Khandi Alexander Quotes

And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.

I think training in comedy, as it were, a history writing comedy, is a powerful tool for anyone.

I came from the Groundlings Theatre in L.A., and there, you're guaranteed to at least try something out in front of an audience. At 'SNL,' only the best stuff gets picked, and it's taught me a very defined language of comedy. You learn the structure of a joke, which is not something I was very good at beforehand.

I don't have any type of sketch-comedy or stand-up background.

Before I started doing standup, I knew that I had what it takes to develop an act. I went down to clubs with not many people there, and I just worked on it, man. A lot of my friends are comedians, so that part had a lot of encouragement, even though the shows were very caveman-like.

I think it's great training for any comedian to start on cows. Because with cows, you expect them to be bored and just stare at you blankly. And that's exactly what you'll get at a comedy club. If you can toughen up with a cow audience, then you'll never be worried with a human audience.

When I started out in comedy, it was common knowledge that it took about 10 years to get good. And that was okay because it took you about 9 years to get on television.

I've been writing joke songs since I was a kid and it served me well at S.N.L. I can write those in my sleep. In fact, I have.

I think sketch writing is a good spot for everyone to start because it requires you to develop characters, have a beginning, middle and end and have a bunch of jokes in a short amount of time.

I take class at the Groundlings, and my personal coach is Lesley Kahn.

When I started stand-up, the first thing I did was to take an improv class.

Comedy is not funny. Comedy is hard work and timing and lots and lots of rehearsals.

I'd say I've gone to grad school for comedy being on 'Community.'

After college, I knew I wanted to work in comedy, so the first thing I did was go to where the comedy was. I moved from Charlottesville to Chicago, because that's where The Second City and Improv Olympics are. You have to go wherever you need to go to study what interests you.

My background is in musical comedy. I didn't know I was going to be an actor. But all my points of reference have to do with musical comedy and in being kind of a showoff.

I wasn't even a big comedy nerd. A lot of the comedians I know - a lot of my friends are comedians - they knew a lot about comedy growing up.

Bad improv happens with people who are inexperienced with each other and don't know the craft that well. But bad stand-up is something that could happen to someone at any level in their career.

Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training.

It takes many years to be a great comedian.

The only way to stay sharp is to do live shows. There is no part-time comedy.

I always tell comics you got to hang with your stand-up.

If you pay attention, stand-up can be great improv training ground. But one of the things that helped me the most was doing warm-up for the 'Mr. Show' tapings way back when.

There is no 'magic water' that you can rub on a script to make the jokes funnier.

When I started out in stand-up, I was already used to speaking in front of people, how to project, control my voice - a lot of learning curves I had overcome.

Other comedians got love for me. But don't get it twisted - I'm not a clown, I'm a comedian and work hard as an artist. Clowns go to college.