Quotes About Comedy

Laughter is binary: It either happens or it doesn't. As each joke arrives in the course of a film, the cavernous space of the theater is either filled with joy and laughter or with the quiet of cringing embarrassment. Every time you step to the plate to make a joke, you're going to experience one or the other.

I never consciously got into comedy. It was sort of one of those things where I was a theater student, I was acting, I was doing comedy, I was doing dramatic stuff, so it's been something that I've always done and enjoyed doing and had an instinct to be relatively good at.

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 and stuff, but really, I was just more interested in the comedy of it all. So for me, it's always comedy, and then acting is just one medium of comedy.

I've always loved movies, and enjoyed theater and stand-up comedy and I had a knack for writing and performing.

Theater has always been much more fun. You get a laugh, and it's really encouraging.

Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, women - we're all trying to find our place in this world of cinema and television and theater. And the great thing with comedy is that most of the time, you could be orange. It doesn't matter, as long you're funny.

I started off at the Second City in Chicago... It's an improvisational theater that ostensibly does social and political satire, but when I was there, we generally didn't. We did character work, and we did just the silliest things we could think of. We weren't all that concerned with, you know, changing the world through mime.

I was always just like, 'Standups are making it up.' A lot of people have that myth about standup. And so it wasn't until I was in college for theater school in Boston that I realized I can actually start going to open mics and figuring this out.

I was kind of lucky that I had done so much theater over the years, because basically a sitcom is kind of like a hybrid between a film and a play.

I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.

You go to a theater now and you literally see parents watching the movie and they suddenly cover their kid's ears. I figured I'd make one movie where they didn't have to do this.

I don't really like doing big stand-up. Whenever I do theaters, I don't like 'em. I don't think they're right for stand-up. I've seen people in theaters, and it just doesn't work, because you're talking to the guy next to you the whole time.

I'm the first one who sees every romantic comedy in theaters.

Whenever I do theaters, I don't like 'em. I don't think they're right for stand-up.

Other than Caroline's in New York, I pretty much haven't done clubs. That was primarily because I always liked the people and audiences at theaters and bars better.

I've been doing stand-up since I was 19. There have been times I've had to step away because of my schedule, but now I'm able to go out and do theaters and not smoky little bars.

You should always ask for a refund at the theatre, apart from my shows, of course, where I won't be handing out any refunds.

I came from the Groundlings Theatre in L.A., and there, you're guaranteed to at least try something out in front of an audience. At 'SNL,' only the best stuff gets picked, and it's taught me a very defined language of comedy. You learn the structure of a joke, which is not something I was very good at beforehand.

I've done movies with Oliver Stone and Michael Mann. And I've done quite a few dramas in my time, from the theatre to film work. I just think the audience is used to seeing me on 'Saturday Night Live,' and 'K-9,' and 'Curly Sue' and of course, 'According to Jim.' I think that my comedies have been the most popular.

I'm grateful to be working. The most exciting thing for me is that I never get bored - I've done comedy, drama, musical theatre and now Shakespeare.

I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre, and that's really where my training is.

Having done film, TV and theatre, the nicest final bit of the jigsaw is to do live comedy, because you can talk to the audience. It feels really natural to be able to laugh with them, but at the same time still be within the framework of a play.

During my theatre days, I was more comfortable doing comedy. It's such an irony. I have always played a buffoon on stage, and yet I don't have any comic role to my credit.

I love going to the movie theatre, seeing live comedy, and going to amusement parks.