Quotes About Comedy

Even though I only get a few days off, I do not stop, whether it's getting some stage time at an open mic or flying to L.A. to watch a ton of stand-up shows.

I love being a part of a romantic comedy. I've done a lot of comedies but haven't always had a ton of romance in them.

I've been watching a ton of Ali Wong on Netflix. I love everything she does - there's a fearlessness about her.

I recently saw HBO's 'Getting On,' and I was like, 'That's awesome.' I love that tone. It's a great show.

It's no coincidence that 'Night at the Museum' completely blew the lid off my career. I finally got a handle on tone.

I think one of my first jokes - in the black community, there's people who have jokes about skin tone. People like, 'You so black, you purple.' 'You so black, you gotta smile so we can see you at night.'

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.

I loved Peter Sellers. I thought he was the perfect mix of physical comedy with out-of-the-box humor. I loved his tone; I loved his physicality; I loved everything about what he was doing as a comedic actor.

My mom has a very high-pitched voice, and there are some similarities between her and the voice I use on 'Big Bang,' although my mom has the Jersey accent, so I took that out. But the tone of the voice is very similar to my mother's.

The emphasis in 'Notting Hill' was perhaps, I thought, slightly more on the romance than on the comedy. But I think 'Mickey Blue Eyes' is maybe slightly more on the comedy. And the tone on 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' it's a far sillier film.

'Spinal Tap' influenced me, I think, specifically in making me really pay attention to tone.

Comedy actually is quite difficult to do. The timing, the tone, the delivery, and the precise expressions are all very crucial, especially for actresses, because we are not given the author-backed punches.

Most of my films - if you look at the tone, apart from 'Shadows,' which is straight-up comedy - the tone is a mix between comedy and pathos, and I really love that.

I know there are a lot of comics that put their kids all over social media, but I think it's weird. There are over 100,000 people following you. To me, it feels like you should probably tone that down.

I think you have to have a sense of humor about every movie that you're doing. Your character needs to be relatable in a way that, even when you're doing the most bizarre things, sometimes a bit of tongue in cheek is necessary to keep up the believability of it.

I don't think all comedy should be mindless. Have something that's thoughtful. Maybe some things are tongue-in-cheek; maybe some things are very direct. I like that people have to think about things. That excites me. Because if you say certain things, it starts a dialogue. Even if you disagree, it's still a dialogue.

We actually did quite a lot of comedy on 'Xena'. The whole show was very tongue-in-cheek.

I think, with these shows, with 'Last Week Tonight,' with 'Full Frontal,' I think, as these shows have evolved, we all have research departments now.

In France, I'm not going to say the audience will laugh for nothing, but you could compare the response I get to the response Louis CK or Chris Rock would get if they go up in a club in Denver tonight.

With stand-up I could think of something now and say it onstage tonight. It's totally pure, I love it.

I'm not very into politics but I love watching shows like 'Last Week Tonight' - people come for the comedy and they stay for the interesting questions.

I remember seeing Letterman do stand-up on 'The Tonight Show.' Or, it's probably more accurate to say, I remember hearing him do stand-up, because the Carson show existed mainly as sound leaking under my bedroom door at night. I'd hear Johnny telling jokes and my dad laughing at them.

It used to be that if you got on 'The Tonight Show,' your career was made. Now, if you're on 'The Tonight Show,' maybe 14 more people show up to your gig in Tulsa.

It's really not that hard. If I do a Tonight Show, it's six or seven minutes. If I do a concert, it's 90 minutes. If I do an interview, that's 15 minutes. So by the end of the day I've done three hours worth of work.