A Quote by Frances McDormand

Unless it's a flat-out farce, an actor can't play comedy on film. — © Frances McDormand
Unless it's a flat-out farce, an actor can't play comedy on film.
The myriad-minded man, our, and all men's, Shakespeare, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the licence allowed, and even required, in the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible.
Running my show is really like an actor being in repertory but where, in one day in one performance, you do scenes from a drama, a farce, a low comedy and a tragedy.
In comedy, if you don't have the right tuning with your co-actor, the humour can fall flat.
When you're making an independent film, it's like this actor plus this actor equals this funding, this financing. Pull this actor out, this actor is still here but this money's gone. It's this frightening puzzle mosaic that is the world of independent film.
Many people mistakenly think of farce as broad low comedy. In fact, it's polished high comedy.
It's part of my job. You can't play Veronica Guerin sounding like this. It just wouldn't wash. But what I find fascinating about doing an accent - unless it's a farce - is that it's not slapped on.
[on playing Walter] It was wonderful to be able to play a character who had so many colors and who was able to play comedy, to play incredibly vulnerable, which he did a lot of the time, to play the love story, and to play the relationship with the son, which is quite unusual. That's a gift to me, as an actor. It was like everything you could possibly hope for, over five years. So, I was a very lucky actor.
No matter how badly you play, unless you make a flat-out blunder, there's always going to be some narrow path to being able to save the game and draw instead of losing.
I didn't set out to be a villain in film. I'm a character actor, and if my first movie was a comedy, I could have played a geek just as well.
Unless you're flat out dead, you have to think of some other questions like: what's on the other side? It brings up issues of God, or no God. How does he play into this? Or he, or she, or it? How does it all play into this?
Black Comedy is a farce that is played in the dark, as you know, with the lights full on. It's the Chinese convention of reversing light and dark, and exactly where anybody is at any given moment is the play.
Nowadays if you talk of comedy as a film genre, you cannot create a simple comedy film, because there are so many other platforms where you can watch comedy free of cost.
I fell in love with film. I didn't start out to be a film actor. I wanted to be a theater actor.
The problem with a lot of comedy clubs is not that they are a comedy club; it's just the cheesy way they're presenting themselves. That's why a lot of people have a problem with them. If you're a relatively unknown comedian, you can play at a comedy club, you might play to hundreds of people every night. But if you try to make a concert event out of it, and try to play a rock club or something, where you might play to 10 people or no people. And the flipside of that is, that's also a great thing, to play to people who are your fans. Some people are too hard on the comedy clubs.
It was wonderful to be able to play a character who had so many colors and who was able to play comedy, to play incredibly vulnerable, which he did a lot of the time, to play the love story, and to play the relationship with the son, which is quite unusual. That's a gift to me, as an actor.
Foolish: It's all foolish. Life is a farce a stupid, sickening farce played out by fools.
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