A Quote by James Franco

I think all great comedies - or at least the comedies I like - it has some of the funniest moments, but it never breaks the spell for the audience. It never pushes the audience away by spoofing itself too much or undermining the characters or making them cardboard or flimsy. Everybody is really trying to do what their characters believe in - and so nobody breaks the spell of the world, even though in other ways it's a comedy and very funny.
I actually love Scorsese comedies. He's an underrated comedy director. I think his comedies are some of the best comedies ever made.
I always find it actually funny that the analysis is that the characters I play in comedies are the manchild, the adolescent, characters that refuse to grow up. And yet, if you look back in the history of comedy all the way back to the Marx brothers, that's a big part of comedy.
I'm proud of everything I've done. If it's comedy, it's 'cause I think it's funny. If it's a drama, it's impactful. I'm leaning towards dramas now because I wrapped a couple comedies in a row. I don't like watching myself, but it's easier on me when I don't have to carry a lot of the comedy. But I enjoy making comedies but dramas come more naturally.
As an actor, as much as I'm interested in how you make movies and TV shows, even as a kid, I've always hated making of featurettes and special features on DVDs. I think it breaks the spell.
Glamour is a beautiful illusion - the word 'glamour' originally meant a literal magic spell - that promises to transcend ordinary life and make the ideal real. It depends on a special combination of mystery and grace. Too much information breaks the spell.
The World Series is played in my doubtless too-nostalgic imagination in some kind of autumn afternoon light, and seeing it exclusively in the bitter chill of midnight breaks the spell of even the best of games.
When you're writing for the screen, you have to be hyper-conscious every moment of how the audience is going to react. If you write just one scene where the audience is confused or it breaks their concentration in some way, then you've lost them, and you might never get them back.
I think the kick to doing comedy is just to get in a film with really funny people and let them do their jobs. I find that in most comedies, I'm not the funny one, which works out great.
I think there's a lack of really, really good funny scripts out there that work on all the levels that they're supposed to - which is to say that they're not just funny but they have interesting characters that people are going to like and be invested in. I've done a bunch of movies that haven't worked but I like to think I've done some that have worked and that's because not only is the comedy there but the characters and storylines are interesting. The characters are real and relateable and people were invested in them.
It's something that people relate to - and I hope my kid doesn't relate to - but there's a level of believability in playing complex characters. You know, Christopher Walken has done some hilarious comedies, De Niro. There's great room for complexity and darkness to do well in comedies.
I've had shows where you think, "Is this going well? I can't tell," and then you say goodnight and you get this ovation. They're sorta like a theater audience. I've learned that much; that they're not always going to be doing backflips - but I'll never figure it out. Because sometimes you walk up there, and they're so excited, and then other times, it's just... But sometimes an audience is bad, and you can tell them they're bad, and that sort of breaks the ice a bit.
I pity the fellow who has to create a dialect or paraphrase the dictionary to get laughs. I can't spell, but I have never stooped to spell cat with a 'k' to get at your funny bone. I love a drink, but I never encouraged drunkenness by harping on its alleged funny side.
I like to service the full audience of America, so I try to do things that are just real artistic, like when they don't have the most money, but it's a great piece of work. Then, there are big, fun comedies and big animated movies for kids. I want to do things for my nieces and nephews. Ultimately, we're trying to deliver something entertaining to an audience. As long as it can entertain the audience, and it makes me or my niece and nephew laugh or cry, then I think it's good.
I make comedies and I always try... I don't try but I allow to have at least 5% of the jokes or have some jokes that I know will be understood by only about 5% of the audience. It's that guy in the corner who gets it and laughs. But he has to have his jokes too. That's part of my audience. Part of my audience is the people who will only get certain things.
To me, comedies are usually the least funny movies. Movies that are actually a comedy are usually not all that funny. To me Goodfellas and Raging Bull are two of the funniest movies I ever saw.
It was R.E.M. who showed other Eighties bands how to get away with ignoring the rules - they lived in some weird town nobody never heard of, they didn't play power chords, they probably couldn't even spell 'spandex.' All they had was songs.
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