A Quote by Amanda Tapping

Comedy is really my passion. I started out way before television doing sketch comedy with other women. Very much along the lines of, at the time it was 'Sensible Footwear', but now it's 'Smack The Pony', 'French And Saunders', that kind of thing. That's how I started out.
It's funny how comedy is, you look at people like French and Saunders, when they started out they were very alternative. A lot of those alternative comedians have ended up being mainstream, they know that longevity is about being mainstream.
I didn't really get into comedy until a couple months before I started doing comedy.
Women comedy is different than men comedy. Guy comedy is very aggressive, it's about insulting each other, name-calling, and kind of busting each other's chops, and that's not what women's comedy is.
There was a male sketch group in my college. I was like why isn't there a female sketch group? So then I started doing sketch comedy and all that stuff. It just happened.
I never wanted to be a model. I never wanted to be a serious actress. I started off doing comedy. I did a stand-up comedy camp at the Laugh Factory, and I started out on Nickelodeon.
It's really cool to see how many awesome, badass ladies are out there now just doing their thing and putting their foot down, saying, "Nope. You're not going to tell me I'm doing something women shouldn't be doing." It's a scary time but also I think a really important time. I'm happy to see how much girls are responding to a lot of the other powerful big boys swimming out there right now.
'All Def' is unlike any other comedy show or set because 'All Def' goes back to the essence of how urban comedy started. We give it a 'stoop appeal.' A stoop appeal is important for us because it's where pretty much all black comics started doing their standup: cracking jokes on the stoop, in the hood.
I formed a sketch troupe with two friends, started doing gigs, and dropped out of school shortly after to pursue it full time! Now it sort of has to work out because I have zero other qualifications.
We started off in improv and sketch comedy, and with improv the most important thing is to listen and make sure you're not stepping over someone, so we've been trained for such a long time doing that.
In the 70s I started doing my Big Night Out on stage when I was at art school. A friend of mine owned a comedy club and sold it to me. I worked out quite quickly that if I did the comedy myself I'd make more money.
I've always loved comedy and growing up it was the comedies that I really responded to. So I don't know how it turned out that once I started acting that I started getting a certain kind of role, that I never saw myself as growing up, so I really love when I get an opportunity to play a [comedian] role.
There's a beautifully simple sketch in the first episode of 'Smack the Pony:' two women approach each other walking their dogs and as they pass the women bark at each other, the dogs remaining perfectly calm. It kills me every time.
My thing was always more character-driven comedies, not sketch comedy - not that there's not room for both or one isn't enjoyable, just my personal taste, I like movies that comedy comes from out of flaws of people, things that are uncomfortable, out of tragedy.
I think when I first started out, I had a kind of an exuberance about language, comedy, narrative leaps that... stopped just short of non sequiturs. And I'm much more cautious now.
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
I think 'Mean Girls' was a kind of significant movie. It was a very successful comedy, and it was also before 'Bridesmaids,' and it really launched some of today's biggest women in comedy.
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