A Quote by Kyle Dunnigan

I think comedians start off as pranksters or something. — © Kyle Dunnigan
I think comedians start off as pranksters or something.
From my experience working with comedians, there is that competitive aspect. With actors, for instance, they don't want to look competitive even if they are, whereas comedians, I think, are openly happy to play on the idea that they all compete with each other to get the laughs. There's something about comedy, I think, that encourages that. There's this kind of schoolboy sense of wanting to top the other person that we play off of to show them competing for who's smarter or cleverer.
I think any start has to be a false start because really there’s no way to start. You just have to force yourself to sit down and turn off the quality censor. And you have to keep the censor off, or you start second-guessing every other sentence. Sometimes the suspicion of a possible false start comes through, and you have to suppress it to keep writing. But it gets more persistent. And the moment you know it’s really a false start is when you start … it’s hard to put into words.
I try to stay with it and I try to stay in contact with comedians and just keep comedians in my life 'cause comedians are their own species. If you get away from them, especially as a comedian, I think it's dangerous.
A lot of times people will have after-parties or try and host an event for comedians, and they misunderstand us. They think it should be wild and crazy, or loud music, and comedians are typically pretty mellow people that just want to talk to each other. I think it would be highly unusual to find comedians who want to be at a loud, crowded party.
After the comedy boom of the '80s, there was a certain formula that comedians had to do and could do in order to be successful touring comedians, and those were mainly observational comedians who had a very strict structure of what made an act, and I think it was very performance oriented.
I never wanted to churn it out. Comedians tend to work all the time. They never put it down like musicians who might make an album then take three or four years off to recharge their batteries. Comedians tend to work straight through and they get stale because of that. Even when I didn't have a lot of money I never ever did it unless I had something new to say.
After the first one [Twilight Saga movie], as soon as people start referring to something as a franchise. A franchise is a Burger King or a Subway. It's not a movie. The people who start to say it are generally the people who are making money off of it. That's how they refer to it. They love it when something has become a franchise. But, as an actor, I think it's scary.
I think it's kind of crazy that we're still calling comedians "female comedians." That seems more like a sneak attack.
I usually think about titles. I'll hear somebody say something and write it down in my notes, and whenever we go into a room, somebody will start naming off titles, and whoever has the best title, that's what we start writing.
As is my way, when I start something that I've put off doing, I always start with the hardest form. So I started with Ashtanga.
I think a lot of comedians are desperate to show their serious side, but I got that off my chest early on in my career.
I think politicians and comedians have a lot in common. One is a group of approval-seeking narcissists who will say and do anything to be liked... and comedians are always talking about politics.
When I became a standup comic, my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor, and you know, I think that comedians, like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that's not original.
I don't think comedians make an active decision to be a certain "persona." Comedians write the way they're going to write.
You can't expect everyone to laugh or applaud you for doing edgy things. Sometimes you'll miss. But I think comedians are artists and there's a value in failure. It kind of works both ways between comedians and audiences. The audience has to understand that comedians are going to sometimes tell a joke that doesn't work out with dark subjects, and the comedian has to understand that sometimes they 'll fail and it's not the audience's fault for not getting it or loving it.
If I could choose any car in the world, I'd get a Lamborghini, but I think that's a bit too much money. I'll start off with maybe a V8 or something.
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