Romesh Ranganathan Quotes

When we first started 'The Big Bang Theory,' I would get incredibly nervous because it's such a big show and I was just out of graduate school. I'd come in and have this huge responsibility for the one line that everyone hopes will bring down the house.

I'd like to go back to standup. I don't like to think I've done my last gig. At the moment it terrifies me, I get really nervous. It's a great buzz when it goes well.

In standup, the feedback is instantaneous, and if it fails, you know you'll be off-stage and hiding in a short time.

Every single night I'm nervous. You never know how the audience is going to react.

The first night you walk down to a comedy club, at least for me, I had my voice, and then I went on stage and I lost it.

I can never tell when something is funny. I just have to do it onstage and find out.

I could never do stand-up because it's that thing of having to get up on stage. And out of every 10 jokes you tell, nine of them have to get a really good response.

There isn't a comedian in the world that hasn't bombed.

You're in front of an audience, but you're playing for a camera. There's this huge adrenaline rush, because you know that besides the audience in the studio, there are millions of people watching at home.

If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.

But television, when I was doing it, was all about scoring. You had to make these jokes bang, do whatever you could to make the material really pop. And if it didn't, there was something wrong with the material, or with you.

If I walk out onstage and I get a warm, excited response, it makes me feel so confident and happy, and then it's so easy for me up there.

I haven't really done a lot of comedy. It's something that terrifies me.

I failed to get into drama school, and my best friend told me I should do stand-up instead. I was always doing gags and voices, so he booked a gig for me without telling me. I only had four days to write it. I did a seven-minute set; the first four minutes were terrible, but the last two were amazing.

Showing your movie to an audience... it's like your kid doing a piano recital. 'Just let it not fail. Please.'

When you're onstage and you know you're bombing, that's very, very scary. Because you know you gotta keep going - you're bombing, but you can't stop.

I much prefer doing comedy. I get a little paranoid when the audience is not laughing.

If I'm not nervous, I'm nervous. You never know how people are going to receive the work.

I was afraid no one would laugh, and I wanted to pretend I wasn't noticing the audience. I didn't want the audience to get the idea I was telling a joke and waiting for a laugh.

My first live performance was when I was in the military. I went to some bar, and they had open mics. You could just sign up and perform. Nobody cared. Nobody liked it.

The Apollo Theatre was a difficult audience, and if they didn't like you, they would let you know. Luckily, they liked me.

A joke bombing on stage doesn't bother me, especially if it's intended to bomb.

When you're in front of an audience, you know if it didn't work. I get very nervous and have a fear of failure that is much more profound than in the podcast world.

With a live performance, you feel nervous because there's a sense it could do well or badly based on how well you are performing, whereas the only variable with a film premiere is technical, which invariably you have very little control over, whether the sound is good, whether the acoustics of the room are good.

Writing humor in my column isn't as dangerous as performing it. If I fail in front of a live audience, the humiliation is as great as anything a human being can suffer.