Top 165 Improv Quotes

I’m terrified of improv. Improv in a show or in front of an audience sounds terrifying.

I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.

I was a very shy kid. In 8th grade, I had a teacher who got me into improv.

I like the adrenaline of playing improv – it makes me feel really calm.

There’s sketch, improv, writing, acting, music, and badminton. Those are the seven forms of comedy.

My main goal is to connect with the crowd. I leave room for improv. Whatever happens, happens. When I bring my band with me, it turns into the Craig Robinson comedy dance party.

Working on a sitcom and improv improves your comedic chops. If you do it long enough, the one thing you learn to do is listen to the other characters.

It’s always hard to watch bad actors improv on your skit.

I did improv classes just like any kid would do soccer or gymnastics or swimming. At one of my showcases, my manager came to my mom and said, ‘We would like to represent your daughter.’ My mom asked me that night if I would like to actually act, and I said, ‘Why not? I’ll give it a try!’

The way I was brought up in improv was that any idea you have is not as good as your partner’s idea, so if I see someone else initiating at the same time I am, I just defer to them because I assume their idea is going be better. And hopefully, they’re doing the same with me.

I belong to an improv group, I play cello, I have these phases – fencing, tae kwon do, baseball, ice hockey, boogie boarding in the summer, snowboarding in the winter.

My background is in improv and writing.

Very rarely do I talk off the top of my head on stage. I’m not an improv guy. I’m a writer-guy who presents what he’s written.

As a writer, I use improv to write. Exploring characters and stories through improv and sitting at the computer and thinking about what this character would say or do helps me creatively.

I do standup every week in L.A. at the Laugh Factory and the Improv.

I’m an improviser. I came up doing improv at the U.C.B. Theater in New York for seven years. That’s where I started, so improv is what I love.

The real art of what we do, at least back in the old-school days, was improv. If you were a great worker, you were able to adapt and that skill developed over time because of all the traveling and working in different areas. You learned how to read a crowd.

I feel like most standup comedians do it the way I did it, where you just go to open mics and cut your teeth. Sketch and improv – they take a lot of classes. It’s not unusual, the way I did it. It’s just that, with standup, no one knows how to start because there’s no book for it; there’s no place you can really go.

Our high school had a really good improv group.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time writing, acting, and making films. Because I’m doing all this extra writing, acting, and creating short comedy skits with my friends in improv shows, I feel like that’s really filled out my confidence on the mic.

I think there’s something really freeing about improv, that it’s a collective, creative, in-the-moment piece. That’s really exciting and really frustrating, because it’s there and gone.

I like to do as much improv as I can do.

When I moved to New York at 22, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I took an improv class, and the first scene I did, I felt like ‘I want to do this for the rest of my life.’ It was the first time I ever felt like that about anything. I tried to make a living off improv.

Certain movies like ‘Wag The Dog,’ we used improv on every scene that we did. Pretty much, we would shoot from the script and then some stuff that we came up with in rehearsal, and then we’d have at least one or two takes where we completely went off the script and just flew by the seat of our pants.

I studied structured improv, where you start from one position and see where it takes you. I like spontaneity. If you set yourself up to do the same thing every night, you may not connect as well to a different audience.

The hardest part about improv is getting the audience to relax and enjoy themselves, because most improv is not very good, and the audience is nervous for the performers the whole time. Not that they don’t even like the show, but they feel bad for the performers.

From there, I tried out for a community theatre play, joined an improv group… it all started opening up.

When I graduated from college, I moved to New York and started doing improv because I read all about the early ‘Saturday Night Live’ guys having come through Second City and learning how to improvise, so I wanted to get immediately into that.

In improv, the whole thing is that it is a relationship between the two people, as a back and forth. In standup, you don’t really want to be listening to what somebody is saying; you want to project your jokes into their face.

I’ve been a comedian, hosted travel shows, explored world religions, started improv troupes, given keynote speeches at conferences around the country, and had a milk shake named after me called the Handicappuccino.

I’m gonna be pretty honest; there wasn’t a lot of improv allowed on ‘Eclipse.’

I’m not from that world where you get on your feet and somebody gives you a suggestion and you improv your way through things.

I love improv. ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love,’ the script was really great, but the directors were open to letting you try different things. And that felt like a muscle I hadn’t exercised in a really long time.

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.

‘Eastbound & Down’ is giving you a rhythm. It’s just a whole different vibe with improv. As an actor I just kind of exercise within my environment and adjust depending on where I’m at.

We have a full writers’ room, and with something like ‘MyMusic,’ we’ve scripted it out with professional writers. There is some very basic improv from the actors, but everything is very to the letter, so it’s easy to edit down to an episode. There are fun little things an actor might throw in there.

I acted out a lot. I was very nerdy. I was very isolated, which I made up for by kind of talking and trying to entertain people and get them to like me, so I did theatre and improv in high school and college, but always as a hobby.

When I’m working with improv people, I give them the green light to just bring it and try things.

I think one of the things about listening is that it’s always at its most powerful when it’s present, when it’s right here, when it’s right now. And that’s a lesson about improv that I think just made me a much more social person.

I love goofing off and being awkward. I have always enjoyed improv.

I took an improv class, and after my first class, I was like, ‘Oh, I just want to do something like this. This is super fun.’

I come from a much freer kind of performance thing, where I rely on my own improv and my own sense of humor.

It’s so cliche, but I love the feeling you get from improv that anything can happen. The audience is already accepting that there are no props or costumes or furniture, so the performers can be anywhere doing anything; cut from underground to space, and it doesn’t matter.

I’ve always loved improv. It’s my thing.

My prayer is improvised – though like some standard jazz performance, the improv happens within pretty strict parameters – and asks for nothing.

Comedy chose me. I always had this urge to be silly that I couldn’t control. I remember my father having me read ‘The Three Little Pigs’ to him, and I would improv all around the story, like when one pig’s house got blown over, he put on his gym shoes and took off.

My improv definitely shows a different side of myself, which is more true to what my real humor is and what my real personality is, and I think – I guess ‘wild’ is a good word for it. I’m still sweet! But I won’t let anyone walk all over me.

I come from a background where I like collaboration and improv. I think that it is important.

For ‘Iron Man’ I had to improv with Robert Downey Jr., which is like going up against LeBron in basketball. At one point he stopped and said, ‘Can we give a round of applause to Olivia, because she’s rocking it right now.’

I guess I’m sort of spoiled because, most of the things that I get to do, people know that you’re a good improviser, so they allow you at least one improv take, and for comedy, that’s great.

When I finished my residency in New Orleans, I went to L.A. where I would work as a doctor during the day, and then at night I would actually go to The Improv and do standup, all the while kind of cultivating my comedy resume.

In college, I pretty much abandoned music and started performing with the school’s improv and sketch troupe, and at some point, that became my permanent thing.

When I got out of high school, I was working in restaurants in New York City, when I heard Bill Anderson from The Neighborhood Playhouse was doing private lessons. I started taking classes, and it was a lot of improv and Meisner and repetition.