Jon Richardson Quotes

People don't understand how much time and work it takes to make somebody laugh, and how hard it is to write a script, to put together the story, the characters. When everyone laughs simultaneously, there's no greater feeling.

Even when I lecture per se, I am a joke comedian, I can do the voices.

I can't write a joke. I could never write. I do a lot of stories and I call them stories, but they're just comedy recitals on a given subject.

I write these shows one joke at a time. There's no continuity. I do try to figure an order to the stories, but there's not continuity.

I want to know why people are getting laughs. Why this joke works and why that one didn't work. It all comes back to helping me be a better WWE Superstar. So I love it.

Comedians who aren't screenwriters are telling jokes that they themselves think are funny. They're expressing their own view of what they think funny is.

Stand-up is more of an organic process. An imagined dialogue with the audience.

I think when you write something as standup material, it forces you to think about how you're gonna tell that story in one way, and then, when you get the opportunity to shoot it, you almost have to reframe how you go about it and rethink the entire process.

I think of myself as a theatre comic instead of club comic because I tend to talk for a bit before I start being funny. I don't really do the one-liners and five second bits or whatever. But it's good to work stuff out sometimes.

Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.

Once I began doing stand-up, I didn't get a kick out of the applause or being the centre of attention - but I did get a kick out of the jigsaw puzzle aspect of it, searching for the right bit, adding another few pieces each night until the bigger picture appears. That's the appeal: the challenge of it.

So many of these comics are just frustrated singers or actors - they want to get a gig doing a sitcom. It's paint-by-the-numbers comedy, lame joke-telling. They're drawn to it as a career move.

I think stories get better the more people try to amuse themselves.

When I used to watch comedians with my dad, he laid it all out for me. He wanted to be a comedian himself, and he was so funny. We'd watch stand-up on TV, and he'd tell me the subtext of what they were saying.

For me, the way I stay consistent is through stand-up comedy.

I don't really write jokes down. I tend to have a premise that I work out and test on stage.

I didn't really know how to write jokes, so I just told weird, long stories about being tall and beautiful and wealthy in New York. I'd tell them very seriously, but I kind of looked like a drag queen at the time with big wigs and crazy 12-inch platform heels.

I'm like the master of ceremonies being funny, and then sometimes people you're with, girlfriends and stuff, are like, 'God I wish I had the person on stage to be with all the time.'

I think a theater show is a pure version of me doing my material. The theater crowd is a bit more polite, there really aren't hecklers, and there are a lot of people there to see me, and they're excited about the jokes and hanging out with me for a show.

I love making stuff. There's a joy in having the first molecule of an idea, then testing it in front of audiences at secret shows that people only know about the day before. I videotape those, study them, enjoy being in the character and figuring out the movie.

Anybody with a sharp brain and a mic can become a comedian, but there's a need to move beyond it. The audience wants to witness the marriage of theatre, comedy and something more.

A lot of comics aren't their on-screen personas; Chris Rock isn't always ranting and raving. What I do is make myself this over-the-top character that people either find endearing or they think is a joke. Then I can do anything I want.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

I started doing radio pieces with no clear, preconceived idea, except that I have a tendency to be theatrical.

If you do a sketch, that's a very short narrative. Stand-up, it's bit-to-bit, minute-long narratives.