comedic skill Quotes

I have a lot of respect for actors who do comedy. They do it naturally.

Comedians dissect jokes all the time. Comedians are beautiful structuralists. But ultimately it's an athletic endeavor. You have to be able to just hit the backhand. You can't think about all the pieces of it. You can't think about your swing. You just have to do it. Reading someone else's deconstruction of what I do, all it does is put me in my head. On nights when the show goes particularly well, I am not aware of its fluidity. A lot of nights I'm just worried that I'm not going to be as good as the script in front of me.

I don't think of myself as funny - I don't fill up a room with my humor... I would fail miserably as a stand-up comedian.

I'm always blown away by stand-ups. I'm blown away by people like that who are craftspeople at comedy.

The jokes are great but what really matters for a comedian is his performance, his whole attitude, and the laughs that he gets between the jokes rather than on top of the jokes.

I love hecklers. They remind you that you are a comedian.

I'm no good at the one-liner thing. It's just not me.

That's the difference between a great comic and a bad comic - one has great instincts and has a lot of compassion and can feel what's right and what's wrong.

Joy Behar... Is never even funny accidentally.

The great thing about Eminem is, he's just hysterical. You forget, people like Eminem because he is riotously funny. And he's a great actor.

You can't really do comedy if you're working with Ryan Reynolds, eh? He outplays everyone in that field, so I couldn't really 'dial it down,' because he was just so much better than me at comedy.

The real challenge in acting is in comedy. It's easier to get that gasp in a drama. Not easy, because you still have to find that emotional pitch. And when you do something in drama and you hear that sob from the audience it's so fulfilling. But as a comic actor, when the laugh is supposed to come and you punch in that line and nothing happens it is dreadful. It's horrific and you feel like dying right there.

I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.

I'm not a good joke teller.

I think that's something that people don't realize enough about when they get into comedy - it's not just about sitting back and observing and saying something funny.

Comedy is much more challenging, because you have to have the same level of belief but you have to make people laugh, and that's definitely a challenge.

Melissa and I both say we don't write very good jokes.

Lucille was a darling lady. Probably the finest comedienne in the business.

I can cry at the drop of the pin. But comedy is hard for me; it's the timing.

I can make people laugh at the drop of a dime. God's given me that ability.

To my family and friends, I'm very definitely a clown. But do you know what? Doing a drama would almost seem easy because I wouldn't need to find that gag in a line.

Comedy is harder than drama, because with comedy you're expecting a result..you make them laugh. [If] they ain't laughing then you're screwed.

There are some actresses that can't do comedy; it's too heavy-handed.

It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it.

My preference is for people who can do sketch comedy or situational comedy, where it's not a joke, but it's telling a story.