Quotes About Comedy

I think comedy drama is a tricky one. But it's like in real life: often really tense, dramatic situations can be punctuated with the mundane and banal, and that's what we try to capture in 'Stella.'

He was so depressed, he tried to commit suicide by inhaling next to an Armenian.

If my mother hadn't laughed at the funny things I did, I probably wouldn't be a comic actor. After she had her first heart attack, the doctor said, 'Try to make her laugh.' And that was the first time I tried to make anyone laugh.

When I started out, I tried out all my stuff on national television. There were no comedy clubs, but even if there were, I don't think I would have gone to them. I used to do stuff in the bathroom, and then I'd drive down to NBC and do it on 'The Golddiggers' with Dean Martin.

I never really tried comedy, so it was exciting to be part of one and to challenge myself that way.

I tried to be a rapper. I tried to make beats before I got into comedy, and that's still one of my hobbies.

My mother and father were very strange people. They tried to be funny which is always very sad to me.

One night in a club in Boston, I tried the name Roger Duck. No laughs. The next night, I tried Orson Bean, putting together a pompous first name and a silly second name. I got laughs, so I decided to keep it.

When I tried to branch out into comedy, I didn't do very well at it, so I went back to doing what I do naturally well, or what the audience expects from me - action pictures.

I can't do jokes. I've always come from left field and tried to subvert conventional comedy. I started as a rebellion against that - albeit a very soft and surreal rebellion. It's escapist.

Steve Punt and I have always tried to go so fast that its physically impossible to heckle.

I was just coming out of prison, I was married, and I had a kid, and I didn't know what to do, so I tried stand-up.

I did sketch comedy, but I never did improv. So I've just tried to learn as I go.

The film I did with Bobby De Niro, 'The King of Comedy' - an awful lot came to me out of that movie because De Niro never allowed me any room to be crazy. If I had tried to play it the way I would normally play it and get hysterical, Bobby would punch me.

In Punjabi, we make romcoms or just comedy films because that's what the audience wants. They want family entertainers. We've tried making action films, but there are no takers for that.

The comics I hate are thieves. Nothing's more disgusting than a guy who steals another person's ideas and tries to claim them as his own.

There is no essential difference between the material of comedy and tragedy. All depends on the point of view of the dramatist, which, by clever emphasis, he tries to make the point of view of his audience.

I have two trifling ambitions in the theater: to make a lot of people laugh and to make a lot of money.

The one thing I think I've noticed about shows that are supposed to be funny on television is that they've sort of become routinized, so there's an awful lot of mannerisms and joke lines that are sort of there to trigger laughter, rather than give actors a chance to play a moment.

For many comedians, two common anxiety triggers include performing in front of family members and doing brand new material.

I don't feel like I thrive doing livestream comedy, per se. It really triggers a lot of little neuroses that I have about performing and it's not conducive to me to do a good job.

I'm not slim and trim like Johnny Carson.

That straight man character is a short trip between comedy and drama in a project, so I can play the comedic beat on the same page as a dramatic beat. It gives me a lot of freedom as an actor to play scenes in multiple ways because I don't play the clown, nor do I play someone who is particularly maudlin.

I don't trip all over my ego. I don't mind being a second banana.