A Quote by Charlie Brooker
In comedy writing, a sitcom plot is basically the same thing: What's the worst thing that could happen? But you're playing it for comic effect. It's a similar muscle being used with Black Mirror.
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Sitcom writing is difficult because it's not just about writing jokes - there's a very fine balance between characters, plot, and comedy, that if you get one thing wrong, the whole castle comes falling down.
If the worst thing that can happen is that nobody laughs, then I can deal with that, because the worst thing that can happen at the factory is that I could lose a limb or be crushed by a huge machine.
I would say probably not being able to do what I want to do and not being completely fulfilled and happy. I don't know how that would manifest itself in a mirror. It's just that feeling of not being satisfied with my life would be the worst thing that could ever happen to me.
When I was a chain smoker, I used to wake up and the first thing I'd do was reach for a cigarette, basically. And now I do the same thing for a smartphone, basically.
You cannot begin to imagine the shock I had when I came down on the floor for the first time. First of all, there's this whole thing about playing sitcom comedy. I didn't want to do the sitcom thing, but I didn't know what else to do. I went slowly. We went through the week of rehearsal, then we got on the floor with the cameras, which I'm used to because of my experience in the old days. Then came camera day, with an audience, and it was stunning, enthralling, exciting and chaotic. I had never experienced anything like that before, as an actor. I was part minstrel, part actor.
Some time ago, I learned how to say, 'What's the worst thing that could happen up there?' I could mess up some words, I could sing flat... I could appear human. Is that really the worst thing in the world?
The plot is very important because writers have to play fair with their readers, but no one would care about the plot if the character work wasn't there. So, basically every book I work on starts with me thinking not just about the bad thing that's going to happen, but how that bad thing is going to ripple through the community, the family of the victim, and the lives of the investigators. I am keenly aware when I'm working that the crimes I am writing about have happened to real people. I take that very seriously.
The Internet is the best and worst thing to happen to writing. It makes it so easy to quickly satisfy a lot of curiosity but it dampens curiosity for the same reason. It removes the obstacles that used to make hunting for knowledge sexy. I don't have Internet at home, so that helps. I try not to peek at the Internet through my phone when writing, but I don't have very good stamina.
I've asked myself what is the worst thing that can happen if I take this decision and go along with it. Very often, I find that the worst thing that can happen is something that I can live with. And if that's the case, I will do it.
I'm not a child star, but you could say that I've grown up on TV. I went from being an unknown, down-and-out comic from Brooklyn and the Bronx to being a regular character on a major network comedy called 'Martin.' From there I went on to become the most notable black comic on 'Saturday Night Live' since Eddie Murphy.
Recently I read the stories I wrote in my early 20s, to put in a volume. And here is this brittle young woman, writing about marriage as, not the worst thing, but the most boring thing that could happen to a person. Now I think I was wrong. I like to be proven wrong.
I know from the past, critics often say my films don't have any plot, that kind of thing. I'm used to being told, "Yeah, it's slow and has no plot."
I've been writing for a long time, since the late '60s. But it hasn't been in the same form. I used to write scripts for television. I wrote for my comedy act. Then I wrote screenplays, and then I started writing New Yorker essays, and then I started writing plays. I didn't start writing prose, really, until the New Yorker essays, but they were comic. I didn't start writing prose, really, until the '90s. In my head, there was a link between everything. One thing led to another.
The great thing about playing a character that's similar to the audience, or similar to you, is that you get to have the same reaction that you would actually have to whatever's going on.
The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didn't want to be used by anybody.
A comic book and a straight drama all have the same elements. If you're playing tragedy, you have to be aware of the comedy; if you're playing comedy, you have to be aware of the tragedy. If you're playing comic book, you have to be aware of the reality.
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