A Quote by Al Yankovic

How can you get bored if the audience is cheering and laughing at something you're doing? — © Al Yankovic
How can you get bored if the audience is cheering and laughing at something you're doing?
When the response to comedy becomes cheering instead of laughing, that is so irritating. It's the worst. Here's what cheering is: "Look at me!" That's what cheering is. Cheering is not "Hey, I agree with what you're saying"; cheering is "I'm liking this more than anybody else!"
I remember doing a lot of comedy. I always loved that feeling when you do something on stage and you can feel the vibe of the audience turn, and they start laughing. It's how you know something's not right, and how to fix it, or how to make the moment stronger or funnier.
If I don't try and bring variety in my appearances, I will get bored with films, so I can well imagine how bored the audience would get watching me.
I might revisit - I like the idea of doing something else with [Hunt for the Wilderpeople characters]. But also I get bored of doing the same thing again. I just get bored.
As you get older as a comedian and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction.
As you get older, as a comedian, and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction.
When I'm not doing something that comes deeply from me, I get bored. When I get bored I get distracted and when I get distracted, I become depressed. It's a natural resistance, and it insures your integrity.
I much prefer doing comedy. I get a little paranoid when the audience is not laughing.
In theater, it's just you and the audience. It's less of a popularity contest. It's just you and the audience, and they're laughing or they're not laughing, that's the only gauge you really have. But with TV and movies and everything, it's like "Well, did you get a meeting at so-and-so?" and "So-and-so's really hot right now," which is all the stuff I'm probably still not used to.
If you just did a horror tone throughout an entire movie you almost, as an audience, can get a little bit used to it. But if you're laughing one minute and, you know, somebody's doing something quite horrific the next minute, it's a little more shocking.
I remember certain people in the audience laughing and I wanted to ask: 'What are you laughing at? This isn't funny.' Now I realize that laughter can come from insecurity. They don't know how they should be feeling.
I don't want to play the same character again and again, because I'd get bored. If I get bored, so will the audience.
I think one of my favorite pieces I've ever done on the show which was about Hezbollah Israel conflict in 2006 and it was very pointed. It was a beautifully crafted piece of satire and it's a weird thing to say but it had a joke in there about 9/11 and I remember the audience sort of laughing but also kind of not knowing how to respond to that joke and it was just so - and I remember the tension after we did this joke on the air and there was this palpable gasp in the audience, but they were also laughing. And I thought oh, wow, that is something that is not being said in the Zeitgeist.
Sometimes you need to get bored but when you get bored you persist in what you're doing and you get better.
The beauty of shooting on something that's not in front of an audience is that you can just cut out the times you're laughing. You can cut to the other person and try to use that moment, right before you break. There's an energy to those performances. There's a reason people were laughing. There was something very special. That little extra something was in that line delivery or in that improv, so you try to use that stuff.
I think it's an actor's responsibility to change every time. Not only for himself and the people he's working with, but for the audience. If you just go out and deliver the same dish every time... it's meat loaf again... you'd get bored. I'd get bored.
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