I suppose some studio executive would say it's death for a comedy if people aren't all laughing in the same places, but I find with my movies that people laugh in very different places. I can't control it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Comedy is so subjective. You could be in a room with 400 people laughing at a joke and you could just not think it's funny. You're just sitting there like, 'Am I in the twilight zone? Why is everyone laughing?' It's such a personal thing. People have such a personal visceral response to comedy.
Regardless of what kind of film, the number one rule of comedy is to never take yourself too seriously and then the next rule is you can't have any self-consciousness, otherwise it kills the laugh, and that will never change.
I think everyone's different but in comedy, I try to do my scene to make the director and the other actors laugh. If I can make them laugh and we have the same sensibility, then I'm on the right page.
It's tricky: with comedy in any movie, you're hungry for an audience to embrace a movie and be a part of an experience that's comedic; it's the easier way to go in some ways.
Whatever makes you laugh is fine, and all we can do as comedy professionals is try to steer you towards something that we think is a little better - but not put you down or just perplex you in the process.
When you're on a movie set and you are hopefully making a comedy, everyone's stifling their laughter. You're looking at the crew guys, hoping someone is making that face like, and not like, this is not working out, man.
As comedians, we are all laughing because life is so horrible. Life is so difficult, and I cope with it by making jokes about absolutely everything.
You can't substitute the act of making people laugh. It's definitely something that actors like to do.
If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.
Laughter is binary: It either happens or it doesn't. As each joke arrives in the course of a film, the cavernous space of the theater is either filled with joy and laughter or with the quiet of cringing embarrassment. Every time you step to the plate to make a joke, you're going to experience one or the other.