Dominic Cooper Quotes

I told jokes badly.

Having written both comedy and drama, comedy's harder because the fear of failure's so much stronger. When you write a scene and you see it cut together, and it doesn't make you laugh, it hurts in a way that failed drama doesn't. Failed drama, it's all, 'That's not that compelling,' but failed comedy just lays there.

I'm terrible at practical jokes. I do them too well, so they're not funny. I end up saying, 'Oh, no, I'm joking, I'm joking.'

I tried do stand-up, and I was horrible. And I'll never do it again.

Writing a comedy script is a difficult thing. I think if someone is attempting a comedy and then they fail then it's understood.

There's nothing worse than trying to be funny and not being funny.

Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one

You pretty much have to be bad at it [stand-up] for several years to get good at it, so there's no avoiding embarrassing yourself.

Writing humor in my column isn't as dangerous as performing it. If I fail in front of a live audience, the humiliation is as great as anything a human being can suffer.

Humor is hard, hard, hard. And if you fail with humor, you don't fail halfway. You drop the ball humor-wise and everyone notices.

When you do stand-up, you're just concerned with trying to leave with some semblance of human dignity at the end of your performance.

It's quite frightening; the business of trying to be funny is very hairy. In comedy, the potential for humiliation is huge. Trying to be funny and failing is about the most embarrassing thing you can do.

You gotta have the balls to go out there and be funny, man.

I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it

Never try and go on a solo mission on your own.

I'm not a big one for jokes. I can't tell a joke, believe it or not. If you gave me a thousand bucks and said, "Don, get up at a party and tell a joke," I'm the worst.

Whether one has natural talent or not, any learning period requires the willingness to suffer uncertainty and embarrassment.

If you do not join the dancing you will feel foolish. So why not dance? And i will tell you a secret: If you do not join the dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying. if you dance badly to begin and we laugh, what is the sin in that? We will begin there.

If it doesn't work, at least it will be an interesting train wreck.

No, I don't, like, play an instrument or anything.I'm just...well, you saw me at the beginning there. I was the guy that fell down and died.

My headshot is a scratch and sniff, it smells like failure and onions.

The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.

Drama, it would be as if you wrote some poetry. You'd run the risk of being embarrassed if people read it, because you're pouring your heart out and you're not mitigating it with any humor or anything.

I always remember writing a page of jokes for a comedian and handing it to him backstage at a club and he read it and then took his cigarette lighter and lit the page on...

I gave my artistic laugh and also threw in some quirky language for good measure. "Lawks-a-mercy, no! I'm going to have a long bath and..." I looked shyly down. Which is pretty impressive to have done artistic laugh, quirky language and shyness all in the space of ten seconds.