I have become a giant fan of the testing process, especially with a comedy. I mean, they tell you what's funny. It's almost tailor-made for people who shoot the way we shoot, trying a million different options and versions of things. Because the audience doesn't laugh at a joke, we put in another joke. If they don't laugh at the next joke, we put in another joke. You just keep doing them and you can get the movie to the point where every joke is funny, if you have enough options in the can.
The U.K. and Europe in general seem to be a lot more patient. The U.S. are expecting 'joke joke joke joke joke joke joke.' They don't actually sit and listen to you.
A joke is either funny or it's not funny. If I hear a funny joke, you know what I do? I laugh, that's what I do. I don't start a focus group to see who got hurt by the joke.
What you never want to do is have a story that doesn't track emotionally, because then you're going joke to joke and you're going to fatigue the audience. The only thing that's going to string them to the next joke is how successful the previous joke is.
It's easier not to make a particular joke in case it offends. But every joke will offend someone, and I've always believed that the audience is bigger than one person. The danger is that things will become bland.
When I'm writing columns, it's - all I'm thinking about is jokes, joke, joke, joke, setup, punch line, joke, joke, joke. And I really don't care where it goes.
You can crack a joke and make a person smile but it matters a lot when that's on screen. It can be a very nice joke but if you shoot it badly or the actor gets the timing wrong, it won't be funny.
Any joke can be funny, but not any joke is funny. Any joke has the potential to be hilarious to you, but more importantly, the joke has the potential to not be funny to you but to someone else.
Dominic Sherwood would always tell me a joke right before it was my take or my close up. He'd say a funny joke, and I couldn't stop laughing, even after they said, 'Action.'
I'm not big on fat jokes. That's a little beneath me. I'm not a huge fan of making a joke completely at someone else's expense. Even though I think he does it better than anyone else, I don't love... Well, it's different with Sacha Baron Cohen, but that whole thing where you're "punking" people? I don't like that. I don't like doing it, and I don't particularly find it funny when the joke is on a person who doesn't know they're being set up.
I take a lot of pride in managing to be funny without having a victim at the end of my joke. I laugh at a really dark joke as much as the next person, but my jokes, I feel, don't have to hurt anybody to be really funny.
Sometimes an actor will stumble on the joke, and I'm right on them. Back it up before the audience hears the bad version of the joke, because humor is 90% surprise. If they know what's coming, they won't laugh as hard.
There's different kinds of improv. There's Second City improv where you try to slowly build a nice sketch. There's stuff you do in college coffee houses where you just go joke, joke, joke. Bring another funny character with a funny hat on his head. Christopher Guest is more the line of trying to get a story out.
I believe it is tough to be funny and tougher to make people laugh. And it needs to be been done effortlessly. A joke can be comedy, but one can kill the joke if it is delivered badly.
If a comedian tells a joke that you find funny, you laugh. If he tells a joke you do not find funny, don't laugh. Or you could possibly go as far as groaning or rolling your eyes. Then you wait for his next joke; if that's funny, then you laugh. If it's not, you don't laugh - or at very worst, you can leave quietly.
When I was governor, if I told a joke in front of the press - I learned. I would go, "That was a joke, joke, joke," and I'd say it three times.