Words matter. These are the best Jerrod Carmichael Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Performing for Dick Van Dyke once was fun.
L.A.’s pretty great, man. But I’ll be very honest – I prefer New York. It’s more my speed.
Being very, very honest, I’ve watched more Bill Clinton speeches than stand-up specials. Steve Jobs commencements. They’re just great orators. I love people who boldly share their point of view.
I’m inspired by people who are unapologetically themselves, from Bill Cosby to Fahim Anwar. Just funny people.
You know, ‘Cheers,’ you didn’t have to leave the bar because what they were saying in the bar was important. ‘All In The Family’ is the same rule. On ‘The Golden Girls’ they didn’t have to leave the table. And ‘Friends’ – the coffee shop. You can contain it if it’s interesting.
I grew up in what my mom will always dispute as ‘the hood.’ She just doesn’t like the name. But it had its similarities to any neighborhood like that. The all-black neighbors and the all-black problems and the all-black happiness. And I really loved it.
I use a note-taking system I learned in history class in eleventh grade.
I think people respond to truth. ‘Straight Outta Compton’ made $60 million over the weekend, right? That’s not just a black audience. ‘Empire’ grew every single week. That’s not just a black audience. Black culture is American culture, you know what I mean? They’re becoming more and more one in the same.
I don’t like the idea of being a human being, existing, talking to my friends, and having these real human conversations, and then getting to work on a sitcom and turning that part of my brain off.
When you’re onstage in theater, if you mess up a line, there’s no ‘Cut! We’ll get it again.’ It’s full steam ahead.
To say it very honestly, removed from ego, standup is just a thing that I understood, a God-given ability.
I want everything to be an honest extension of me. What better way than me talking? It’s a direct connection with everyone. With film and television, you make great projects, but stand-up is the thing that is completely yours.
As an artist, the most important thing and the most special thing is when your intention shines through on the work.
I’ve laughed hysterically, just trying to hold it in, at every funeral I’ve been to, because everyone’s so serious. And there are a lot of people speaking publicly, which makes you understand why it’s people’s number one fear – because everyone shouldn’t do it.
If you’ve ever liked an artist or someone who then does something or is accused of something extremely corrupt, and your moral conscience won’t allow you to accept that artist, the truth is then that creates a void in your life. Because then something you loved was taken from you.
I think there’s a responsibility more as an artist to try and push in the direction you think comedy should go… The biggest thing I could do for the art that I love was keeping it art: keeping it special, keeping it honest, keeping it truthful.
As a standup performer, I’m onstage, and it’s important how the audience is looking at me. I’m looking at whether they’re leaning forward or not, those types of things. You read an energy. And it’s the same thing in a scene with other actors.
I never really set out to be a comedian, but as a kid, I loved doing sketches and playing characters. And then a great friend kept telling me I should be a comedian, so I followed her advice and gave it a shot.
I look at Seinfeld – he looks like he’s having fun. He’s just enjoying being Jerry Seinfeld, you know, on ‘Seinfeld.’
If a thing is going to represent you, your vision, you should be involved in every aspect of that thing. I like my role as executive producer on anything probably as much as performer.
On a pure entertainment level, if I’m going to choose to listen to a presidential candidate speak on a Saturday night, it’s going to be Donald Trump over Bernie Sanders by a landslide!
I have this theory that I hold on to, the theory that everything great in art and in life in general is jazz. It’s just like all these things that just kind of seem to fall into place. You know, like mistakes that somehow turn into something beautiful.
Eddie Murphy did ’48 Hrs.’ because that was the only movie offered to him. And he killed it. Bill Cosby did ‘I Spy’ because that was the TV show he was offered. But now, there are networks dedicated to comedy, and the Internet… it’s so easy for comedians to not do things that aren’t true to them.
When you see U2 or the Rolling Stones, after years of knowing each other, they don’t have to look at each other to connect.
I didn’t choose to like Chik-Fil-A – I was born this way.
