Rob Riggle Quotes

You say a line and you wait for them to laugh, then you say another line and you wait... It felt weird to me. But it's interesting and the energy is almost like theatre, I suppose, with all the people there.

There's nothing like the freedom of being in a roomful of strangers and trying to make them laugh... You either sink or swim. It's like verbal boxing.

In comedy, when you bomb, especially at The Comedy Store in front of a sold-out house? I think it would have been way worse if I bombed there than losing a UFC fight.

It's hard to get laughs when you're new.

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.

When you're a stand-up, you play in front of 600 people, and it's all about timing. I could never do stand-up comedy; it would be way too hard for me.

TV is easier: it's all planned out for you and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over.

One time I happened to use the word 'denigrate' onstage, and it didn't get any reaction. So as I continued my act, the left side of my brain was fast-forwarding to see if I had any other big words coming up.

As a comedian, I'm forced to have a tough skin. Until people laugh, they are detractors. You walk into a new audience where nobody knows you, they go: 'Make us laugh. Show us what you're made of. Prove why we should be listening to you.'

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

I love the Comedy Cellar. The audience has no expectations because they don't know me. It's great. It's only winning - if I bomb, they just say, 'Oh, the French guy sucks.' But if I do well, then they remember me.

The Apollo seats 3,600 people: I could hear them making a huge noise for Milton Jones and Lee Mack. If the audience doesn't make the same amount of noise for you, you feel like you've failed.

It's easy to be silly in real life, but making stuff up onstage, that seemed hard. Better to be the funny person off-the-cuff in the room than to risk being unfunny onstage.

I never go see live comedy shows because I just sit in the audience thinking, "Here's what I would say. Here's what I would do if I got up there." It drives me crazy.

Having to stand in front of an audience and have it be your job to make them laugh, you can't really look to anyone but yourself. It's what you wrote, what you said and how you said it, so it's kind of terrifying, but I liked it. When it goes well, it's the best feeling in the world. When it doesn't go well, it's the worst feeling, but once you get into the rhythm of it, I think it's really fun.

My first open mic, I drank a full pitcher of beer by myself. I wasn't afraid of being in front of people as much as, Is this funny?

With stand-up you've just got that one chance. Audiences can be quite fickle.

I don't know any comedian who tailors his act to his audience. Maybe people say they do, but I can't even imagine them.

I feel that if you can play on the streets or in a comedy club, then in a theatre it's a doddle because you've got an audience.

When you're doing stand-up, you can comment if something fails, get a laugh from that.

It's grueling never knowing if the audience is going to think you're funny. It's soul-destroying when they don't laugh.

If you're a comic, you don't have a rehearsal room; you rehearse on stage. My main concern is remembering everything. I've written lots of material, but how do you memorise 90 minutes? That's one hell of a long speech. I've always had problems with that.

TV is easier: it's all planned out for you, and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up, but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over. To me, that's more pure.

A special validates you as a stand-up by documenting your material.

I suppose I'm going on stage and making jokes about the fact that the audience are expecting the show to be about something and that they might learn something.