Entertainment Risk Quotes

I wanted to do an episode about Chuck having a gambling problem. I wanted to portray my addiction on the show. But I think it's a little edgy for Saturday night.

We can guarantee you that 15 to 30 seconds of any of our songs are going to be good. The rest, we can't guarantee.

The essence of show business is, if you see a tight-rope walker go across a tight rope, everybody claps. But, if you see him wobble, everybody gasps.

Doing drama is, in a sense, easier. In doing comedy, if you don't get that laugh, there's something wrong.

Many, many years ago, I stood on the stage and told bad jokes and did Sophie Tucker as an impersonation, and nobody looked up; and suddenly, I looked down and said, 'Sir, I'm getting fed up with you. Either you watch, or I'm going to suck your neck,' or words to that effect, and suddenly people started to laugh.

As an announcer, I have nothing but respect for the fighters, and I want to make sure I do my job to let the people know who these courageous warriors are, because they are putting their lives on the line for our entertainment, and there's something to be said about that.

You have to be on your game with a live audience because anything can change.

I feel the life expectancy of a comedian is 30 seconds. If you don't hook an audience in half-a-minute, you're dead.

It is exhilarating and dangerous to perform live. You are walking a tight rope in front of hundreds of people: anything could happen on stage, and whatever does, you must find a way to make it work.

You always worry before your movie opens that no one is going to come out.

When you go out there to do comedy, you feel like you're doing battle with the audience a lot of the time. You're either going to get 'em, or you're not.

I can't say 'OK, let's begin to exchange and see where it goes.' We want to give a fight and give people a good show, but you have to play on a safety zone.

It's a roll of the dice in the movie business. I mean, every single movie is a roll of the dice. Any movie on paper could look like it's going to be fantastic. You know what I mean?

Horror movies can really go one way or the other - they can go amazingly or they can go terribly - and it's generally an extreme, in one way or the other, so you have to be very careful.

The audience goes to sleep really quickly! If you have a slight pause at the wrong time, that's it!

I don't know, I'll probably make the first superhero movie that bombs.

I enjoy performing for heavily armed people. It's easier than going to Georgia.

More is asked of you on stage. It's no way to make a living. But it's like a bullfight. You find out who can do it and who can't.

TV is tricky. You can do some stuff and people will tune out and never tune back in. It's sort of like putting a bad taste in somebody's mouth. Some people may not ever tune in again. And then there's some people that will tune in just to tune in and see what's gon' happen.

With comedy, it's really hard to tell if something's working on the page - you really need the actors to bring it alive. The scariest part is if people will laugh or not.

Sometimes the critics will like a film, and the public doesn't come. Sometimes the critics won't like the film, and the public will come. It's completely spontaneous. It's a hazard.

My first stand-up experience, like most comics, was horrible. I got booed offstage. I thought I was funnier than I was. But the walk from the back of the room to the stage was the most excited I'd ever been about anything in my life other than kissing a girl. That's how I knew I had to get back onstage and do it again.

When we were making The Fugitive, we all thought it was going to bomb.

I'm always game for everything. What people don't understand is that the networks are who you have to get to take a chance on you. I wanna do it all. The trick is convincing a network to do it with you.

You can't predict a show, that is the damndest thing, you can't predict if a show is going to work or not until it's on the air.