Popular quotes about Comedy! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 36
It's very hard to find a good comedy. I prefer doing comedy far over anything else because I think they're actually more profound. But finding a good one and a great ensemble is very difficult to do and I'm delighted that in these particular times there is so much interest in comedy and that comedy is having so much success.
Sigourney WeaverI 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.
Jake M. JohnsonInterestingly it's when you come to the comedy, that's where a lot of the discussion is. It's like ten people sitting around talking about what is funny. "Is that funny? Is that funnier than that? Is this slightly funnier than this?" I guess that's what it's like when you're making a comedy movie as well, you just have to sit around talking seriously about the nature of comedy.
Paul W. S. AndersonThe only thing I knew in the world as a little kid was comedy. And no other kids in my school cared about it at all. There was no one to talk about it with. You know, we're in a geek culture now where comedy is so giant. I'm one of the people that, you know, works on Funny or Die. And there is just a giant culture of comedy nerds. But back then, I was alone, and I had a little confidence about it because I felt like, this is my thing, this is the only thing that only I know about.
Judd ApatowI find that I'm just drawn to anything that's going to challenge me as an actress. So any time I get a chance to do a little comedy, that's also a nice change for me. Most of the time people think of me as a dramatic actress and singer. And there's a challenge there because comedy is hard. What do they say? "Dying is easy; comedy is hard."
Audra McDonaldI love the idea of doing comedy, whether it's action comedy or just straight comedy. It's such a big, new world for me that I'm starting to realize that any character that I relate to, in any way, shape or form, or that I have any appreciation for, given enough preparation, I can find that person.
Zoe BellI mostly, for someone who makes a lot of their living in comedy - and even for someone who doesn't make their living in comedy - I don't watch a lot of comedy.
Maria ThayerComedy has sort of been my life-long obsession. I literally obsessed over comedy. I really didn't play sports - for me it was just comedy, computers and chess club; those were my big things.
Chris HardwickComedy is hard to do, and I don't know why it doesn't have its own category in awards. I don't understand why people think it's harder to do drama than it is to do comedy. It doesn't get respect. It's hard. It's really hard. It would be more gratifying to get something for a comedy, because it doesn't happen much or at all.
Leslie MannBritish comedy - which has been a big inspiration to me for many years - is very different to Australian comedy and different again to American comedy.
Jason GannThere are a lot of great jokes you can sit down and write, but that's just a written joke, versus the comedy of the situation. Ideally, you're pulling as much comedy out of the situation as you can.
John MulaneyComedy is immediate. Comedy is a solo mission. You're all by yourself, up there. And when you're in a film, on a set, it's a collaborative effort. It's about me being a tool for somebody else to create a story and a character from nothing, from their imagination.
Dane CookIn Canadian comedy, you'll almost never see guns. If you bring a gun into a scene, it's like, 'Whoa! Wow, how are we going to deal with that!' Guns in an American comedy are a given. Violence in America is used in a much more cavalier way.
Scott ThompsonComedy really is my bread and butter, even when I'm doing a serious character, with the exception of Outcast. I have found very little humor in this character. Most of the time, what I do, somewhere there is comedy in it.
Brent SpinerI see parody as another form of comedy. If you are making a comedy, there are a lot of different ways to do it. I'm not necessarily always aware of my quote-unquote persona when doing things like that. It's more, "What does the character need at the time?" I'm certainly drawn to certain types of material, there's no doubt about that.
Bruce CampbellKatey Sagal, you are an incredible actress. You worked on โMarried with Children,โ the show that changed comedy, โSons of Anarchy,โ the show that took comedy to a whole new level and โ8 Simple Rules,โ the show that killed John Ritter.
Anthony JeselnikI like comedy but I guess I don't think [my art] is that funny, either. It's too dark and a bit weird in places to be genuinely, uniformly hilarious and function as comedy.
David ShrigleyWhen you get big special effects pictures, sci-fi and things, there's little or no comedy. Or it's a domestic comedy and there's not one special effect. But very rarely do these things fuse and come out right.
Mel BrooksThat's what I think works the best, and what I think makes the best comedy - something that's completely committed and more approached as an acting exercise, as opposed to being worried about whether to be funny or not. The comedy comes from the context.
Will FerrellI am not a politician going around bragging about family values or putting myself on some ridiculous virtuous pedestal. I write comedy. And I am an actor. I am not going to solve the nation's problems. I don't actually spend my life in the way the tabloids like to think I do. I actually spend 95 percent of it writing comedy. Sober. Well, nearly sober anyway.
Steve CooganComedy 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.
Aasif MandviComedy is a live art, and the only way to record a comedy rock album is to do it live. The audience and their laughter is just as much a part of the album sound as our music. No retakes, no room for error.
Vir DasThat's one of the things about comedy that annoys me the most from a comedian perspective. Comedy has gotten so segregated. Now it's like if you don't agree with somebody, you probably aren't going to like their jokes. I think comedians are starting to write for their audience and not towards the country.
Michael CheHere's a woman, a real pioneer for other women looking for careers in stand-up comedy. And talk about guts - she would come out here and sit in this chair and say some things that were unbelievable - where you would have to swallow pretty hard... but it was hilarious... the force of her comedy was overpowering.
David LettermanI actually started in comedy, but then after 'Deadwood' I started concentrating on the dramas more. But then I just got tired for raping and killing and figured, 'It's time to do another comedy.
Garret DillahuntI think that you take the path of least resistance. And for a lot of people comedy is that path. I mean, even against mainstream, it's easier to sell a comedy than a drama.
Kevin GreviouxAfter college, I knew I wanted to work in comedy, so the first thing I did was go to where the comedy was. I moved from Charlottesville to Chicago, because that's where The Second City and Improv Olympics are. You have to go wherever you need to go to study what interests you.
Tina FeyI think comedy is on an organic upsurge right now because when I started, it was 1978 at The Comedy Store and Letterman had just stopped emceeing his morning show.
Bob Saget[In comedy] you never want to leave the actors hanging out to dry. So you need to come up with funny individual stories for each character, and then you do this sort of comedy geometry, weaving them together. Once you've got a funny structure and you know why the scenes are funny, then you get super funny people to say your own lines, say their own lines, say things in their own way, and every scene is a live rewrite in front of the camera.
Jeff SchafferFor me, comedy and drama are all the same thing. How the comedy ever even started in my life was that moments got uncomfortable and I felt uncertain of what the outcome was going to be, so I found a way to deflect what I was feeling, or what everyone else was feeling, by creating laughter.
Romany MalcoComedy has been my way to reconcile with the world. I didn't really set out to do this, but comedy has served as my outlet to address my issues I have with this crazy world.
Dov DavidoffYes, I would say my comedy is grunge, evidenced by the fact my jokes have put an end to big-hair glam comedy.
Joel McHaleI've always been a fan of comedy, and I understood from a young age that what makes most comedy work is the immediacy of first person experience. I'd spent a lot of time from 1995-1998 focusing almost exclusively on poetry, and it's an incredibly difficult form in which to achieve a sustained comic tone unless you're Alexander Pope.
Kevin Keck[Robert Smigel] is one of the greatest comedy writers in the last 50 years. "TV Funhouse" and Triumph and all those sketches.He's really unique, and he has an amazing comedy mind.
Neal BrennanUsually comedy is only available to us ladies in the romantic comedy. That's why I hate romantic comedies.
Sandra BullockI think of a lot of comedy being watched alone, for some reason. It's surprising to me that people are getting together to watch stand-up comedy.
Gary GulmanI like comedy when its mixed with action, it's just so much fun to do comedy with a bit of action, its fun to watch and also so much fun to do.
Akshay KumarI think people don't understand that comedy is an outlet for me. Comedy allows me to get outside of myself, and exercise this thing that is still kind of scary to me.
Will FerrellA 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.
Nick FrostMusic and comedy are so linked. The rhythm of comedy is conยญnected to the rhythm of music. Theyโre both about creating tension and knowing when to let it go. Iโm always surprised when somebody funny is not musical.
Conan O'BrienI know it's the comedian's instinct to say, "Do it, man, nothing's off-limits! It's cool, bro!" I don't know if that's the answer for me. "Do I really want to make a joke about a miscarriage when a woman in the audience might have had one?" I don't worship comedy; at the end of the day I don't fall to the altar of comedy unquestioningly.
Bo BurnhamThat's the beauty of our show. Comedy or politics. We're sort of a mix. A space age polymer of both. A synthetic comedy-like material.
Jon StewartIt's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.
Jack Lemmon