I can apply myself to the format of 'SNL,' I can apply myself to the format of 'Conan,' but at the same time, I'm still being J. B. Smoove. I'm not changing up my style, I'm not changing up how I think, what's funny to me, my delivery, the way I carr...
People are often surprised that I am so upbeat. I'm always hearing, 'You're so light and funny, and your books are so dark and twisted.' There's a dichotomy. I like books that are dark and creepy. I don't control it - it's just what I gravitate towar...
When I was one day old, I learned how to read. When I was two days old, I started to write. By the time I was three, I had finished 212 short stories, 38 novels, 730 poems, and one very funny limerick, all before breakfast.
You have to make a lot of sacrifices, and the main thing you have to sacrifice is your privacy. It's funny because when I was growing up, my daddy was and still is an insurance agent in our home town. He couldn't go anywhere without somebody recogniz...
I'm proud of 'The Hidden.' I feel like we took a B-movie and kind of turned it into an A-minus action movie. We kind of elevated the material a little bit. It's got a great car-chase scene at the very beginning. It has some terrific moments in it, so...
When you step out and do a song in a musical, the easier thing to do is make it funny. But when those transitions become necessary, when they aren't camp, that, to me, is magic. I've done musical comedies and enjoyed them, but subject matter that's d...
It's funny because when I got 'Jarhead' and 'Avatar' and all those movies, 'Leprechaun' still to this day airs on BET. I was thinking, 'Will they just let it go? I finally have a body of work that can speak much better to what I can do than just Lepr...
I love writing both fiction and memoir. Both have unique challenges; bottom line, fiction is hard because you have to come up with the credible, twisty plot, and memoir is hard because you have to say something true and profound, albeit in a funny wa...
Every time I'm in Canada I feel more Swedish, and every time I'm in Sweden I feel more Canadian. I belong in both places and I love them both equally. It's funny because the Swedes claim me as their Swedish pride and the Canadians call me their Canad...
But, sooner or later I'd love to do a comedy. I mean I think that, you know, people don't think that that's in my wheelhouse because I've sort of played a lot of dramatic stuff and that's certainly a side of myself that I want at some point in the ri...
When I was a little kid, I wrote this play about all these characters living in a haunted house. There was a witch who lived there, and a mummy. When they were all hassling him, this guy who bought the house - I can't believe I remember this - he sai...
There's nothing I dislike more than being in a photo shoot where they say, 'Be yourself.' That's not why I became an actress. That's what I find so funny: that you become an actor, and all of a sudden, everyone wants to know about you. But I didn't b...
My boy and I move. We have this game where if we dress in a particular item of clothing, we have to do a different movement. A hat means 20 jumps - that sort of thing. When I put a scarf on, my son has to drop down and do push-ups, immediately. He th...
It's funny because a lot of people that know me as a dancer, don't know that I'm a singer, and a lot of people that know I can sing don't know I can dance. And so, I feel like at some point I have to show them both and really be able to display it an...
I really wanted to find a piano for the farm house. There were so many free pianos on Craigslist, I thought, 'Let's get as many free pianos as we can and stick them all in the barn.' I got eight in a short period of time, only six of which were tunab...
It's funny - when I first started as an actor, obviously there were long periods of being idle and all you want to do is work. So if I ever get the compulsion to feel like I should complain or feel like I want to take a break, I just remember how I w...
Movies don't look hard, but figuring it out, getting the shape of it, getting everybody's character right and having it be funny, make sense and be romantic, it's creating a puzzle. Yes, having been a writer for so long, I have an awareness of when t...
My career only took off because of one football game. I thought it was funny. 'Playboy' called and offered me a cover just like that. I turned them down initially, because I was nervous about it and my boyfriend at the time didn't want me to do it, b...
Women's humor seems to be a little more supportive. It's just kind of trying to make the other one laugh through funny voices and kind of talking about other people. I respond to that. I feel less like I'm going to get beat up in a room full of women...
I realized I was gay in the shower one day with Barbra Streisand. It happened while I was lathering, rinsing, and repeating with Pert Plus. As I was belting out the chorus to my favorite song from 'Funny Girl,' 'Oh my man, I love him so, he'll never ...
It's funny. People often compare me to other humor essayists. They're usually quite nice comparisons; I will accept those gladly. But I am always sort of appalled at the idea of being lumped with other, more chick-y female writers. And the truth is p...
