Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I'm not a comedian. I can play off of people, but I'm not that guy. I don't want people being like, 'Yeah, he should have stuck with drama.' It would not be my choice to have critics mumbling that.
During my theatre days, I was more comfortable doing comedy. It's such an irony. I have always played a buffoon on stage, and yet I don't have any comic role to my credit.
I would like to do more dramas when I find a good role that will allow me to politely upset people's expectations of me as a comic actor.
You don't service a big, fun premise comedy and then shoot yourself in the foot with too much irony. You need the audience to invest in the fun and the warmth and generally care about the characters.
I see myself as a comic but the acting helps sell tickets for gigs.
You can't be a proper comic unless you've been out on stage and felt the fear.
A lot of comics fly by the seat of their pants, and they pride themselves on being witty, quick, and off-the-cuff. That's not my show. I wrote a show, and I want to do the show I wrote. I'm not interested in what the audience has to say.
There are lots of actors, and you need a way to stand out. Writing comedy sketches was a way of doing that.
I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly.
I'm a quite serious actor who doesn't mind being ridiculously comic.