Like every comedian, if I heard a joke that I thought would work, I used it.
People like Bill Murray are incredible at what they do and are definitely my flavour. Although Will Ferrell, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ricky Gervais are also incredible actors. In their comedy, they make these stupid people feel so real. These guys are really setting the bar very high, and I learn as much from them about acting as I do about comedy.
I always loved comedy, but I never knew it was something you could learn to do. I always thought that some people are born comedians ... just like some people are born dentists.
I think the second you think that you're funny is when you stop being funny.
Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
People confuse the subject of the joke with the target of the joke, and they're very rarely the same.
I remember doing a lot of comedy. I always loved that feeling when you do something on stage and you can feel the vibe of the audience turn, and they start laughing. It's how you know something's not right, and how to fix it, or how to make the moment stronger or funnier.
Stand-up is very broad strokes, kind of a skeleton of a story or something.
I think when you dissect a joke too much, you have ruined whatever there is in comedy.
Today's comics use four-letter words as a shortcut to thinking. They're shooting for that big laugh and it becomes a panic thing, using four-letter words to shock people.
I'm not a naturally funny man. I find that I can only be funny, if I become someone else.
Comedy is in my blood. Too bad it's not in my act.
There is nothing - nothing - like writing a great joke and having that joke kill onstage.
If you're a comedian, you are looking for material in daily life.
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.
The men loved jokes, though they had heard each one before. Jack's manner was persuasive; few of them had seen the old stories so well delivered. Jack himeself laughed a little, but he was able to see the effect his performance had on his audience. The noise of their laughter roared like the sea in his ears. He wanted it louder and louder; he wanted them to drown out the war with their laughter. If the could should loud enough, they might bring the world back to its senses; they might laugh loud enough to raise the dead.
I told a joke and people laughed and it was the best feeling. I knew I wanted to do this as a career. I never knew I could get such a high from telling a joke. There's something so extraordinary about having people listening to you and hanging onto your words - it's a great feeling.
Even in comedy, I'm always the straight guy, which is okay because that's a skill. But it would be nice to get out of that box.
Stand-up comedy is a very hard thing on the spirit. There are people who transcend it, like Jack Benny and Steve Martin, but in its essence, it's soul-destroying. It tends to turn people into control freaks.
As you get older as a comedian and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction.
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.
The funniest thing about comedy is that you never know why people laugh. I know what makes them laugh but trying to get your hands on the why of it is like trying to pick an eel out of a tub of water.
I believe that comedians do what they do, and then they get credit or criticism for doing it. There's nothing planned about this.
I think a lot of comedic actors, on their close-up they can deliver. But when it comes to reacting to other people being funny, that's work in itself.
It's just that, with comedy, the circumstances are just crazy-heightened, and you have these crazy things thrown at you. But you still have to do it truthfully, because that's where the humor comes from.
