As a kid, I loved Paula Poundstone and Richard Pryor. But my mother was a huge influence on my comedy.
I get a lot of flack from critics that my comedies are all over the place, my dramas are all over the place, they're schizophrenic - as if I don't know that!
When Kubrick decided to go the black comedy route with his movie, he thought of me to give it that flavor.
I like horror; I like comedy; I like drama; I like action; I like female heroes.
I consider a CD or a comedy collection as a record of what I've been doing, and I try to wrap it up and start new material.
I consider myself a serious musician. Doing a comedy show does not take away from that in any way.
Horror is a totally different animal. It's intense. You can do drama or comedies, but in horror, you really have to trick yourself into believing a lot of unbelievable phenomena.
A lot of actors are like, 'Why do I do this? My character wouldn't do this? This doesn't make sense.' And in a comedy, you kind of just need to walk into the door.
I don't want to be known as this goody-two-shoes who can only do comedies where puppies are licking peanut butter off my face.
The fine line that you do when you do political comedy is, as long as you have that laugh, you're fine.
I really like doing television shows, and I anticipated doing a comedy, because that's the place I feel the most comfortable - those are the risks I want to take.
Comedy isn't polite and it isn't correct and it isn't accurate, even. It's just a mess. So that's the way that I approach it.
The violence or the vaudeville style of comedy is a technique all by itself. You get up there, and you are a comedian, and you're doing one thing. That is, you're going to make the audience laugh.
'The Dice Man' is an anti-establishment cult novel, and you don't normally make studio films from such dark comedy material.
Old radio comedy makes me laugh, as well as 'I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue' and comedians like Paul Merton.
With comedy, it's really hard to tell if something's working on the page - you really need the actors to bring it alive. The scariest part is if people will laugh or not.
I'm not saying writing comedy's brain surgery, but there is a certain pressure to it. It's the equivalent of doing homework that's going to end up on national television.
Comedy is created when someone is trying very earnestly to do what he feels is the right thing to do at that moment.
There's no reason to do 'ex and the City' if it's not going to be everything 'Sex and the City' is, which is vibrant emotions, comedy, drama... and also, style.
In comedy, you have to be unafraid to hang from the tree branch naked in the high wind and you have to be absolutely unafraid to look ridiculous and silly.
Comedy is obviously a matter of personal taste and the world always needs a clown and some people have no taste at all and any clown will do.
