Comedy comes from a place of hurt. Charlie Chaplin was starving and broke in London, and that's where he got his character 'the tramp' from. It's a bad situation that he transformed into comedic one.
Everyone in comedy thinks if you go to the U.S. you become a global star but, unfortunately, I've always been a bit anti-American - so I never did.
I got into musical comedy because of Shakespeare, not because of singing. They needed someone to understudy Richard Burton. I was also going to musical auditions because the agent I had insisted I go to them.
When you're a stand-up, you play in front of 600 people, and it's all about timing. I could never do stand-up comedy; it would be way too hard for me.
I was depressed as a child. I found it hard to make friends. My favourite thing was locking myself in the bathroom and practising comedy routines.
When I watch a comedy that's just hitting you over the head with jokes constantly, some really hit, but if they miss, you're like, 'Eh.'
I am a big fan of the TV series 'Taxi' which combined comedy and pathos better than any other show I've seen.
For me, comedy is a day-to-day report on the human condition. It's what's happening right now. I get maybe 20 minutes of my act straight from the newspaper.
Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.
I've never had prejudice against me because of being a woman in comedy, I've never felt any sort of unfairness because of that - but I do think it is naive to think that it doesn't exist.
I can't do comedy that is cutting and vicious. If I knew I'd said something that was going to make someone feel bad, well, that supersedes everything.
The highest of highs is to have a new routine that you're just breaking in and that's working, and that's - you're one step removed doing a situation comedy because you have a live audience there.
I don't think anybody in my graduating class would have figured that I would be doing full-on single-camera comedies or sitcoms, or anything like that, but it certainly has been a part of my career.
I love America and I hate it. I'm torn between the two. I have two conflicting visions of America. One is a kind of dream landscape and the other is a kind of black comedy.
I started out with comedy in college, but had my major in Recreation Administration - which meant I wasn't going to get a real job - so I started doing a little standup.
I feel like I came in comedy's side door, and still feel very fraudulent in many ways.
There is a strange sort of reasoning in Hollywood that musicals are less worthy of Academy consideration than dramas. It's a form of snobbism, the same sort that perpetuates the idea that drama is more deserving of Awards than comedy.
I remember 'Def Comedy Jam' being a big deal and kids talking about it in school, but it was never, 'I want to do that.'
I am very interested in that fine line between fiction and reality and between comedy and tragedy - and pushing the line as much as possible.
Crankiness is at the essence of all comedy. My wife and I were discussing the different types of cranky. There's entertaining cranky, annoying cranky, angry cranky.
There are a hell of a lot of jobs that are scarier than live comedy. Like standing in the operating room when a guy's heart stops, and you're the one who has to fix it!
