A Quote by Neil Patrick Harris

With the Tonys it's a little tricky because a lot of the funnier jokes are more insider, so people watching at home may not get a Julie Taymor reference the way that New Yorkers would. So you have to figure out what comedy plays to a large audience and still respect the individuals who are there.
The commercial theatre may still be considered one of New York's primary tourist attractions, but . . . there is no longer an audience for serious Broadway plays. . . . Perhaps we should acknowledge that, having lost its traditional audience, Broadway can never again be a home for new plays.
A lot of the reason I left New York, in addition to being so broke, was that I just felt I was becoming provincial in that way that only New Yorkers are. My points of reference were really insular. They were insular in that fantastic New York way, but they didn't go much beyond that. I didn't have any sense of class and geography, because the economy of New York is so specific. So I definitely had access and exposure to a huge variety of people that I wouldn't have had if I'd stayed in New York - much more so in Nebraska even than in L.A.
Respect, of course is a tricky term. I may respect your gardening by just letting you get on with it. Or, I may respect it by admiring it and regarding it as a superior way to garden.
An aspiring comedian must be determined to get to his or her true feelings on a subject and convey that to the audience. Figure out what you're feeling or interested in because the goal is to get the audience interested in what you're interested in. Good stand up comedy is drawing people into your head.
I tended toward animated material that wasn't just for kids. I could tell as a kid watching those shows that I loved the jokes that I got but I also loved the jokes I didn't get because I felt that I was hanging out with a smarter, cooler audience.
Comedy is hard to do, and I don't know why it doesn't have its own category in awards. I don't understand why people think it's harder to do drama than it is to do comedy. It doesn't get respect. It's hard. It's really hard. It would be more gratifying to get something for a comedy, because it doesn't happen much or at all.
Comedy people like other comedy people. People hang out and are friends and do shows together, and when you get something going like a TV show or a movie, you want your friends to be in it and make it funnier. That's just the way it should be.
When I moved to New York, I feel like a lot of things widened within my perspective and as I spend some time here - as everyone does when they're that age or a young person - [you] figure out your own ideals or figure out the way you fit into society a little bit more than you did before.
You'll always love the person, if you're sensible. But you get a lot of people, especially in divorces and separations, doing a lot of damage to themselves, because they can't figure out that they actually still love this person, but not in their original way.
I would say I've actually done a lot more comedy than I've done drama. It's weird the way that worked out, because when I came out of theater school I took myself way too seriously, so it's kind of ironic that I ended up sort of going down the comedy path.
When I was a kid my father would read Neil Simon plays with me when I was going to bed, as bedtime stories. All of these old plays like The Odd Couple and Lost in Yonkers - funny but corny plays about Jewish New Yorkers in the mid-20th century.
I love comedy. I suppose comedy is my first love, in a way. I did a lot of acting, funnily enough, unprofessionally, as a kid. From when I was 10 years old until I was about 19, I was always doing little sketches with my friends, and doing different accents and voices. Probably about 3/4 of those were comedic, in some way, and the other 1/4 was more serious stuff or more action or more dramatic little pieces that I would make. But, I tend to lean towards comedy.
There is certainly a higher percentage of wit in British comedy than in American comedy. What always tickles me is the way in which people try to use their intellect to get themselves out of tricky situations but never quite manage to do so - much to their enormous embarrassment.
If we can continue to come together and work on small things little by little, at least it's something. It's a start. At least now there's a lot more talk about climate change and the Earth's state than when I was a kid. I guess it's better late than never? But it's also very tricky because this is something that's so important to so many of us, and a lot of people don't see it that way. But hopefully, we can get all our points across to them - one by one, one person at a time.
Growing up, I was the weird, theatrical kid who always tried to make people be in my plays. I've always loved comedy, but when it came time to figure out what I was going to go to school for, my parents were like, "Acting?! I don't think so. No." It took me a while to get the courage to pursue it. I had to do it in secret for a little bit, and then when I got married and was out on my own, I went for it.
I started to make harder jokes before anyone else did. And the producers would get anxious. They'd say, 'That's a little bit hard-edged, isn't it?' And I'd say, 'Let's just try it and see how the audience reacts. If they don't like it, let's cut it out.' And the audience roared with laughter, so I learned you could do this harder humor and people loved it.
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