I think what I do in my acting world and what I do in my standup world is bring up a brand that I want to bring across. Once you figure out your brand and what you do, it's kind of easy at that. You end up getting your audience.
Richard Lewis has this incredible ability to look like he's just... you know it's an act that's been honed. What you have to do in standup is create spontaneity, somehow; even though you've done this act a million times, you gotta look like you're al...
As long as there is life, my dear friends, laughter will be the weapon of we who mock it even as we struggle to understand it.
I was supposed to write a romantic comedy, but my characters broke up.
The best comedy to me - and again, I grew up with comedy since I was a baby, so I've seen it all - is when you exaggerate the truth, like Richard Pryor did, you understand?
In the best traditions of American comedy, from its beginnings through the crash-bang comedies of the 1990s and 2000s, Leslie Nielsen skewered the otherwise proper, did it with mischievous delight and convulsed audiences mercilessly.
One thing that bugs me in comedy is when somebody does a fake cry, you know, like they fake cry in a comedy. But in a drama they'll really cry. That bugs me.
For me comedy and violence has a lot in common. Just as you expect, comedy always lurks behind the most unexpected of circumstances.
With comedy especially, it feels like such a clear-cut thing to be a writer-director. There is so much nuance and tone in a comedy that it's hard to contextualise it in a script.
The entire New York comedy scene has moved to L.A. - it's bled the New York comedy scene dry.
People wouldn't hire me for comedies. They would say, 'Oh, he doesn't do comedy,' and now it's really all I do.
You do develop a taste as an actress: Chekhov, Ayckbourn: it's the combination of comedy and human drama. I would never want to do anything without comedy.
Anyone can write. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas.
It's fun to do a comedy and hook people in and then hoodwink them into watching a serious movie. I like to lead in with the comedy and then hit them over the head with a drama.
I am actually talking about possibly adapting 'The Boys,' by Garth Ennis, which would not be a comedy, but an action movie with comedy elements to it.
You know, comedy's hard. With drama, you have a responsibility to the emotional truth, but with comedy, you have emotional truth and you have technique on top of it.
Since so many romantic comedies vary little in their storyline, the success or failure of such movies depends largely on whether we believe in the relationship of the protagonists.
The economics favour one-man comedy shows: all you need is one person, a microphone and a PA system. But I'm pleased so many people are making a living out of comedy - it's a wonderful business to be in.
I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.
I wasn't exactly uncomfortable when I did my first comedy. I was just very aware of the risks; if you do a comedy that sucks, and you suck in it, then you won't get a chance to do it again.
My first films were comedy, 'Murder By Death,' and 'The Cheap Detective.' But now they won't think of me as a comedian. Now, they think of me as a bad guy, and I can't do comedy.
