Quotes About Comedy

I feel like L.A. is more of a showcase, and Chicago is a pure comedy scene where you're doing comedy for comedy. You're doing comedy actually for the audience that's there.

I thought if I could do stand-up comedy well enough, I could parlay it back into films - like Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen did. They merged principles of comedy and drama together, and that's what my first film really was, a stab at that kind of comedy.

To me, real comedy comes out of behavior. It's the choices you make as an actor. It's never about, "I want to do a comedy script." I can't think of it that way. And besides, some of those movies, those comedy movies, I can't even watch them.

I love straight-face comedy or relatively subtle comedy. And then I turn around and I find myself doing very broad comedy but it's all fun and you have to keep your sense of humor and not take yourself seriously.

Because I was familiar with Taika's Watiti work and there's a very subversive, funny streak amongst all of them. I don't think he turned [Hunt for the Wilderpeople] into a sort of drama, there's too much dark material underneath it for it to be a comedy; it wasn't designed to be a comedy. I think it's a comedy... I think it's a drama that's funny; which is different.

I don't like comedy. I like funny things. I don't like comedy. Like, comedy movies are just, 'Oh Jesus.'

Its consistency of what comedy can do and what comedy can be.Growing up with that show [The Simpsons] shaped my worldview.

Good comedy helps people know they're not alone. Great comedy provides an answer.

The interesting trick of comedy, in a lot of ways, is to have both the comedy and the grounding of the real thing. You get a real sense of a human being.

Do it [stand-up comedy] because it feels like the right thing to do. Do it because you don't want to do anything else. There is something in you that does not want you to do anything else other than comedy.

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.

When 'Malcolm in the Middle' was over, I was looking for a drama more than a comedy...but if it was a comedy that came up, it would have to be as well-written as 'Malcolm' was, and it would have to be a different kind of character than I played on that show. That's harder to come by. In drama, there were more opportunities, more options for me, and when I read ('Breaking Bad'), it was just, 'Good night, Nurse! I'm going after this sucker!'

Every time I think about writing, comedy doesn't interest me in the slightest. I can play comedy, but I don't think in terms of comic dialogue.

It's easier to do comedy with an audience, because their reactions tell you whether or not what your saying qualifies as comedy.

I think comedy is so much easier to do on the page than it is in real life. When I'm writing, comedy is an easy way to win over the reader. You're automatically more disposed to keep reading, thinking maybe, "I'll get another laugh or two." I think it's a survival instinct in me. I mean, you don't want to lose these guys within five or ten pages. You want them to keep going. I think to some extent it's a desperate measure that I throw out there, because a novel isn't a complete waste of time if it made you laugh.

I wish people would understand that comedy is an art form, and that the same thing that makes a Picasso painting is the same thing that gives Bill Cosby the ability to do an hour of comedy on his kids.

I want to go to Australia so bad, do comedy there, and see the people there. It's a great country. I have friends that are Australian that have told me all about it. I want to do comedy there.

The Lampoon was definitely quite formative. You know there's a crazy like kind of network of comedy writers from The Lampoon that are, that kind of you know like Seinfeld and The Simpsons and a lot of shows kind of had a lot of kind of Lampoon writers and so that was very formative. I mean, to me I got interested in comedy writing at an early like reading like Dave Barry.

I always wanted to be a comedian. I loved comedy since I was a little kid, and while I was at university I started doing stand up shows. Once I realized that I was good at it I quit college and left although I had six months left. I went to England. I could have done the last six months but I realized that I was better at standup comedy than I was at singing opera.

I think that comedy is a good defense for a child. Because you know childhood is a nightmare as it is. And so why not use comedy and being funny as a defense to get through your life as opposed to drugs, alcohol and good looks? Because those things are dangerous when your young.

Almost every comedy you see is about people making all wrong choices and making all the errors of judgement possible. Good comedy is when it works on this scale. Because it is psychologically very real.

I think comedians get too much credit or too much criticism for the style of comedy they do, and they generally do the style of comedy that works for them. [...] There's no kind of shrewd calculation going into the type of standup we all do. It's like David Cross is supposed to be doing the David Cross' type of standup.

I was sort of trained in drama. I went to theater school. I started on the stage. Comedy is absolutely an essential part of what we do as actors. But I think in the grand scheme of things, comedy was born from tragedy. First there was tragedy and then there were the comedies.

I guess there are no real strict rules [in comedy], but I just learn to apply my philosophy about comedy which is, it's a serious business and the result needs to be funny, not the process.

I never consciously got into comedy. It was sort of one of those things where I was a theater student, I was acting, I was doing comedy, I was doing dramatic stuff, so it's been something that I've always done and enjoyed doing and had an instinct to be relatively good at.

The work I'm doing on the screen differs from that of anyone else. My comedy is of a peculiar nature...no writers have been developed along the lines of my type of comedy and this is why I sometimes have differences with writers, supervisors and directors alike.

Big comedy is good, I like things that are big, but good comedy has to be truthful I think and has to reflect some sort of reality.

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.

A lot of people who do drama say comedy is the hardest thing, but, not wanting to sound like a bighead, comedy is easy for me, as I've always been fairly funny.

There’s obviously a lot of tragedy in comedy; I really enjoy the paradox of what a really good comedy is.

Comedy Central made their own awards show. They were named best comedy channel.

It's just if one person says anything it becomes click bait and then they start talking about the comedy climate which is hilarious, so no. You know what it is? People are adults and they know they're at a comedy show but every once in a while somebody isn't an adult and then for some reason, you know, it's lazy reporting. They're trying to create this thing that isn't happening. It's not like people go in there and are just sitting with laptops open getting ready to blog about every stupid joke.

It always interested me that 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'The Kumars,' when shown around the world, were referred to as British comedy. It was only here that they were referred to as Asian comedy, even though I always felt it was very British in its humour and structure.

That's the nature of comedy. You always want to be improving and growing and changing with what's happening in the world. That's when comedy is most effective.

I love Stewart Lee's 'Comedy Vehicle' on BBC2. The guy is a genius.

I've always just been attracted to comedy.

If you look at any successful skit comedy show, ever, there is that format of introducing you to the player in the beginning, and then going on to see those sketches.

Certainly situation comedy is harder than people who are good at it make it look, but it's fun to do something different.

[ Gil Cates] said, "You've got a point of view with your magic. There's this comedy to it, there's drama. You're telling stories with magic."

I enjoy doing comedy for the fact that you go to work and you laugh. That's a good combination.

It's funny how people will think I'm being sarcastic a lot and joking. So I'll say, "I like your dress," and they'll go "(bleep) you!" Or I say something serious and they go, "Oh, yeah, ha-ha." They're strangers. They're people who know me from comedy, but luckily I am on pretty much all the time!

I never was shy, but as far as telling jokes, I'm the worst. I like physical comedy; it's where I feel comfortable.

I feel like we can prove in real time the old trope that comedy is tragedy plus time.

When it comes to comedy, they always say, "Jackée, whatever comes to your mind." But heaven forbid I can't think of something. It's never happened yet, thank God. I may knock on wood.

Comedy is king. It has to be.

I played an artist in a comedy called 'Rooster.' It was a zany film by Glen Larson, a friend who produced several successful television series including 'Magnum PI.

Comedy is created when someone is trying very earnestly to do what he feels is the right thing to do at that moment.

I love doing sitcoms. I love doing comedy. I love the whole shooting match.