My wife is funny. And I dabble in it. So being funny is big around our house. But what's surprised me is my daughter can do an English accent. I don't know how she learned this.
Everyone tells me I have a funny accent. It's because I copy people. I learned English at school but have best friends who are French, Australian, English and American; a very weird mix.
It's funny because when I'm outside Australia, I never get to do my Australian accent in anything. It's always a Danish accent or an English accent or an American accent.
When I went to London, they told me I spoke with a funny accent - English with a Chinese accent.
I think if you have a funny thought, and you want to get off a funny point, try to do it as realistically as you can. If you try to act it funny and accent the funny points, or do it in a funny style, you kind of lose it.
I never thought, 'I'm going to learn how to be funny now!,' and I'm still surprised when other people think I'm funny. I just learned to make jokes as a way of moving through the world. It helps me deal with all sorts of discomfort and boredom.
My wife's a loving, funny, Irish-spirited person, and I'm still surprised at some of the things she says. She makes me laugh every day.
I'm not so funny. Gilda was funny. I'm funny on camera sometimes. In life, once in a while. Once in a while. But she was funny. She spent more time worrying about being liked than anything else.
Since she got a cause and stopped being funny. I think she's real funny, but lately it's all been hearts and flowers and tears and saving teenagers and creating a role model. And that ain't funny. No giggles there.
It's so funny how it's impossible for an American actor to play an English part or an Australian part. But by all means, come and bastardize our accent as much as you want.
Definitely that was a big part of my childhood: wanting to fit. As an immigrant, you talk funny, you look funny, you smell funny. I wanted to do nothing but fit in and talk English and sit with everybody else.
I was just at home walking around at home, and I started feel, well, just funny. You know how you can feel funny? I had a strange pain in my chest. So my housekeeper took me to the hospital, when they hooked me up and did all these tests turned out I had a big heart attack.
You know, a lot of people come to me and they say, "Steve, how can you be so fucking funny?" There's a secret to it, it's no big deal. Before I go out, I put a slice of bologna in each of my shoes. So when I'm on stage, I feel funny.
Over the weekend, of course, down there in Washington, D.C., they had the big White House Correspondents' Dinner. Do you know who was really funny? President Obama. So funny, in fact, he has already been promised 'The Tonight Show' in five years.
The problem is that we live in an uptight country. Why don't we just laugh at ourselves? We are funny. Gays are funny. Straights are funny. Women are funny. Men are funny. We are all funny, and we all do funny things. Let's laugh about it.
I remember watching Gilda Radner when I was a kid and everyone thought she was so funny and no one ever said that she was a funny woman, she was just funny.
I speak with a Northern Irish accent with a tinge of New York. My wife has a bit of a Boston accent; my oldest daughter talks with a Denver accent, and my youngest has a true blue Aussie accent. It's complicated.