Top 69 Quotes & Sayings by Chris Lilley - Page 2

Once I got into high school, any time I had to do a talk or a speech, I just loved being up in front of an audience, it was always a character. And then I discovered that an impersonation of the teacher was a really, really good way to get a laugh, and it would also get you good marks, because the teachers were always bored and loved to be the "teacher-parody." So that became my little trick at school, and I became known for doing that.

I think sometimes people become quite emotional about the characters as well, and that's pretty cool that you can get that emotion out of people. And I think that's more my motivation than like, "Hey I want to be the funny guy, I want to be that famous funny guy." That doesn't sit as well with me as the idea of taking people on this ride and taking them into the illusion of the characters. That's much more exciting for me.

I met Kim Kardashian in a nightclub once, and she was really nice. Kanye West was with her, but he didn't speak. He just looked at me.

I was terrible student. I was capable, but I never like being told what to do, so I was always in the bottom class at school. In Australia, a lot of students study to the end of year 10, but don't go on to the final year, and I was asked to leave the school because they just thought I wasn't performing well enough. I used to sneak off to play piano, and defy the rules of the school.

I guess my performance at school was doing school musicals, so I was a knight as well at the back of the stage in Camelot. It was all those kind of things. It wasn't the stuff that I wanted to do. The real funny character stuff came out when I was in control of it myself and writing it myself.

People think that I'm some kind of genius who's got these statements to say, and I'm not really.

I've done signings where elderly people will line up to get photos with me and ask me to sign things. They don't even pretend it's for their grandkids. They're like, "No, it's for me."

Like, Australians definitely don't walk around dressed up in blackface going "Ha-ha."

I think it just really excites me, the idea of delving so far into a character that people actually believe it's real, and I start to believe it's real. It's a strange thing to say, but it's the thrill of getting all the details right and being so absorbed in the character that people go along with the illusion.