Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
If you've ever been to a great clown show, there's always a moment where the clown goes into the house and fuses with the audience. There's something fantastic about the improv of it all.
I'd always liked having a laugh with my friends, and I'd done comedy in plays; but then my friends asked me to join this improv troupe and it went well and I started performing with them.
I guess I'm sort of spoiled because, most of the things that I get to do, people know that you're a good improviser, so they allow you at least one improv take, and for comedy, that's great.
Improv is such a huge part of my background, and a huge part of character discovery is really being inside the character and trying to think through them without the limitations of the script.
Bad improv happens with people who are inexperienced with each other and don't know the craft that well. But bad stand-up is something that could happen to someone at any level in their career.
Improv plays such a huge role in finding great lines - you'll be surprised at what comes out of your mind inadvertently. A lot of times it's better than a script you've worked out ahead of time.
There's sketch, improv, writing, acting, music, and badminton. Those are the seven forms of comedy. But I do like the idea of being an auteur in the sense of writing and being in your own stuff.
I can rap. Not openly in the world, but it's important that people know! I can rap for a very specific reason, which is that in college I was in an improv comedy group, and we did musical improv.
Some people think success is overnight. I suppose, considering I came from Australia, it has been pretty quick. But I have a background in stand-up and improv, so I've really had to prove myself.
When I worked with Robin Williams, now there is improv! He is just as funny as you think he is. We did at least five or six takes of every scene, improvising every scene differently. He was a riot.
I've always felt that improv looks and feels more clever when you're there to experience it live than when you have the degree of separation that television creates. Television raises expectations.
I did improv in junior high school. Figuring out my comedic timing helped my confidence in talking to the bullies and talking to people in class. If I could make them laugh, then I was in; I was OK.
When I was in improv workshops or doing stand-up or writing comedy with others, or just doing comedy, I just laughed. Funny was funny; I loved to laugh. I always liked people I found generally funny.
I liked that improv and sketch comedy were collaborative, but you really depended on other people and a stage to perform. With stand-up comedy, I liked that you had no one else to blame and depend on.
I love improv. 'Crazy, Stupid, Love,' the script was really great, but the directors were open to letting you try different things. And that felt like a muscle I hadn't exercised in a really long time.
Because I started my career in improv, performing with Second City and the Ace Trucking Company, I always enjoy being in situations where - as an actor - you have to think fast & be light on your feet.
I joined an improv comedy group. Ours was named 'Quick Fire!' with an exclamation point. It was when I auditioned for that team and got on it and felt like... I'll just say I felt like I was good at it.
I came to New York and started doing stand-up and improv, and started auditioning for commercials and voiceovers and stuff. My first job was on a pilot of that prank show called 'Boiling Points' on MTV.
I grew up in Iowa, and the improv comedy club Comedy-Sportz across the river in Illinois held auditions. They took me even though I was only 16 - you really had to be 18, but they never checked me for ID.
I fell into acting because I was really shy, and so at night after work, I took public speaking and improv classes, and I started going to auditions sort of as a dare. That was my version of 'Fear Factor.'
The word 'improv' always makes me feel a little anxious because I always feel like we'll have to pull props out of a bag and find 800 different ways to talk about a stick, the way you do in theater school.
Stylistically, in improv, I don't think you can have as many camera tricks; I think you're kind of shooting more like a documentary: you don't know where it's going, so you have to hang back a little more.
Improv is always seen as something that's funny, but worth a $5 ticket, $10 at most. I think ISC is one of those shows that is worth a real ticket price. It's hard-hitting and great and different every time.
I love sketch; it's my favorite form. But if it's all improv, they're either very good, and it's annoying how good they are, and it makes you feel bad, or they're not too good; then you're sweating for them.
Tracy Ullman, I grew up watching her shows and standup and improv and specials. Bette Midler and Whoopi Goldberg. They inspire me to do it all. I always wanted to do it all; I never wanted to be put in a box.
In Chicago, anything that you're doing, the community gives it value. Every little improv show, every scrappy reading, and every lead on a Goodman mainstage. It's all a promising opportunity for a young actor.
You can do a whole scene in acting without ever checking in to what the other guy is saying - it's not going to come off great, but you can get through the scene - whereas in improv, that's gonna be impossible.
Sometimes you read a script, and it's like, 'You'll improv, and this is just a blueprint of what the scene could be,' and that's never a good sign. And it's never encouraging as an actor to take that on, really.
I come from an improv background, so the one thing I know when I'm doing 'Chozen' is that whatever he's doing at that exact moment is the only thing he's thinking about, and he will do it until he's conquered it.
I felt that a cappella was the improv world with music, where it's very serious, and there are groups and competition, and some people become famous, and there's a language we speak from one improviser to another.
I've been a comedian, hosted travel shows, explored world religions, started improv troupes, given keynote speeches at conferences around the country, and had a milk shake named after me called the Handicappuccino.
I took classes and performed and did improv and sketch and wrote sketches and did lights and sound for other people's shows just so I could be around the theater. That was about seven nights a week for seven years.
'New Girl' was a wonderful experience, but for seven years, we were shooting single-cam that is not handheld, that is traditionally shot, and they're asking you to improv, and you're on location. It's a real grind.
One week you may be an actor, and the next week you had to be nimble enough to be a TV host. And the week after that, you might have to do some stand-up or be in an improv company or write and sing a song somewhere.
After going to theater school, and then subsequently dropping out, I would say that when I first went to Chicago and learned long-form improv, that was a far better acting workshop than any acting school I've been to.
You know how sports teach kids teamwork and how to be strong and brave and confident? Improv was my sport. I learned how to not waffle and how to hold a conversation, how to take risks and actually be excited to fail.
I'm convinced to do improv. All you have to do is listen to what people are saying to you, and then just add more information to what they've just said. That's all there is to improv, but it's the hardest thing to do.
I studied structured improv, where you start from one position and see where it takes you. I like spontaneity. If you set yourself up to do the same thing every night, you may not connect as well to a different audience.
I did, like, one or two plays in high school, but I don't think I realized I wanted to do comedy until I got to college, and I started doing improv and saw the Upright Citizens Brigade perform and did workshops with them.
I miss improv. I hate it in a way - watching it, doing it - but only because it's so challenging and nerve wracking. Improv is the only belief system I've ever experienced that directly works on how to be. Just how to be.
An improv team would have eight guys and one woman; that was still pretty standard. If you were a woman improviser, it was actually kind of an advantage because, if you were halfway decent, you'd get a lot more stage time.
If a director brings a guy to their movie who does improv, they've got to let him do what he does - otherwise it's like bringing Michael Jordan to your basketball team and telling him to just pass the ball and don't shoot.
For 'Iron Man' I had to improv with Robert Downey Jr., which is like going up against LeBron in basketball. At one point he stopped and said, 'Can we give a round of applause to Olivia, because she's rocking it right now.'
Almost every college playwright or sketch or improv comedian was sort of aware of Christopher Durang - even kids in high school. His short plays were so accessible to younger people and I think that was inspirational to me.
I was always drawn to performing. I took improv and acting classes during the summers and was involved in middle and high school plays. But when I discovered indie and punk music in high school, those things sort of took over.
All improv turns into anger. All comedy improv basically turns into anger, because that's all people know how to do when they're improvising. If you notice shows that are improvising are generally people yelling at each other.
In improv, the whole thing is that it is a relationship between the two people, as a back and forth. In standup, you don't really want to be listening to what somebody is saying; you want to project your jokes into their face.
When I finished my residency in New Orleans, I went to L.A. where I would work as a doctor during the day, and then at night I would actually go to The Improv and do standup, all the while kind of cultivating my comedy resume.
I've always said my whole career that I wanted to write by the improv credo, 'don't negate,' which means, even if you didn't care for something, you try to make it work. You don't say, 'Oh, that particular story didn't happen.'
I remember being upset because I was finally legal to drink in Canada, and I decided to throw that all away and move to America, where I had to wait another two years. I came here to do improv and to try to join the Groundlings.