Popular quotes about Comedy! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 38
Women comedy is different than men comedy. Guy comedy is very aggressive, it's about insulting each other, name-calling, and kind of busting each other's chops, and that's not what women's comedy is.
Paul FeigIt'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. JohnsonWe have little bits of comedy throughout our films but this is like a full-on comedy. I had great time. It was fun to do a comedy and see a lot of the people I worked with on our previous films and meet some new actors. It was a good experience for me.
Alex KendrickI consider my comedy to be dramatic comedy. I always wanted music underscoring the dramatic monologue. It was always drama with comedy, in my head.
Molly ShannonI was thinking about comedy and how comedy in many ways opens us up to ideas and really being influenced by Richard Pryor and sort of the way he would use comedy to really speak about larger social issues.
Terry GrossI had always drawn, every day as long as I had held a pencil, and just assumed everyone else had tooโฆArt had saved me and helped me fit inโฆArt was always my saving graceโฆComedy didnโt come until much later for me. Iโve always tried to combine the two things, art and comedy, and couldnโt make a choice between the two. It was always my ambition to make comedy with an art-school slant, and art that could be funny instead of po-faced.
Noel FieldingThere's a very interesting article or symposium to be written on just the real difference between comedy filmmaking and non-comedy. Because, you know, when you work in comedy, you depend on audience screenings to tell you about your movie.
Shawn Anthony LevyComedy 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 CookIts consistency of what comedy can do and what comedy can be.Growing up with that show [The Simpsons] shaped my worldview.
Eric AndreI love broad comedy. It has its place. If I were to do that, I'd love to do physical comedy.
Rashida JonesI'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.
Steven WrightThe secret to comedy is not playing the comedy, but actually playing the situation, playing the drama of it.
Nathan FillionDo 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.
Russell PetersComedy is like a very cokey, druggy sugar. You get hits of comedy, and it's very, "More, give me more of that stuff," because serotonin is being released in the brain. So it's basically, everyone becomes serotonin junkies, and we are serotonin dealers. And that's what being a comedian is about.
Eddie IzzardVerse comedy is interesting to me because of the challenge of writing in rhymed couplets, which is not a form that's usually amenable to English, yet to me it gives great possibility for comedy.
David IvesAt first I had no skills in writing comedy. I didn't know what a joke was, but, as someone once told me, your emotions follow your intent. If you create the intention of starting a comedy act, slowly your mind starts adjusting and you arrive at a new emotional state.
Steve MartinBetween birth and burial, we find ourselves in a comedy of mysteries. If you don't think life is mysterious, if you believe you have it all mapped out, you aren't paying attention or you've anesthetized yourself with booze or drugs, or with a comforting ideology. And if you don't think life's a comedy - well, friend, you might as well hurry along to that burial. The rest of us need people with whom we can laugh. -Odd Thomas -Odd Apocalypse by Dean Koontz pg 30 chapter 4
Dean KoontzYou know, sometimes I worry, you know, is comedy and my type of comedy going to get stale? Is it going to be so offensive that it becomes uninteresting or so niche that I don't have an audience anymore? But it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, where roasting now is a movement. These roasts are on in India, in Mexico.
Jeff RossI think that's part of being a comedy writer. You have to be confident. If you're sitting around worrying about, like, oh my God, what are people going to think, then you're not writing comedy. You have to write what makes you laugh, and then the world hopefully laughs as well.
David MandelComedians have varying levels of training. It can range from classically trained actors (like Robin Williams) to people who took comedy classes to folks who just started doing it. That's the beauty of comedy: it's close to a pure meritocracy.
Ted AlexandroComedy 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 MandviI think there is more comedians now than ever, more venues now than ever. There are stand-ups who live in towns where they don't have many comedy clubs where they are organizing more comedy nights in bars. I just think this is a fantastic time for stand up.
Joe RoganMost of the time, my favorite drama has comedy in it as well. I think most good dramas have comedy in there. And all of the dramatic actors I look up to are also very funny.
Adam BrodyI hope I don't just do the exact same thing my whole life. I also feel like it's really hard to make comedy. It's almost impossible for comedy filmmakers and directors to stay relevant as they get older.
David WainThere's so many variables in comedy. Comedy is not this thing that's a performance like a play. It's really an interaction with every single person in the room. And if there's a weirdness in the room for any people, be it something the comedians did at the top of the set or be it the mixture of the people isn't right, something can go awry. So it's really great to see you proven wrong about someone.
B. J. PorterThis is going to sound pretentious, but I like comedy that addresses something I find either worrisome or interesting in my life. I like Louis C.K.'s stuff or Bill Burr's stuff. I feel like there's comedy where someone will think of something that they think will work comedically, and then they reverse engineer that point of view so they can say that funny thing. The comedians I like, it could be an allusion, but it feels like their point of view comes first and then the jokes are a reflection of what they actually believe, or are frightened of, or are curious about, or are interested in.
Zach WoodsThe comedy really comes from how badly you want these characters to succeed and with a comedy that's often hard.
Jonah HillComedy doesn't really have any meaning without sadness. The most meaningful comedy comes from some really serious pathos.
Becky StarkTo me, being brave is an element that is so important with stand-up comedy. It's not essential. There are many comics who were just funny, and that's fine, too. But that's never been what I was trying to do in comedy. I was always trying to do something that involved not pandering to the audience.
Bill MaherI 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.
Christoph WaltzIt's very hard to watch comedy for me, when I'm doing a comedy show, because I either watch a show and I love it, and I'm jealous, or I watch a show and I see all the problems with it, and I'm angry that I watched it.
Amy PoehlerThe 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.
W. C. FieldsI 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.
Ira SachsMusic 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 BurnhamYou know, comedy's hard. With drama, you have a responsibility to the emotional truth, but with comedy, you have emotional truth and you have technique on top of it.
Julianne MooreYou know, I've just always been sort of goofy and kind of gone with it. I actually usually work more in drama, but I have been floating back and forth with comedy and somehow they keep giving me jobs in comedy, so I guess there's something funny about me.
Zachary KnightonComedy today is not what it was years ago. It's always changing, in particular to female comics. No longer are certain subjects considered to be a male preserve. Women can talk about sexuality and their bodily functions and it can be very, very entertaining. It's changed the impact of comedy acting.
Patrick StewartComedy is more difficult than drama. I think it's really difficult to make someone laugh because people have very different comedic sensibilities. In drama, you can get away with being a great actor and surrounded by great actors and having good writing. But in comedy you have to listen and you have to perform with a certain rhythm, because if you don't, it's like playing a wrong note in the orchestra and you can hear the off key and it will fall flat and you won't get that instant response.
Aimee GarciaMy first time on stage was the class "graduation" at the Comedy Store. It was awesome. Everything got huge laughs and I just thought I knew how to do comedy.
Anthony JeselnikWhen I started stand-up - and this is in the '90s - there was definitely people hadn't watched decades of Comedy Central, where people are really much more educated on stand-up comedy.
Jim GaffiganIt's a comedy thriller, brilliantly written and it's full of twists and turns at every page. When I was reading it I was desperate to get to the end to find out what happens, it really hooks you.
Louise Jamesonhave you ever noticed how a man orders food at a fast-food drive-through window? ... men have an innate desire to be cute while placing their order through the drive-through microphone. It's as if they believe the invisible mike on the plastic menu screen is actually connected to a standup comedy stage somewhere in the recesses of the restaurant.
Becky Freeman