You know, I've always wanted to do dramas. When I moved to L.A., that was my dream, because I never really grew up watching comedies, although of course I loved 'Dumb & Dumber.'
I worked on this Showtime series called 'Beggars and Choosers,' this was like 2000, and Bea Arthur guest-starred on our show. I always loved 'The Golden Girls,' and thought she was a supreme comedy actress, supreme actress period.
When I tried to play characters that strayed from who I am it ended in disaster. People didn't expect me in comedies or musicals.
I've known Harvey for over 40 years and I worked with him on the Burnett show for 11 years. I guess you could say we're about as close as you can get to being a comedy team.
I don't really know, I was thinking about that the other day that there aren't a lot of younger up and comers that I'm that interested in, in the comedy world. Everyone seems to be trying to play it safe.
I acted in high school and studied at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford for one summer. I minored in theater, and I was always acting growing up, but really, I was just more interested in the comedy of it all.
No one set that I ever do is the same. I mean, if I go to a comedy club, and I perform three sets, all three sets are different because anything can happen in between sets.
All I mean is, I'm not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it's not very loud. That doesn't mean I don't like the movie.
I've done for the most part pretty much what I intended - I ended up doing comedy, writing and painting. I've had a ball. And as I get older, I just become an older kid.
I would have to say that I have to concentrate more when I'm doing comedy. There are so many details that make up any character, but developing a character for a dramatic role seems to come more naturally.
I think everyone's different but in comedy, I try to do my scene to make the director and the other actors laugh. If I can make them laugh and we have the same sensibility, then I'm on the right page.
I find that working with friends is always the goal, even if it's just one person. Because the comedy community is kind of insular, it's easy to run into people you've worked with, even if you worked with someone on something for a day, or whatever.
I played an artist in a comedy called 'Rooster.' It was a zany film by Glen Larson, a friend who produced several successful television series including 'Magnum PI.'
The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other p...
As someone who's been doing a lot of classical theater recently, I loved the idea of getting to run around in Steven Alan, and not be in a corset and a wig, and not have a dialect, and get to be in a 90-minute play with no intermission, and get to do...
I like the days when all the filmmakers had was a film roll, a camera and a gangster. The Mack Sennett comedies were all like that. They'd create little teams to go out and shoot films.
In 'Seesaw,' I played Gittel Mosca, and because it was a musical, I loved it more because I was able to do anything. I was able to use all parts of me that I don't get to use... the comedy and the singing and the dancing.
I'll do whatever I can do to remain employed. I'm just not precious about doing comedy or doing drama. I never want to do something in order to prove to other people what I can do.
When I was a student I was very, very ambitious, completely immersed in my comedy career. I never had that period of reckless hedonism that you should get out of your system in your youth.
There's something quite joyful about doing comedy which doesn't really need much analysis. I'm not elitist. I like to do crowd-pleasing stuff which is a bit smart, but is just about belly laughs.
I'm just an actor. If it's drama, I add as much humour as the part will stand. And if it's a comedy, add as much drama as you can, so it balances out; you don't wanna be too serious.
