Quotes About Comedy

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.

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.

Comedy 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.

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 remember like that scene with Pharrell where they're at the music video shoot, we have this on camera actually, Pharrell's confused because we weren't doing the script. We were doing all this improv and then Diddy says to him... Pharrell's like I don't understand what's going on and Diddy goes, "We do a lot of improv". (laughter) I remember being we just made him into a comedy nerd. We somehow turned Sean Combs into a comedy nerd, so.

There wasn't a big tradition of comedy at Dartmouth. More than that, there wasn't really anything artsy going on in Hanover, or even in New Hampshire. The cool thing about the school is that there's nothing for people to watch, so if you were to do a play or a sketch or an improv troupe, it was always packed. There's nowhere else for anyone to go. But there was no comedy.

The thing that still exists is that if it's at all possible for me to step outside the club after the show, because I still haven't encountered any comedy clubs that - legally they can't have weed smoking and alcohol at the same facility, pretty much in all the states that have legalized, that's part of the deal. And, unfortunately, comedy clubs make all their money from the selling alcohol part of it. So, since there are no venues I can smoke with the fans in, I step outside and pretty much every show I do there are some people out there and we have a nice little session.

When you're doing comedy, it is so subjective. What is funny to you is not funny to another person. What is dirty to you is not dirty to the other person. Comedy is one of those things you throw against the wall and see what sticks.

Comedy can be silly and gross and offensive, as long as there's sort of a point. You can make a joke that, on the face of it, is racist. Ostensibly someone can appear to be racist, but if you know you're making a point about race, and not just being pig-headed, then you can do that. I think some people who don't understand comedy will have a knee-jerk reaction to some stuff, and will always be offended by it because they don't understand it. Some people react to it in a vociferous way, which is unsophisticated, but there's always going to be those people out there.

My thing was always more character-driven comedies, not sketch comedy - not that there's not room for both or one isn't enjoyable, just my personal taste, I like movies that comedy comes from out of flaws of people, things that are uncomfortable, out of tragedy.

Comedy always pushes some buttons, because it wouldn't be comedy if it didn't.

When you do your comedy and your drama, your acting style doesn't change. If it's a comedy, the situations and the characters might be a little funnier, but you're just trying to be honest.

I like comedy. I would love to do comedy for a long time.

Comedians 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.

I really loved working on comedy. Most of my roles have been very dramatic and involved lots of emotional work and crying on cue. I do really enjoy those roles because you really feel accomplished at the end of the day but they are very emotionally draining! Working on a comedy show is just fun and at the end everyone is laughing! But I am open to all roles and genres just being on a set and being a part of the magic is what I love most!

We are a nation that has always gone in for the loud laugh, the wow, the yak, the belly laugh, and the dozen other labels for the roll- em-in-the-aisles gagerissimo. This is the kind of laugh that delights actors, directors, and producers, but dismays writers of comedy because it is the laugh that often dies in the lobby. The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

I'm a comedy geek so anything comedy related, whether that's standup shows, improv shows, I'm all over that. That's my favorite way to be entertained always.

It's hard to learn about comedy from comedians. Comedy is not something that you necessarily learn or can imitate. You're funny or you're not, and you hope what you're doing is funny.

The first time I came to the Comedy Festival some nutcase shot a bunch of people in Tasmania. I thought, 'Oh, that's just Tasmania.' The second time I came, some nut shot up Columbine High School. Now I'm here again, and another nut just shot up a high school in Minnesota. If you can't see the connection between me playing the Comedy Festival and mass murder, you're no good at conspiracy theories.

I don't want to make a style. Not tragedy, not comedy. Life is a mixing of all kind of things: comedy and tragedy going together.

I worked mostly in television drama for my first few years. I just kept guesting on NYPD Blues and CSI-like stuff, so when I started getting work in comedy, a lot of people in the business would say, 'Oh - I didn't know you did comedy.'

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.

You've got to realize that when all goes well, and everything is beautiful, you have no comedy. It's when somebody steps on the bride's train, or belches during the ceremony that you've got comedy!

This 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.

The funny thing about The West Wing is - and I don't know what Aaron Sorkin says about it - but I'm convinced it was a comedy. It's a very intellectual and cerebral comedy, but it was SportsNight in the White House. It had an energy and a vitality and an intelligence and a passion that's rare. And it was extremely difficult to do, because they were so demanding about the dialogue.

Comedy born of bewilderment is the only comedy that should be in magic.

If there's one regret I have of my time in comedy it's that I really I was so obsessed with improv for so many years and I exclusively did improv for the first 6 years or 7 years. I was doing comedy and then I started doing solo work and stand up, a bit of writing, making videos, and really going into it on that end.

I'd love to do a comedy. I'm terrified of comedy. I don't think I'm funny, but I guess that's why it's so thrilling.

I dont think I could compare myself to Macaulay Culkin, because were pretty much two different kinds of actors. Hes done a lot of comedy. He does mostly just comedy like Uncle Buck and Home Alone and Home Alone 2. And Ive done a lot of different stuff, like sad movies, like the movie about the kid with AIDS.

I like broad comedy. If I had an idea tomorrow for a film that was all slapstick and broad comedy, and it was an idea that interested me, I would not hesitate to do it because I enjoy watching these kinds of film.

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'd like to help other comedians and when I get a little older I'd like to open up a nice comedy club that is straight classy, with a straight restaurant and a chef. The whole thing, red carpet, and treating people nice, for people to come back and have a good time. That's the kind of comedy club I want to open up.

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

If you ask me right now, you've seen the last of Mind of Mencia. I don't want to be a one-trick pony. I would rather walk away and do more movies, comedy and even some dramatic roles.

The majority of my background is multi-camera format, which is very broad and a very arch perception of reality. Whereas single camera tends to be more truthful and a little more intimate of a medium. Friends was an education in intelligent comedic banter; in intelligent vernacular. It was an education in scene study. It was an education in group dynamic. I came out of there with a masters degree in comedy.

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

Michael Jackson wanted to be in Men in Black II. He told me he had seen the first Men in Black in Paris and had stayed behind and sat there and wept. I had to explain to him that it was a comedy.

I think that people who do enjoy my stand-up comedy and the people who get it and the people who are taken in by it, they see that I'm a guy that has love of the game.

People know where romantic comedies are going. It's not brain surgery to figure out the end of a romantic comedy.

I want to do literally everything. I think I was gifted... I inherited one of the best comedy visionaries as a director.

I'd like to play a mixture of Lucille Ball meets Murphy Brown meets Glenn Close on 'Damages,' to keep a little bit of the darkness in there. I like dark comedy a lot.

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.

I got locked into a tradition [at Cambridge] of doing comedy.

I think if actors don't think of themselves as funny in real life they think they can't do comedy.

William Shakespeare was the most remarkable storyteller that the world has ever known. Homer told of adventure and men at war, Sophocles and Tolstoy told of tragedies and of people in trouble. Terence and Mark Twain told cosmic stories, Dickens told melodramatic ones, Plutarch told histories and Hans Christian Andersen told fairy tales. But Shakespeare told every kind of story – comedy, tragedy, history, melodrama, adventure, love stories and fairy tales – and each of them so well that they have become immortal. In all the world of storytelling he has become the greatest name.

Stand-up and comedy is the place where we are supposed to be able to make fun of all of the world's ills.

Comedy and I were never strangers, it's just that I was doing a lot of drama.

I think it's actually a misperception that I am a comedic actress. I do more drama than comedy but very little of it has been seen. When you are in big funny movies and they do well and your little part in it kind of explodes people perceive you as a comedian.