Bo Burnham Quotes

I always wanted to entertain. When I was little, I would sing in front of the mirror with a hairbrush or my sisters and I would make shows. I always wanted to be on TV.

A lot of the time, you're supposed to play to the top of your intelligence, as truthful as possible. But when you're on stage making people laugh, you're still acting. I think it helped me a bunch to go on stage two or three times a week.

It seemed fun to play a villain on stage and I wanted my jokes to be so good that I could just calmly tell them on stage.

Jesse has opened for me extensively on the road so I’ve seen him do hundreds of sets. He is always super funny, has tons of material and the crowds love him. Bottom line, Jesse Joyce is a great comedian.

Just because you don't know how to do stand-up doesn't mean you don't know how to put on a show.

There's a witch under this hair. The red lips are - I don't want to call them "armor," but they're the clothes of my character, and I'm in the business of entertainment. Wearing red lipstick helps get me into that world.

I like entertaining people. I like being on stage. I like being in the life. This is what I do. This is the only thing I know how to do besides rob people and fight. Even when I was robbing people, I was entertaining them. But that's just what I love doing.

You're just playing a role, whether it's a drama or a comedy. I find it really fun to sort of play opposite Uma.

Everything I do is intended to make people laugh and think. I just think something is funny, it's not hurting anybody, not stabbing anybody, not shooting anybody, not making anybody watch me perform. There are thousands of comedians, don't come see me because it's not like I hide it.

Your only guidepost is your own instinct and judicious editing. In my stand-up act I learned that in the first 10 minutes I could say anything and it would get a laugh. Then I'd better deliver. In the movie it's the same thing. You get a lot of laughs when people first sit down and then the story better kick in. Many years in front of an audience, I would hope, give me a sense of what works.

If it's just the voice, then you can only do jokes. It's not really even about the impression so much. It's about the take and what you do with the person. I try to get a character across with the impression.

As far as just my stand-up is concerned, I don't care about changing anyone's mind. I'm not making an argument. I'm a guy doing comedy.

I sat down and wrote some jokes and went to the talent show, got up on stage, fell in love with it and never turned back.

I think anybody in front of a crowd is a comedian.

When it comes to acting, it's about creating a character and bringing forth a director's vision. It's a weird feeling, because with acting, it's just not about me. I love being in that position, because with the music, it's always about me.

As a comedian, you have to start the show strong and you have to end the show strong. Those are the two key elements. You can't be like pancakes. You're all happy at first, but then by the end, you're sick of 'em.

Stand-up is just me trying to be as funny as possible in the most concentrated hour with me standing on stage with no storyline, no plot line, and no character development.

I want to be an actor, maybe a comic actor but a real actor.

Stand-up, for me, is really more of an addiction, so you have to feed the beast whenever you can.

The trick is not to become somebody else. You become somebody else when you're in front of a camera or when you're on stage. There are some people who carry it all the time. That, to me, is not acting.

Being an actor means asking people to look at you. I guess I accept that. But it's a profession in which the job is to show another world and other people. You may access it through bits of yourself, and your imagination and experience, but actually, in the end, you're not playing yourself.

Who I am on stage is just an amped up version of who I am in real life.

When you're doing stand-up, you want to stand onstage and, to the extent that you can, uncomplicatedly entertain.

I like to do talk show appearances where I get to just be myself, and I do stand-up where I can completely be myself. That's what I've always loved the most, of anything.

I'm a total performer.