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Without realizing it, I think I've wanted to do a sketch show since I was, like, 11 years old. Like everybody else in comedy, I grew up watching 'Saturday Night Live,' and I was doing characters with my friends.
I felt like I couldn't fully be myself and accepted in my family, so I would lock myself in my room on a Saturday night and watch 'Saturday Night Live,' and that was, like, the best thing that ever happened to me.
I look back at 'Saturday Night Live' and I think, some people didn't like me doing 'Weekend Update.' Who cares? A lot of people did. When you're reaching that many people, you're not going to have everybody like you.
I mean, sitcoms shouldn't be doing 'Saturday Night Live.' You can't just do bit after bit after bit. You have to string it together with tight writing and performances. Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to do this.
I had dreams of conehead aliens when I was little. Before 'Saturday Night Live' did it. And then they came out with them, and I went on to be a glorified extra in the movie. When everyone else was laughing, I was scared.
'Saturday Night Live' was actually started with a show that Lorne Michaels and I did at a summer camp called Timberlane in Ontario when we were 14 and 15. We would do an improvisational show with music, comedy and acting.
I've got my foot in 'Saturday Night Live,' and my heart is there in a lot of ways, but I'm really pushing myself to do these new projects. It's scary as hell, but it's fun to have other things to keep my creative brain cooking.
'Saturday Night Live' is a very particular beast. What it celebrates are individuals who can stand out. I did good work there, but going onstage and saying, 'Hey! Hey! Look at me! Aren't I funny?' - that just wasn't my instinct.
They sent me the script and I thought that there was something very appealing and funny about it. Also, I was familiar with Mike Myers' work in Saturday Night Live, but I did not know the extent to which he would make this creation.
Because I have moderated two general election debates - in 2004 and 2008 - I know better than to carp from the sidelines. I am confident in my accomplishment of having had Queen Latifah portray me on 'Saturday Night Live' both years.
When I graduated from college, I moved to New York and started doing improv because I read all about the early 'Saturday Night Live' guys having come through Second City and learning how to improvise, so I wanted to get immediately into that.
Doing Saturday Night Live definitely affects my relationship with my girlfriend and with my family, because you feel so much pressure to do well that night. But I think everyone's grown to accept that and so they give me my space at the show.
I don't miss 'Saturday Night Live.' I feel less of a need for the fulfillment that performance used to give... I don't have to do everything right away. As long as I can walk and jump, I'll still perform, but I no longer feel such a compulsion.
I left 'Saturday Night Live' without a film to go to, and I'd filmed 'Old School' while I was in my last season of the show, and that hadn't come out yet. I was a free agent, in a way, but I knew it was time to leave the show and test the water.
Nihilism in American comedy came along way before 'The Simpsons.' There was a fairly nihilistic point of view to 'Saturday Night Live,' for instance, back in the beginning, and a lot of really dark comedy had a really anti-sentimental take on life.
In 'Mother's Day,' which is directed by legendary director Garry Marshall, I play a mother figure to the character played by Jason Sudeikis from 'Saturday Night Live.' He's a widower, and I'm a mother who's helping him to get over the loss of his wife.
I never felt that I was a leading-man type in high school. I was always the goofy guy who was getting attention from girls who could make them laugh by doing impersonations of, like, 'Saturday Night Live' sketches... I was more James Stewart than James Bond.
I did a number of local children's theater plays growing up, but in 5th grade, I had some good times on stage making people laugh as a troll in 'The Hobbit.' That solidified my dream to be on 'Saturday Night Live,' which was hugely influential for me growing up.
Trying to be a leader in a sort of very atypical workplace like 'Saturday Night Live' forces you to realize that no one wants you to be their leader. If you can help them get their thing on TV or whatever, they want that. But no adult is looking for a role model.
I think that's the thing I learned at 'Saturday Night Live' - any time I would try and strategize, I would always, always fall on my face. Things worked out when I tried to make it about what I was feeling at that moment and what I was into in that moment of my life.
Saturday Night Live is such a comedy boot camp in a way, because you get to work with so many different people who come in to host the show and you get thrown into so many situations and learn how to think on your feet, so filmmaking actually feels slow, in a good way.
I definitely knew I wanted to be an actor in high school. I was doing plays and musicals, and I loved 'Saturday Night Live' and thought that was what I wanted to do - funny sketches and comedies. So I knew then, but I didn't know how to go about it, but I found my way.
I didn't do so well at 'Saturday Night Live.' It was a very hard experience for me, for a lot of reasons that have to do with the kind of person I am and the personal issues I had at the time. I was very alone in New York, and the show has a lot of stress related to it.
I had just left 'Saturday Night Live' when I came to 'The Daily Show,' and it just felt like Jon was on my side. I'll always be grateful to him for that. I just got the impression he wanted me to succeed, and then I wanted to succeed for him. I think that's good leadership.
You know you're getting older when - well, first off, when you read almost any story that begins 'You know you're getting older when.' But you also know it when you not only never heard of the musical guest on a given 'Saturday Night Live' but never heard of the host, either.
I do feel like anything benefits from character logic. That can be from the dumbest ad to the greatest Shakespearean drama to the silliest 'Saturday Night Live' sketch. There is a certain specificity in detail, which you can get when you're paying attention to stuff like that.
On 'Saturday Night Live,' I never really wrote. You know, I would just - I would let the writers cast me into the show. So my strength - and I put all my energies into performance. I just couldn't deal with the rejection, you know, getting your sketches cut, and it was hard for me.
Tina Fey, a performer and head writer for 'Saturday Night Live,' has deftly adapted Rosalind Wiseman's nonfiction dissection of teenage girl societal interaction, 'Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and Other Realities of Adolescence.'
Basically, we used to have a rule at 'Saturday Night Live' that you're not allowed to bring up 'The Simpsons' at the rewrite table, because 'The Simpsons' has done every joke there is. Every week there would be guys going, 'The Simpsons did that.' I go, 'C'mon.' And 'South Park,' too.
I was always a silent comedy nerd. I would stay up late and sneak downstairs to watch 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Kids in the Hall,' and things like that. Very early on, my parents realized that I was not going to be an engineer or a doctor. I just don't have those inclinations, at all.
I started on 'Saturday Night Live' the same time Conan started on Late Night. We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn't get a guest - which was often back then since he was just starting out - he would just call me down to be a guest.
A lot of the original people on 'SNL' came through Chicago - and Toronto, I'm sure - but Chicago was the center of it all. When I was there, Chris Farley - I knew him; we hung out and stuff - he went off to 'Saturday Night Live,' it was like, 'It's possible to be from here and make it.'
Arguably, the first five years of 'Saturday Night Live' were some of the most radical things ever seen on television. When NBC said, 'Okay, you can do a show from 11:30 to 1 on Saturday night,' they didn't think anyone would watch. It was like giving a piece of the candy store to the kids.
I don't think we were shy so much as we were terrified. Especially when we did 'Saturday Night Live' on live TV. We looked really animatronic because we were scared, but it came off as being this alien sort of attitude, which served us well, because people were like, 'Whoa, this is so weird.'
Who made me laugh when I was growing was Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, and then moving on, there were so many that I was a writer for for many years: I was a writer for the Smothers Brothers, Lily Tomlin, then I started on 'Saturday Night Live' as the head writer the first year we started it.
I measure success in terms of the connection with the audience, which we've been able to do in spades. I mean, it's very hard to do that. You think about it, you go back in time, you can say, 'Well, there's, like, 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Rolling Stone' or 'MTV.' I think 'Vice' is in that category now.
I wanted to be the next Dana Carvey. This was my ultimate goal. If I ever cut into a birthday cake and made a wish, I would wish to be on 'Saturday Night Live.' If I threw a coin into a fountain, I would wish to be on 'Saturday Night Live.' If I saw a shooting star, I would wish to be on 'Saturday Night Live.'
I was into the Mets because my Dad worked at IBM where he got free Mets tickets, so I was into the Mets... then I got to 'Saturday Night Live' where my boss has unbelievable N.Y. Yankees tickets, so he invites us to the games. I'm going to all the games, so I might as well root for the team I'm gonna go sit with.
I'd love to become like Bill Murray, who was so funny on 'Saturday Night Live' and has gone on to do some of the landmark comedies people like. And then to add this whole other phase to his career with 'Lost in Translation' and 'Rushmore.' I always felt to be able to have something similar to that would be great.
I've done movies with Oliver Stone and Michael Mann. And I've done quite a few dramas in my time, from the theatre to film work. I just think the audience is used to seeing me on 'Saturday Night Live,' and 'K-9,' and 'Curly Sue' and of course, 'According to Jim.' I think that my comedies have been the most popular.
I think women have always been funny. But when Tina Fey became head writer at 'Saturday Night Live,' the culture shifted, and women gained a bigger voice in comedy. It's not as if Hollywood producers are feminists. It's more that Hollywood said, ''Bridesmaids' made us so much money, all we want now is funny women.'
I have found that people who really want to work at 'Saturday Night Live' and pursue it get pretty close. You have to be funny - but everyone who works there, it was their dream to work there. So it's kind of nice in that way - there's a lot of people who say, 'I just always wanted to do this, and now I'm doing it.'
I used to sneak up to the 8th floor and watch Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo rehearsing 'Saturday Night Live' and could only wonder if I would ever have the chance to be funny. It took me five years to go up the two stories, but it is such a sense of fulfillment to be able to show what I can do on national television.
I'm not a child star, but you could say that I've grown up on TV. I went from being an unknown, down-and-out comic from Brooklyn and the Bronx to being a regular character on a major network comedy called 'Martin.' From there I went on to become the most notable black comic on 'Saturday Night Live' since Eddie Murphy.
The first 'Saturday Night Live' season I was heavily interested in was the one with Martin Short, Billy Crystal, and Christopher Guest. There was just something about Martin Short in particular. I really related to him and hung on his every word and mannerism, so I started impersonating all of his characters as an 8th grader.
I think people overplay the 'Saturday Night Live' schedule. I mean, yeah, it can be some late hours. But the late hours are usually only one or two nights out of the week. You might have a crazy six-day week, but you'll work three weeks, and then you get a week off work. I'd take most jobs if it was hard work and then I got a week off.
'Saturday Night Live' is a whole different arena. It's great fun and I love it and that's what we do in the Practical theater. I believe in it wholeheartedly and will do it the rest of my life. But there's also legitimate theater, be it comedy, drama, classics or modern plays which I think is important and something I want to be involved in too.
Roseanne was a huge groundbreaking comedian. Margaret Cho. Ellen DeGeneres, and then on 'Saturday Night Live,' the era of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler sort of helped to bring in an awareness of a new generation of women comedians, often women who were feminist in their comedy, who were unafraid - and this came from the genre of show that was emerging.