You 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.
Since so many romantic comedies vary little in their storyline, the success or failure of such movies depends largely on whether we believe in the relationship of the protagonists.
The economics favour one-man comedy shows: all you need is one person, a microphone and a PA system. But I'm pleased so many people are making a living out of comedy - it's a wonderful business to be in.
I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.
I wasn't exactly uncomfortable when I did my first comedy. I was just very aware of the risks; if you do a comedy that sucks, and you suck in it, then you won't get a chance to do it again.
My mom and dad are both in stand-up comedy, so that's where I started, that's where I got everything. My roots are holding the mic.
My first films were comedy, 'Murder By Death,' and 'The Cheap Detective.' But now they won't think of me as a comedian. Now, they think of me as a bad guy, and I can't do comedy.
If the setups take too long, you wind up losing momentum. Momentum is very good for comedy. Not having to do eight setups in a single scene and have it take five hours is very good for comedy.
I think in the world we need more comedy. I wish so much that we could embrace that side of us more. I love to escape through watching comedy, and I wish for more of that in the future.
I think the kick to doing comedy is just to get in a film with really funny people and let them do their jobs. I find that in most comedies, I'm not the funny one, which works out great.
With drama, you know if you're having a true moment, but in comedy, if somebody doesn't laugh, then you know you're not being funny. That's a really fun challenge, and that's what draws me to comedy.
Honestly, 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.
I haven't been offered a lot of comedy. In theater, I've done quite a bit of comedy or dramas that included a lot of funny stuff. But in my TV work, those aren't the roles that I've been offered.
I love romantic comedy, but I think you have to have another idea that you're chasing along with romantic comedy.
Comedy clubs were something that came to pass in the '80s, but toward the end of that, in the early '90s, people started doing comedy again in alternative spaces.
I felt audiences are happier to take comedy people who play darker people because there's a link between the psychosis of comedy and the psychosis of being a twisted character.
'The Office' is less a comedy than so many other 'comedies' that have been on the air. It's really about the balance between what is real and what is comic.
Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training.
My background is in musical comedy. I didn't know I was going to be an actor. But all my points of reference have to do with musical comedy and in being kind of a showoff.
I wasn't even a big comedy nerd. A lot of the comedians I know - a lot of my friends are comedians - they knew a lot about comedy growing up.
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.
