Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It’s harder.
When you are the lead in a romantic comedy, you have to worry about people really liking you.
I’d actually love to do more comedy, but what I really wanna do is an indie drama – an intense indie road-trip movie.
The basis of tragedy is man’s helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man’s helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).
How to do half-hour comedy innovatively is something I do pride myself on. We invented it with ‘I Love Lucy.’
There are a hell of a lot of jobs that are scarier than live comedy. Like standing in the operating room when a guy’s heart stops, and you’re the one who has to fix it!
I mean comedy is something that’s very personal and people have strong opinions about.
I never wanted to be a model. I never wanted to be a serious actress. I started off doing comedy. I did a stand-up comedy camp at the Laugh Factory, and I started out on Nickelodeon.
There are thousands of ways to make people laugh – satire, black comedy, slapstick.
Comedy is a weird thing.
Comedy is very effortless.
With stand-up, I can have an idea, go down the street to a comedy club and work on it, flesh it out, book a venue, people will come, then film it. I do all that myself; I never have to answer to anybody.
It’s easier to play a dim character, for me, because I have a natural bent for comedy. It’s not intrinsic for me to be crafty, so I would have to go outside for a source of origin. I think of myself as pretty dim.
’24 Hour Party People’ was a comedy, and I knew that from the beginning.
Comedy is great because there’s no overhead.
If I’m really considering doing film from now on then that is the smart thing to do, or you can go either way. You can just do the same character over and over again and make a different comedy like over and over again.
I want to write a book which is the history of comedy.
I’ve got no dark secrets, I wasn’t beaten up, my parents were kind to me and there was a low crime rate where we lived. Maybe that’s where the comedy comes from, as some sort of reaction to the safe, boring suburbs.
In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it.
I am really happy that even though I am stuck in the comedy genre I have not been typecast. I am still getting to experiment a lot with my characters, which is a boon.
I’d like to classify my life as a romantic comedy. Unfortunately I feel it’s probably more like a TV reality show.
Women and minorities have excelled beautifully in comedy, but very few women are the lead in a drama.
