Mary Steenburgen Quotes

Standup led me to acting because I liked standup, and I saw people on a stage, and the closest, nearest thing to me was doing plays. It was like, that's the same thing as standup - people are on a stage; they're being seen and saying things - so, because of my love of standup, I moved towards acting.

I've always been an actor, even when I was doing improv and my own version of stand up.

I would like to explore comedy, I want to do more theatre, and I definitely want a future in film.

I was trained as an actress. But I wasn't a very convincing actress, so I started doing punk poetry and then fell into doing stand-up.

I started performing non-professionally at birthday parties and family gatherings doing 'Saturday Night Live' impressions at four. Then I started for real at seven.

I got into standup because I wanted to be an actor, and then I ended up loving standup for the next eleven years.

I find what I do for a living really funny. I mean, acting is kind of a hilarious thing for a grown man to call a job.

When I was at youth theatre and drama school, I never thought people would mistake me for a stand-up.

I never set out to do a sketch show.

I was really more interested in dramatic work, but I thought, 'Well, I guess I could do comedy.'

I like doing a funny show where I don't have to act and fall in love with a girl.

I did comedies for 10 years and I learned a great deal.

I made people laugh as a kid, but that's not how you make a living.

I think theatre helped, only because it was acting experience. I got to work with a lot of directors.

I guess my interest in performance has evolved and changed many times over the years.

I have played a few lay saints in my time.

I danced from the age of three, so I was always going to do something performance-related. I got into the Television Workshop drama group in Nottingham when I was 11 and went there for ten years.

I did improv for about 10 years professionally, and before that, I had done it in high school as part of an improv team. It was definitely a big part of my upbringing.

When I was younger and studying acting, I never ever saw myself in the sitcom world; it was drama that really turned me on and still does.

I was at college doing performing arts, and just spending all my time mucking about, and the lecturers thought I would be pretty good at stand-up, so I gave it a whirl.

I went to theater school, and then comedy... just happened.

I started in Shakespeare. I'm classically trained, which, how hilarious is that? Then one night, I saw Second City and thought, 'Wow, that's what I want to do.' But I never thought it would morph into screenplay writing.

Drama is what I'm really obsessed by. It's what gets me up in the morning, what I live for. But I'll always have a love for comedy because it was my first opportunity, and I associate it with my best friends, who I made during 'School of Comedy'.

I've been doing improv since high school, and I've been getting paid for it since I was 20.

I love comedy, and I always wanted to go that way, but I felt so passionate about drama.