Ari Graynor Quotes

Stand-up is a real art form in itself and one that I really think to be good at you have to devote your entire life to. It's the really, really good ones that end up getting to do the things that I like to do: movies, TV shows, and stuff like that. It's a really hard gig and it just never called to me.

Stand-up is an art but since it's humor and it's funny - a lot of guys that don't think it's art are probably coming from the angle that they don't want to take it so seriously. I've always looked at it as an art but I don't look at it as a pretentious art. I understand it has to be taken lightly because it is just comedy in the end, but the good stand-up comics are someone with something to say.

When you're casting a show, you have your idea of who you want it to be, and of course, those are going to be very well-known names.

I usually try not to think about actors while writing, because the odds of those stars aligning and you getting those specific people are so rare.

One thing I'm most proud of, in my movies, is that I think the performances are super-strong, but that's not all me. I think part of it is casting appropriately.

Every actor, I don't care what they say, their roles are a lot more interesting than we are, and at the end of the day, it's still entertainment or fantasy. I think we can learn a lot from the characters we play and I find that the characters are even more noble than myself.

Like everybody, I started out doing 'bringer' shows - the kind where if you show up with a certain number of people, you get to perform. Sometimes I would actually pay strangers off the street to come in and see my set.

I don't really write with actors in mind; I write with characters and then hope desperately that we can get good actors to play those parts.

I think casting is everything. You get a great cast and - certainly, as happens in 'The Hour' - so many of those performances on the page were transformed by those actors who took those parts and made it into something completely different.

When I play a part, I never think about likability.

The actors make the film. They're the ones that take this theoretical movie that's in your head and make it real. The success of a film is entirely on their shoulders. I admire them, because acting is such a difficult thing to do, and I personally can't understand it.

I was a born club comic. Radio and TV and stage were fine, but I found my real home in cabaret.

I call it 'new forms'. When you're starting out, they ask you to do four or five minute sets, but once you're a headliner, you do like 90 minutes. I try to think of different things to divvy up the show, like doing drawings, playing music... I gotta carry the show, that's the problem.

Comedy, although it is not one of the fine arts - it's a vulgar art, it's one of the people's arts, it's the spoken word, the writing that goes into it is an art form - it's certainly artistry.

I don't really think about roles - "dream roles." It's always about who's gonna be the person on the screen or who's gonna be the person on the stage and who's gonna direct it and put it all together.

Stand-up is an amazing art form, I think, because it's all about you having complete control of the situation, but absolutely none.

Theatrical times are different from concert times, to put it simply. Taking a figure like [Mahatma] Gandhi and setting him on a stage requires thinking about what theater is about and what the whole experience is about and what we're trying to communicate in that way, so you get into certain less abstract considerations.

I am very filmmaker oriented, as a producer. I think the most important thing is that you have to really choose the players carefully.

Now obviously popularity isn't everything when it comes to stand up comedy, but the art form itself is better today than it ever has before. I think there are more great comics. I think the standard is higher. The critical analysis is a little harsher, but that is also good. Maybe people have a higher standard than before, maybe they are a little more judgmental, a little more brutal, that makes people work harder. It makes the stand up better.

When we were trying to find the woman to play Maura Isles, it was a no-brainer when Sasha came in. We just knew it was her, and she did such a fantastic job. She got the job, right then and there, in the room, and it was great. We actually played a little joke on her. She's a great lady and we've had a really, really fantastic time.

My dancers are the real stars.

Acting is different all the time. When you're on set, different films, or just even in between, it's never the same. I think that's one of the things I love about it.

Movie is a near art form. It's showbiz and people want to make money. And generally people are financing things because they think it will make money whether it's a cable news show, a cable show, or a feature film, or whatever it is. So that's the part of it that drives it, I think, is really the dollar.

I've never, ever, in my entire life, been upset at a casting choice.

We play different people - our art form is performance art - so unless you're playing the same type of person, I don't know if you could improve or make it worse.