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Even in the depths of dreadful situations, there's usually something rather comic, or something you can laugh about afterwards, at least. So, I do look for the comedy in those things.

I like stories with a collision of disparate tones. Look at 'Shameless' or 'House of Lies'. They go from big, silly, and comedic to very real dramatic moments in the wink of an eye.

I find as a viewer, when I go to see comedies, the strain to be funny throughout the whole thing. I start to lose my sense of reality, and it ends up feeling like an empty experience; there's funny stuff in it but I've lost the emotional connection to the characters because it's just so bananas.

I like when entertainment not only makes me laugh or cry or thrills me, but makes the world a little clearer - and makes myself a little clearer.

I don't really find things funny unless they're deeply tragic at the same time. I think if you're funny just for the sake of being funny, it's just frivolous nonsense. To me, all the best comic plays have been written about really serious and rather bleak things.

I think everything benefits from a little comedy. The worst thing to me is to see a great drama or a great thriller with no laughs.

I think that having comedy where people talk the way they really talk, when you talk with your friends and whatever, it's really, it's important. Or else you're making stuff that's a little bit watered down and irrelevant.

I think the best comedy is tragicomic. Yeah, I suppose if you were to look at everything I've done, there is a bit of a black streak through all of it. It's not deliberate: it's what makes me laugh, and there's a fine tradition of it, especially in Ireland.

Sometimes, things need to be so understated on film that I don't even see them as funny, which isn't my favorite style, comedically. When I watch film comedy, I like people that are a little bit more alive on the screen and wound up. I like volatility and unpredictability and other long words like those.