I like very dry humor. I don't like things that are over the top. I like subtlety. I like things that are nonchalant. I like characters that are sort of monotone and based in dark comedy.
I try to give all my characters a sense of humor, so I guess I feel like I have done comedy, but maybe I'm better known for drama.
Although humor is present in every one of my films, it has always been used as a way to make the darker, heavier stuff in my stories more palatable. I never set out to make 'Humpday' a comedy.
I experimented with my own one-man show a couple of years ago in Aspen when HBO used to have their comedy festival there. I called it 'A History of Me.'
Doing drama is a very welcome departure from comedy. Although I love doing both, I like to change it up a bit once in a while with roles in serious drama.
Stand-up comedy is a lot about amplifying emotions and situations; movie acting has a lot to do with mellowing things down and making them subtle. The transition was almost terrifying because of the magnitude of change.
The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).
It's funny: All my friends back home are always wondering why every television show I'm on is a drama, but all the comedy pilots I did died a slow and painful death.
Romantic comedies seem to take over where the fairytales of childhood left off, feeding our dreams of a soulmate; though, sadly, the Hollywood endings prove quite elusive in the real world.
Georgia was a great place to live, but I wanted to get out because I knew the opportunities for what I was doing - stand-up comedy and eventually acting - were in Los Angeles.
By the time I finished comedy, I was really burnt out of it. I had had enough. I don't really have a strong desire to prove myself in that area, or to go back to it in any great way.
I'd never really done comedy before 'Community,' so getting to work day in and day out with all these great people, directors, writers, and actors, I feel like I've learned a lot.
There's a film I did called 'Front of the Class', about a teacher who had Tourette's. That was a beautiful blend of drama and comedy. There's some great moments of levity in the script.
There's a reason Tony Stark makes fun of 'Thor,' and mentions 'Shakespeare' in the park in 'The Avengers.' It's great to play high drama and comedy alongside a modern story.
When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy.
'Jackass: The Movie' is great. I think it's in the tradition of physical comedy, which I'm really interested in. Its relationship to gravity, and how gravity acts on the body.
And if you have great writing, it's really easy, but if it's not so great and you have to work a little harder, I could tell where the work needed to be done but comedy is just fun.
I think if you look back at all those great comedies on television in the past, it's all lovable losers that gathered together - 'Taxi' and 'Cheers,' 'Seinfeld' and 'Friends.'
I was a big fan of how Johnny Carson hosted awards shows. Dick Cavett, as well, I think did a really great job of providing a nice blend of comedy, wit and class.
The great thing about 'The Office' and it being single-camera and the documentary style is that it's mostly a comedy, but 10 percent of it is, we get to show the existential angst that exists in the American workplace.
In a romantic comedy, it's usually a good idea to have people who can't stand the fact that they are attracted to each other.
