Quotes About Comedy

Since 'The Office,' everyone has this idea that comedy is only good if it reflects the way people really speak. But that's nonsense - and it's a problem unique to comedy.

I haven't done much comedy; I would love to. I love doing dramatic roles, but I'd love to do comedy. I think it would be refreshing.

No, broadly speaking there is no average age in comedy, which is very refreshing. Any stress over success vis-a-vis age in comedy is just a matter of giving up short-term gains in favor of the long haul.

I'm afraid one thing - I don't like heights. Heights bug me out. I'm not cool with heights. I refuse to do a comedy show 12 stories up. I'm fearless about everything else.

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 regard.

Comedy. It was just huge in my house. Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness, Monty Python and all those James Bond movies were highly regarded.

Honestly, my biggest education regarding improv comedy actually came on the job working for 'My Boys.'

I got to a point where I wanted to have some dignity in what I'm saying onstage. I want people to hear what I'm saying, regardless of whether or not it gets a laugh. That became a lot more rewarding than straight acting could ever be for me.

Regardless of what kind of film, the number one rule of comedy is to never take yourself too seriously and then the next rule is you can't have any self-consciousness, otherwise it kills the laugh, and that will never change.

Regardless of where life has taken me, I'm always excited to come back to Canada. I will forever be a proud Canadian. In fact, a lot of my success comes from the fact that I come from a diverse place, and that translates into my comedy. I will always be Team Canada.

If I was fat and had a strong regional accent and was a bloke, I'd be a stand-up. Because I think I'm funny.

I'm never afraid to try something if I think it's funny. And I know I'll regret it if I don't.

My ex-wife, she really didn't like the material that I did. And that's something I regret, that I wasn't more careful about making sure that she was O.K. with it. I just sort of didn't ask. So that's how that goes.

My greatest regret as a writer is that I've never been able to include as many jokes as I'd like.

For me, I've been doing comedy for a long time, and I love it and have no regrets, but 'Chernobyl' expresses a side of me that is far more true to who I am on a day to day basis.

I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.

I love being a regular on 'Chelsea Lately!'

Saturday Night Live is hitting me on a regular basis again. This is my fourth decade that I've been lampooned on Saturday Night Live.

Comics are regularly asked to perform for impossible rooms. They're called 'hell gigs.'

I like the idea of being out there regularly with an audience and with a funny gang of people. That's what I grew up with - doing television, doing shows every week.

In terms of the series, we worked separately, getting together in rehearsal to beat out the material.

My mom was like, 'You talk so much. You have too much energy. Why don't you just join the play or something?' It was a comedy, and I got laughs in rehearsal, but onstage, in front of a whole audience, I got a lot of laughs.

You have to run, an awful lot, on instinct. Even on 'Veep,' it's not like you get weeks of rehearsal to break out what's going on in the scenes.

You know, radio was a really easy way to do the shows. You'd come in, do a read-through, there'd be a few rehearsals, then you'd come the night of the show and do it in front of the audience and then go home.