Sometimes, as a comedian, a line will come to you, that is so beautiful, so perfect, that you think: I did not create this line. This line belongs to all of us. Surely this is a line of God.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If I'm in a serious play, I often think to myself, 'I could make that line funny.'
I really don't know what makes a comedian. I think it's a family background and environment. Yet if you put the same ingredients in another person, he may never utter a funny line.
It's hard for a comic to be joking when your lines can't be funny.
I'm not good at telling a joke, but I can say a line in a certain way that makes people uncomfortable because they don't know whether to laugh or not, and I love that comedy.
Transforming a line like that makes it into a belly laugh instead of a laugh against us.
Hell, I ain't paid to make good lines sound good. I'm paid to make bad lines sound good.
Everyone forgets comedians are actors. There's no question about it. A Robin Williams cannot say the same line every night for 40 weeks and make it sound fresh unless he's doing an acting job.
The comedian can put the punchline out there, but it's the audience that receives it - and has to get it.
I was a giant fan of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' in high school, and I was obsessed with Jim Carrey and cut out any picture of Jim Carrey that ever came in any kind of magazine. I put it all over my walls. At the time, I thought humor was just repeating lines from 'Ace Ventura' ad nauseum in the back of my advanced math class.
I have no line. If I think it's funny, it's funny.