A Quote by Seth MacFarlane
Even if you know a character really well, there's no formula for what jokes will work and what won't.
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I'll come up with an idea for a character, and I'll write some jokes and make sure that that character is going to have some legs to it - that it's really going to work. If I can come up with jokes and material that I think will work, then I make a cheap version of the doll. Achmed started out just being this little plastic toy from the store.
The trouble with the jokes is that once they're written, I know how they're supposed to work, and all I can do is not hit them. I'm more comfortable improvising. If I have just two or three ideas and I know how the character feels, what the character wants, everything in between is like trapeze work.
From a prestige standpoint, the U.S. needs to host Formula 1. And I think Formula 1, they know they need the U.S. as well. So many companies that are global are based in the United States support Formula 1.
I have a basic theorem as to how I do my jokes. Growing up, I knew when to cross the line and when not to cross the line. It's the same with my comedy. I know what my audience will take and how much they won't take. I can't give you a formula for it. It's my own personal formula inside my head. Somebody else's might be different.
I think no one really knows for sure what will work at the box office. Even big production houses don't know what will do well and what won't.
I know that a lot of people like to say "formula." I think that as soon as you start to have a formula imputed to your work, you're in danger of becoming formulaic. So the one formula I have as a rule is falling in love with the material.
You know that the formula is askew when even if the formula is working, it's not; when even if everything's going right, something is wrong.
If you think of the people who are funny in your life, you'll note it's not because they tell jokes, it's because of their character. If you develop characters, then you'll know them, and you'll know how they'll speak. The comedy will come out of the character.
Directors only have instinct to work out of, because there is no formula. Formulas don't work. Actually, if you follow a formula, you will probably end up with a bad movie.
I'm not that complicated as an actor. I have a formula in which I work, yeah. But not like Sean Penn does. Sean is one of the few actors I know who can work like that, actually becoming the character he is playing, and get consistent results. I don't believe you can ever be someone else. You manifest different levels of your own personality to come up with a character.
I'm a bug on acting, which distinguishes Second City from a lot of other revues. It comes from the character, the behavior, and not from the jokes. I don't think jokes are funny. Humor comes out of character and out of situations the character is in.
My knowledge of the universe is that if I write stupid jokes, the universe gives me a really nice house and great meals. I do not believe mankind will ever develop a formula to explain this.
Most development doesn't make it to series. So you want the writer and director to have a really good experience with development because, if it doesn't work out, you want to work with them again. You have to know their work really well, know the drafts really well, and when you give notes, you need to have really thought them through.
The question is not whether the formula for success will work, but rather whether the person will work the formula.
We love Formula One and think Formula One's great. But we think Formula E is different. We would be making a big mistake if we tried to compete with Formula One and be similar to Formula One, we have to be radically different to Formula One to have a chance of survival. I don't mean survival by beating Formula One but co-existing complimentary to Formula One.
If the character is really well-rounded, and it's a really strong character, and if the writing is just fantastic, that's the thing that will hook me in, certainly.
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