I try to do women's-point-of-view comedy. The joke is, 'This is what I think; there's the truth.' I try to think of stuff that's real broad, but the more personal it is, the more universal it is. All my friends go through the same stuff.
I recently finished a job, an HBO movie 'Getting On,' a very dark comedy. It comes from a British series of the same name. In this role I have no hair, no make up and no nails. I play a very small role; she is not over the top and sassy.
I really like doing television shows, and I anticipated doing a comedy, because that's the place I feel the most comfortable - those are the risks I want to take. But it was always really hard for me to find a script that I really liked.
The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.
It sometimes seemed to him that for love to work, it had to be fair, that he should tell only half the joke, and she the other half. Otherwise, it would not be love, but something completely else–pity or entertainment, or stand-up comedy.
A friend of mine wrote a script, a feminist romantic comedy. She had a feminist scholar consult on it. My friend said, 'Oh, my friend Gillian read it and really loved it.' She goes, 'Gillian Jacobs, you mean: Britta Perry, feminist icon?'
I would love a little bit of a change. I feel so fortunate to have been able to work so much, particularly in the horror-thriller genre, but I would love to be able to do something perhaps a little more dramatic or even a romantic comedy.
When you make a drama, you spend all day beating a guy to death with a hammer, or what have you. Or, you have to take a bite out of somebody's face. On the other hand, with a comedy, you yell at Billy Crystal for an hour, and you go home.
I feel like it's a dangerous and dark world if 'Sunny' becomes mainstream comedy. If you were to turn on CBS at 8 o'clock on Thursday and see an episode of 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia,' I don't know if I want to live in that world.
I probably would never be able to direct a comedy because I'm not that funny. I don't have that funny bone in me, so it wouldn't be a natural fit. But I love the world of science fiction, and I love the world of technology and science too.