I’m very much inspired by things that anger me. If I see bigotry, stupidity, or injustice on the news, I’m inspired to find a way to make it into something comedic and relatable. Anger inspires me. Stupidity inspires me. My family inspires me. My accountant inspires me. Everything and anything, really.
If you look at ‘The Best Man,’ there’s a lot of humor in that, but I never consider that movie a comedy. I felt that it was a drama with comedic elements and comedic parts to it.
I think a lot of quote-unquote ‘comedic actors’ really go for the laugh and are overly straining and sort of trying.
It’s funny because being comedic and happy and lighthearted is who I am as a person, so they’re easier emotions for me to connect with.
I did improv in junior high school. Figuring out my comedic timing helped my confidence in talking to the bullies and talking to people in class. If I could make them laugh, then I was in; I was OK.
‘Friends’ played in this territory of being funny, and then also just grabbing your heart. And not afraid of that. It was a comedic soap opera. Not being afraid to have an audience feel something, laugh and cry, was quite extraordinary and quite wonderful.
The last person they expected to connect with a screenplay was the comedic, blonde actress with the funny voice.
I have a lot of funny friends, and we joke a lot, but I’ve never really played comedic parts.
I’ve always just admired women who were able to navigate through dramatic and comedic waters and sort of do it all.
A lot of times, comedic actors are discriminated against. People just assume they can’t do something other than what they do, rather than thinking, ‘Oh, wait – doing what they do normally is really hard.’
I remember watching ‘I Love Lucy’ with my little brother. We were obsessed with ‘I Love Lucy.’ And I just remember thinking, ‘I want to do that.’ I love old comedic actresses – Madeline Kahn, Lucille Ball.
I’d love to do a comedic film. I’d love to do a very epic Shakespearian film.
Comedy and tragedy co-exist. You can’t have one without the other. I’m of the school that anything can be funny if seen from a comedic point of view.
I just try not to look at any role as a comedic role or a dramatic role. I just try to stay in the movie I’m in.
My friends say I make them laugh a lot, so I think that somewhere in me is a little comedic ability that comes out in the most inappropriate or unexpected moments. I did a lot of sketch comedy years ago. That’s always in me.
When I got to ‘The Daily Show,’ they asked me to have a political opinion. It turned out that I had one, but I didn’t realize quite how liberal I was until I was asked to make passionate comedic choices as opposed to necessarily successful comedic choices.
With shows like ‘The X-Files’ or ‘Eerie, Indiana’ – even though they would have comedic moments, even though they would have character moments – there was a sincerity about magic.
A few years ago I was participating in a comedic ‘Inner Beauty Pageant’ and I had to figure out a talent very last-minute. I always loved Tyra Banks’s ‘We were all rooting for you!’ moment, and so I decided to lip-sync live to the six-minute entirety of it as my talent.
We don’t really see a lot of comedic moments in ’24.’ In fact, I haven’t seen all of it, but from what I have seen, I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed at anything that anyone has done on ’24.’
You know, the comedic and horror thing was the key to ‘Zombieland,’ which is a comedy first.
When I do an action thing, it speaks louder than the things that I’ve done that are dramatic and comedy. Actually, if you look at my resume, I have just as much comedic things as dramas, and I have far less action things than all of the other things, but I’m kind of defined as an action person.
People always ask about my dad and his comedic influence. It’s funny because my mom is really the comedian of our household.
