I'm fascinated by failure, and I'm fascinated by finality. Shakespeare's historical plays are more universal than his comedies because they relate to the finality of life. Without finality, life would not be beautiful.
I'm obsessed with 'Game of Thrones.' I love comedies - I really like '30 Rock' and 'Modern Family.'
I learned everything that I know about comedy and about show business and a lot about life from Carl.
My theory is, if you can do comedy and you can be in a scene with someone like Brad Garrett and hold your own, you've really got a future in this business.
In school, I was playing old men and women, babies, Russian people, and all sorts of weird parts - a lot of comedy - and that's sort of like home to me.
When I was nine I spent a lot of my time reading books about the history of comedy, or listening to the Goons or Hancock, humour from previous generations.
Yeah, race exists. Racism is still here, and it's doing well. Turn on the news. I don't think me and my comedy can really change that.
We love the Stooges, and young kids today don't watch them. They think it's their dad's comedy. So we thought we could reintroduce them to a new audience.
Some people would say comedy draws from some dark places, from your dark stuff. Life's great optimists aren't necessarily the funniest people.
Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.
Directors, like actors, get typecast. And because I've had great success with comedy and horror and TV shows, that's basically what I'm kind of offered.
But sometimes it's good to dare yourself to do the unthinkable. And rather than stand in front of an audience with no clothes on, I decided to have a go at stand-up comedy.
Stand-up comedy is a sickness. Who wouldn't want a room full of people laughing and screaming at you just because of who you are? Nothing is as good, except maybe having a baby.
If I could sew comedy and philosophy together, then I've done a good job. The primary goal is always going to be laughs and the secondary goal is always going to be saying something without it being a lecture.
And I think it's very rare to have good stories, well written comedies.
I'm not good at telling a joke, but I can say a line in a certain way that makes people uncomfortable because they don't know whether to laugh or not, and I love that comedy.
I think comedy does have that powerful thing that doesn't seem too preachy because you're also making people laugh, so it's really kind of a good tool for messaging.
Because I think in order to get famous you have to be known for something. Like 'You're the romantic comedy girl' or 'You're the Oscar-winning whatever girl.'
Comedy is the slave of time. What seemed funny then is unlikely to seem funny now, just as what strikes us as funny now would not have seemed funny then.
TV is easier: it's all planned out for you and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over.
Probably spending 12 years at boarding school - comedy became a survival gene. But I think some people are funny right off the bat, as soon as they can speak or be naughty.
