We write and write and write until we think, 'If we have to shoot this script, we'll be happy, and it's going to be a great movie.' I meet with all the actors two weeks before, and I ask them, 'What lines don't work? What is uncomfortable for you? What jokes do you think aren't good? If you're not getting it, here's what the joke is.' You fix it.
Twitter is a good medium to lean how to write jokes. It pushes you to write a better joke in that, on Twitter, the first joke about something has already happened. You need to think of the second joke and the third joke.
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.
I don't write shows with dialogue where actors have to memorize dialogue. I write the scenes where we know everything that's going to happen. There's an outline of about seven or eight pages, and then we improvise it.
People can write jokes five minutes after a major world event happens, and have hundreds of thousands of people read them within 10 minutes. Whereas before you write a joke, you don't know if anybody is really touching on it or not, and you tell it onstage the next night. For joke writing it has changed things.
I'm a comedic actor, not to mix words, but it's something I think about. A comedic actor. I like to think that Christopher Guest, Phil Hartman, Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness are comedic actors. And Dan Aykroyd, too. Those are my heroes.
The great amount of fun that I have is I can cast dramatic actors to play comedic roles, and I can cast comedic actors to play dramatic roles because, really, there's no such thing. There's just actors.
My heroes are Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman. Those are the two actors that both do comedies and dramas, seamlessly. Also John C. Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman. They're all just great actors, neither comedic nor dramatic. They're just great actors.
I'm a joke comic. I tell jokes. I like writing a joke, and I like when a joke works, and I like other comics who tell jokes.
When it comes to African Americans and African American actors, Hollywood has always felt that if you can make us laugh, that's fine, but we don't need to see you do a 'Schindler's List,' where there's no jokes or music or comedic through-line.
I never really feel like just standing there and telling jokes. I want to move around. In fact, it's hard for me to write a joke where I don't end up on the ground for some reason. Hey, at least that way, I know no comics will steal my jokes. Too many bruises.
When I'm writing a script, before I can write dialogue or anything, I have two or three hundred pages of notes, which takes me a year. So, it's not like "what happens next." I've got things that I'm thinking about but I don't settle on them. And if I try to write dialogue before then, I can't. It's just garbage.
I did so many open mics. I would write jokes on Twitter constantly, and then slowly, over time, open mics turned into shows. If you can get a joke to work at an open mic, it's a good joke.
I'm a taker in terms of jokes. I love to hear a good joke, but I don't retain jokes. I'm not a good teller of jokes.
There are a lot of comedic actors who are just out to be the funny one and get all the laughs and they'll sacrifice your joke, the scene, the story just to be the star. All they want is attention and to be number one. You can spot those guys from a mile away and they're the worst.
The thing about Donald [Trump] is the jokes write themselves. I don't even think of it to be trolling. What he says is the joke.