It's funny, because I was trained as a dramatic actor at New York's Colonnades Theater Lab in the '70s, along with Jeff Goldblum, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. People I worked with there saw a comedian in me. I'm still most at home in comedy.
There is a cliche that probably has some anecdotal evidence on the side that comedians are very depressed people, but that's because no one is ever going to seem as funny in a normal conversation as compared to when they're up there onstage in the sp...
A lot of stand-up comedians are actually very insecure, and they come on slightly battling the audience. They want to be the superior person in the room, sneering at the world. That can be very funny. But to me, what's more interesting is that the wo...
I just think of myself as a comedian, really. I mean, I talk about being Jewish a lot. It's funny because I do think of myself as Jewish ethnically, but I'm not religious at all. I have no religion.
I'm a comedian, for God's sake. Viewers shouldn't trust me. And you know what? They're hip enough to know they shouldn't trust me. I'm just doing stand-up comedy.
Almost every college playwright or sketch or improv comedian was sort of aware of Christopher Durang - even kids in high school. His short plays were so accessible to younger people and I think that was inspirational to me.
The truth is, for however much my stories come out of things that have happened to me, they're not darkly or as deeply personal as someone like Marc Maron or a lot of comedians, but they are essentially my life and my interpretation of it.
Comedians like to see people smile. With acting, I love giving people a feeling, an emotion. I like to give people a feeling. When they come away from my scene, I want them to think.
Manchester was a fantastic place to go out in. There were 10 clubs with world-class cabaret and comedians. You'd go in and Tom Jones might be singing, or Shirley Bassey or Engelbert Humperdinck.
I don't know any comedian who tailors his act to his audience. Maybe people say they do, but I can't even imagine them.
Christians have always been fodder for comedians who have tended to portray them as anoraks - slightly clammy, beatifically smiley dullards with barely a personality between them.
The young comedians always ask me, 'What's the secret for staying around?' I tell them, 'There is no secret - just stay around. Longevity is the most important thing.'
It doesn't bother me that I'm not a household word on the East Coast. Baton Rouge, Raleigh, Minneapolis - I'm so popular in these cities where you've never imagined an East Coast comedian working.
I need wrong to get laughs. I need a normal world so that I can be abnormal, and that's my problem. Comedians need prejudice.
'The Walking Dead' was my favorite show before I even auditioned for it. That's every actor's dream, to be on a show that they're a fan of. It's just dark, and as a comedian, I'm drawn to dark things.
I can't stand tribute bands. It's nice, bless 'em, but it's not right. They can't capture the right spirit. You never see a tribute comedian, a tribute Les Dawson.
Theater people say you are either a comedian or a tragedian, and I'm a tragedian. And the vexing, dark characters, the ones where I don't understand their pain or their anguish, they are the characters that appeal to me.
I think a lot of studios today are run by women, and we are entering a time when a lot of women have evolved in Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade and wanted to become writers and comedians.
I am trying to work out what my taste is, comedy-wise. I look up to stand up comedians who appear to be telling the truth, but I don't mind if they are lying.
The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.
Music is very similar to comedy: It's all about texture, timing, context, vocabulary, performance. When someone's onstage doing a solo, essentially it's the same thing as what a comedian does. They're in the moment. They're listening.
