A Quote by Valerie Harper

I never did stand-up. If I've been funny ever, it was with other actors.

Valerie Harper

Quote Topics

Actors Been Did Ever Funny Never Other Stand Up

Quote Author

Valerie Harper
American - Actress
August 22, 1940 - August 30, 2019

Actually I never did stand up. I'm not that funny.

Maynard James Keenan

I'd been involved with stand-up before improv, so I already thought highly of myself as being a funny person. I never thought I wasn't funny.

Matt Besser

I am not funny. The writers were funny. My directors were funny. The situations were funny… What I am is brave. I have never been scared. Not when I did movies, certainly not when I was a model and not when I did I Love Lucy.

Lucille Ball

I love working with other actors and other people - you know, stand-up - it's lonely; it's just you out there and the audience. But it's fun working with other actors. I love doing that, too.

Wanda Sykes

I'm a fan of Bill Hicks. He did things that no other stand up did at the time. He was making fun of religion, at that time it was a lot harder to say those things in the States than it was here. To slag off Christianity and fundamentalist Christians, and to be pro drugs and anti gun in the deep south, that's a big ask. And he did that and made it funny. Bill Hicks was able to say things that he really thought, and he managed to make those thoughts funny without a care if it antagonised people.

Ed Byrne

Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.

Patton Oswalt

No, I never really set out to be a stand up. I wanted to be a writer of some sort. I thought I'd do a bit of stand up and hopefully that will lead to stuff and little did I know it kind of snowballed. Before I knew it I was doing stand up 300 nights a year.

Josh Widdicombe

First they went after the Communists, and I did not stand up, because I was not a Communist. Then they went after the homosexuals and infirm, and I did not stand up, because I was neither. Then they went after the Jews, and I did not stand up, because I was not a Jew. Then they went after the Catholics, and I did not stand up, because I was Protestant. Finally, they went after me, and there was no one left to stand up for me.

Martin Niemoller

I have never ever hung out with actors and comedians. I can't stand it.

Keith Allen

I found American actors quite scary because they're brilliant actors and brilliantly funny, and they never stopped once you wound them up... off they went and they just deliver fantastic stuff.

Peter Capaldi

Conclusions are based in time. We live in time. So any definition of success is bound up with time. With other things you can say, "Can I yo-yo? Can I juggle?" Usually you have a pretty small window in which to get your answer. Stand-up is different. You can't do stand-up for one night and say, "Am I a funny stand-up comedian?" In two months or two years you'll start to realize it.

Demetri Martin

Voice actors I used to know who were starting out in comedy were guys who did a lot of voices. They were usually comedy actors who developed their comedy by doing tons of impressions and voices that were usually very funny. And I never did any of that, so that's, I guess, why I don't consider myself a voice actor.

H. Jon Benjamin

I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I'm my own most vicious critic. So I'm always trying to do it better.

Michael Caine

I always get a little bit pissed off when stand-up comedy is not recognised as being as good a craft as being an actor. We give Oscars to people and it's like, 'Aw, this person is the greatest person on earth', but being an actor is pretty easy in comparison to stand-up comedy. It's no surprise that several stand-up comics have gone on to become great actors. I don't know any great actors that have gone on to become great stand-up comics.

Jim Jefferies

Whenever you get a bunch of guys that are funny or think they’re funny, when you first meet, there’s always a lot of bits and it’s never, ever, ever funny. So basically you have to get through the awkwardness.