A Quote by Ardal O'Hanlon

I was a terribly quiet, shy child. The comedy thing came when I was at university and I started doing stand-up, which I think was a belated compensation for all that time I spent hiding behind the couch.
I started doing stand-up when I was 15 and doing Letterman when I was 20. So I've been doing stand-up comedy and clubs for over 30 years. That's a long time.
Here's the thing, with comedy - and I learned this from Will Ferrell - you can't be ashamed. If you're doing comedy, you have to fully commit to the joke. Shame is not part of it. If you act shy or uncomfortable about your body, that makes the audience shy and uncomfortable. And in a comedy you just want them to loosen up and laugh.
A rap is a tweaked version of comedy, because comedy came first. People weren't spitting before they were doing comedy. Comedy has been relevant for years. It's the same art form, pretty much. Discovering that and applying it, I think that has made my stand-up better.
I started doing improv comedy in 2007, and I think it was that that gave me the confidence to try doing stand-up!
I remember doing my mosaics or being in my little hiding place behind the couch snooping. I'd get bored sometimes, of course, but I think that's good for a kid, because it forces you to be creative.
I used to do stand-up, actually. I had a ten-minute routine I did for a thing called 'Stand Up for Labour' where we'd go around different seats and use comedy to raise money. I stopped doing this routine when I started running for mayor.
I started doing my own animated movies when I was in ninth grade; that's when I got the filmmaking bug. When I was about 16, I started writing jokes for doing stand up, and then I was 19 and started doing stand up.
When they first start doing comedy, new comics or even people that have only been doing it three or four years, they're doing an impersonation of a stand-up. This is what I think a stand-up should sound like.
If there's one regret I have of my time in comedy it's that I really I was so obsessed with improv for so many years and I exclusively did improv for the first 6 years or 7 years. I was doing comedy and then I started doing solo work and stand up, a bit of writing, making videos, and really going into it on that end.
When I started comedy, I was a big Eddie Murphy fan. I thought if you did stand-up, you were supposed to know how to act, write, and host. I thought it was all one thing. That's why it doesn't feel like I'm transitioning to acting: because in my stand-up, I do characters all the time.
I always wanted to be a comedian. I loved comedy since I was a little kid, and while I was at university I started doing stand up shows. Once I realized that I was good at it I quit college and left although I had six months left. I went to England. I could have done the last six months but I realized that I was better at standup comedy than I was at singing opera.
I never wanted to be a model. I never wanted to be a serious actress. I started off doing comedy. I did a stand-up comedy camp at the Laugh Factory, and I started out on Nickelodeon.
When I started doing stand-up again, a lot of it was coming from an angrier place, and I quickly learned that doesn't spell a good time in a comedy club.
One thing that I've been doing for a long time is to wake up really early. I try to get up around 4 or 5 in the morning, long before most of my lab members are up, which gives me some quiet time to really think without distraction. I think that's important.
I always had a sketchbook with me when I was young. I was hiding behind it, basically, hiding behind drawing because I couldn't cope with people in real life; I was very shy and very nervous around people.
I don't come from a comedy background or a stand-up background, but I think that sometimes there's a misconception that an actor who works primarily in comedy is a comedian. There's nothing wrong with being a comedian, but I'm absolutely not that. I can't think of anything more terrifying than doing stand-up!
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