Confident people, who understand comedy, improvise so much better than people who are scared. You can't be scared to improvise. You have to know your character, and then you have to let go.
I take my fun very seriously, whether it's playing the drums or acting in comedy bits. The need to be disciplined about it, and not take it lightly, and not be too casual, is something I take deeply to heart.
You get dinged for wanting to do a comedy, then wanting to do a big-budget action film, and then wanting to do an indie. But you can't let other people trying to label you get in the way of trying to do something artistically.
When you get down to it, at it's root, Comedy is truth, absurdity, and pain. One of my little mottos is: 'Do you remember the Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown kicked the football and kissed the Little Red Haired Girl? Neither do I.'
Obama was elected on a slogan of hope and change because both were in short supply: the military exhausted by two wars, the banks failing their public trust, the U.S. Congress a comedy of dysfunction, and a federal government that seemed designed to ...
My very first job was something called 'Nobody's Watching,' that Bill Lawrence who created 'Scrubs,' it was his pilot. It was my very first TV job, and it was a sitcom. Ever since that experience, I've been so itching to get back to that kind of envi...
Remember, we really grew up separately; our life experience was very different because of segregation. So I think comedy is a good space to work those things out and educate everyone about the different experiences and different race groups in South ...
I think we're the only jokeless show on television. I mean really, we have no setups and no punch lines. It's not a joke show. There are funny lines and funny moments but again the comedy is born of the human experience and awkward pauses are a great...
The way I view comedy clubs is, people are drinking, they're ordering food, they're out for the night, and there's also a person onstage talking. And with the theater, they came to the theater, and they're waiting to hear what you say. So you'd bette...
There's a glorious sense of freedom in comedy, just allowing myself to tell jokes, allowing myself to interrupt myself and tell old African folk stories that I made up - or didn't - and Jamaican stories.
Other than friends and family, my favorite things are New York and stand-up. I love doing comedy in New York - I can do way more stand-up here than in Los Angeles.
'Family Ties' was a very successful situation comedy. And, in almost every respect, it functioned on a day to day basis like a well-run, well conditioned basketball team. The show was performed live each week in front of a studio audience on Friday n...
More than any other setting - more than battlefields or boardrooms or a spaceship headed for intergalactic travel - I'll put my money on the family to provide an endless source of comedy, tragedy and intrigue.
Being on a comedy tour is like traveling with family, everyone is all having a great time... then all of a sudden it turns sour. One thing gets said out of turn, and everyone is on everyone's last nerve. After an hour of silence, we all start laughin...
Talent grips us. We are overtaken by the beauty of Michelangelo's sculpture, riveted by Mariah Carey's angelic voice, doubled over in laughter by the comedy of Robin Williams, and captivated by the on screen performances of Denzel Washington.
Presenting the Oscars was the most nerve-racking job I have ever done in show business. It's very much a live show: they have comedy writers waiting in the wings, and as you come off between presentations, they hand you an appropriate gag to tell.
My hopes and aspirations haven't changed since I started in this business. They've been to be able to play drama, to be able to play comedy, to be able to play leading men, and to be able to play character roles. I have no other aspirations in this r...
You don't get a chance to take a breath but when you do, you have some really good comedy moments that ease up on the tension that the movie is centered around which is Kim being kidnapped and her son and husband being kidnapped and the jeopardy that...
Mike Myers as Austin Powers makes me laugh - that was genius - and Daffy Duck makes me laugh, but I like odd behavior. I don't like hip dialogue and one-liners and all that sort of cool, sophomoric comedy. It's just not for me.
Period costume films are fun to discover, but they're not relatable. It's more, 'Wow, that's cool - did it really look like that back then?' Whereas with a comedy, you're like, 'Yeah, that's me, that's my friends.' No matter what, I want people to re...
There's an audience out there for all these different types of things. Whether it's comedy, motion-picture drama, family movie or a cool, cutting-edge indie, it's nice to know that I can span all those different genres.
