I always wanted to be a comedian and actor.
To ask a pratfall comedian, a dishes-in-the-face comic like me, to lay back and bring none of that stuff to the script because it doesn’t call for it? That’s tough.
I don’t have a fear factor. Well, not much of one. And I’m willing to risk quite a lot – as a comedian, you’re always risking a lot. You’re risking failure, especially if you’re improvising and going on TV shows trying to make comedy out of thin air. That is quite a risky business.
Working with people like Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis is such a blessing because I’ve watched them a great deal. I grew up with ‘Friends’ and always aspired to work with someone from that cast. Jason is just such an amazing comedian.
Alan King, a comedian I adored, was considered society, and I was considered the Jewish kid from the neighborhood.
When I first realized that I wanted to be a stand-up comedian was when I was in the service.
I didn’t want to be a comedian. I was just funny. I jumped on stage and found out I was good at it.
I’m a comedian because I want people to like me. That’s really why all comedians are comedians.
A comedian’s body is funny as well as his mind being funny, his whole personage is funny.
I want more stand-up comics in prime time. It’s great for every comedian.
The most hardcore, edgiest comedian in the world has no desire to hurt people and make people have a bad evening. Everybody wants everybody to have a good time.
I really loved what I was doing being creative and being funny as a stand-up comedian.
To become the best comedian, I must be well-rounded.
I can be a bit movement-orientated and flamboyant because, essentially, I’m a physical comedian.
I’m just a comedian. I don’t have all the answers. But I’m not just looking for them online. I’m looking around me.
Basically I wanted to be a male comedian; those were my idols.
I always focused on being an actor. I did stand-up briefly, but I also did a lot of dramatic work. But since I’ve been on ‘The Daily Show,’ people think I’m a comedian. That’s not how I see myself.
If you go down as a comedian’s comedian, that’s basically meaning other comedians are hopefully feeling that you’re doing okay.
Real progress will have been made when people don’t care or even notice the color of a comedian when they’ll just be concerned with whether he’s funny.
I had a moment where I was onstage once… As a comedian, you just think, ‘Be funny as possible all the time – like, funny at all costs – jokes, jokes, jokes.’ That’s how my mentality was.
My goal is just to become a better comedian.
If I am known as a comedian or I get to be known as one, it is because of one of two reasons – either you have not tried or you have accepted it.
I feel that I’m a stand-up comedian more than anything else, that’s my job.
The bad thing about being a famous comedian is that every now and then someone approaches me to tell an old joke. Don’t tell me jokes – I have that. People also say the weirdest things, sometimes sarcastic things, and even evil things. They like to provoke to get a reaction.
Even when I lecture per se, I am a joke comedian, I can do the voices.
There was a time when I was like, ‘I’m a dramatic actor,’ ‘I’m a comedian’… There’s no line anymore. You have to be able to cross over.
I think I’m naturally very much a comedian.
I’ve never set out to write a funny movie or be a funny comedian as a woman. I am a woman. I don’t really have a choice in the matter. My goal is just to be funny.
I’m hardly a known name, but I don’t want to go, like, ‘Oh, people call me a storyteller comedian, let me just go up and just talk about my day.’ I don’t want that to happen.
I’m not a political comedian. That’s just not what I do.
That’s the beauty of being a comedian – it’s the one job you’re allowed to do that. We’re lucky. We’re really lucky.
After I finished university, I was gigging as a comedian in London as well as temping for Morgan Stanley during the day.
To tell you the truth, I always wanted to be a sketch comedian and a comedy actor.
You never have a comedian who hasn’t got a very deep strain of sadness within him or her. Every great clown has been very near to tragedy.
When I got into this, I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me, I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.
Someone said to me at a party once, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re a comedian? Then how come you’re not funny now?’ And I just wanted to say, ‘Well, I’m just going to take this conversation we’re having and then repeat that to strangers, and then that’s the joke. You’re the joke later.’
A lot of people think I’m a comedian.
I don’t want to have to be a teacher so I can be a comedian.
The most frightening thing about playing Dick Gregory is I’ve never done stand-up before, and I had to learn how to be a stand-up comedian, which was a bit of a challenge.
Jack is really the new breed, a wild-man comedian. America’s funnyman.
You can’t be a great comedian without having self-awareness about others or your own faults. You need a strong sense of self and view on the world. That’s what great actors have, too.
I want to be a little more dramatic nowadays. I definitely want something big and funny, but I look for things that can just have people see me in a different light and let me mature as both an entertainer and an actor and a comedian.
I had this website that, at one point, I listed myself as ‘actor, writer, comedian, and fart enthusiast’ just because I thought that would be a really clear joke.
I love Britain. I’m an Irish citizen, but I was born in Canada, and I’m a British comedian, really. My entire career has been over here.
I always wanted to be a comedian, but I wasn’t sure how you do that.
I think Jimmy Carr is very funny and probably the most industrious comedian I know and I really respect him for that.
A comedian sees the world bent. I’m tangent to the circle.
I think a comedian has a more specific job. Whereas a musician can fall into different categories, you know, of making background music or doing a soundtrack or wanting to be in a band or writing the song, or writing your own songs. And then comedy is a very black and white thing. You want to make people happy.
Turning into a full-fledged comedian involves a lot of hardships.
I toured as a nightclub comedian and did some television in New York.
I took an acting class. After the first day, the teacher quit, so they said take another. When I saw ‘How to be a Stand-up Comedian,’ it resonated. I realized I’d rather make 200 people laugh than make one person cry.
I consider Lena Dunham a comedian.
You know, as a comedian, that’s what you do. You speak truth to power by making people laugh.
I always think stand-up is the most brutal environment for a comedian.
The one thing that’s depressing as a comedian to realize is that rock stars get groupies, and comedians don’t.
The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth.
What made me a comedian was that I wasn’t really a songwriter, I was more of a poet.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with a comedian who stole except for when it’s been in anger.
A Canadian comedian once told me that when you first go out there to imagine that you’re actually just going back out for the encore, that all the clapping is because they’ve already seen you do your thing and they want to see more. You can train your mind to do anything.
I don’t consider myself a comedian because I don’t really concern myself too much with jokes.
The comedian sticks as religiously to her theme as a dancer sticks to a diet.
The thing with the comedian is you can make all the jokes you want and not every joke it going to be a winner, and not every joke is going to land, there’ll be some that somebody doesn’t laugh at, but that’s just part of the deal.
I grew up in a food-obsessed Italian family, so food was always front and center in my life. I was a food obsessed person who morphed into a comedian and tried to figure out a way to make fun of my cake and eat it too.
I try not to be one particular type of comedian – I try to be foolish, and silly, and surreal, and quite angry and sarcastic and dry.
I’m a physical comedian first – and I’m a woman before that.
The tags in this business don’t leave you… When I was a VJ, they called me VJ-turned-actor, then I turned into a comedian, and now I am a serious actor.
People always call me a comedian. And I don’t really see myself like that. I guess I just consider myself an actor who does comedy. But who wants to do other things as well.
When I tell people I’m a comedian they say, ‘Oh, are you funny?’ I say, ‘No, it’s not that kind of comedy.’
I like the ironic pomposity of a stand-up comedian. Like all those comedians thinking they can bring down Coca-Cola. They forget to be funny.
I would hate to be a standup comedian for ever. It would not be good. It would be the worst.
When a comedian can turn hero and has the will power to work out for a six pack, he can easily fit into the director’s scheme of things.
