“Yeah, we shot ourselves in the foot right out of the gate. The guy who ran it at first misled pretty much everybody about how much capital we had. He said we had enough to go three years without making money, and we had enough to go three weeks.” YearsFirstsSaidEnoughGuyThreeComedyWeekFeetShotsYeahMaking MoneyRanGatesThree YearsHad EnoughMisled Author:Al Franken
“It seems like when I first started, people got into comedy because they wanted to be good comedians.” PeopleFirstsSeemsWantedComedyBe GoodComedian Author:Wanda Sykes
“I do comedy shows. I make fun of myself, first of all.” FirstsShowsFunComedyComedy Shows Author:Steve Burton
“When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy.” FirstsPlayCharacterDesireActingComedyTheaterMusicalTragicOperaMusical Theater Author:Leslie Easterbrook
“I had two projects that fell apart during preproduction. The first one was this movie that Judd Apatow and I had written about two guys following the Rolling Stones. It was going to be half concert film, half pseudo-documentary. It was Mick Jagger's idea.The other one was Simple Plan, based on a novel by Scott Smith. It's a great book - really stark, not a comedy - about a guy who finds $4 million in a plane crash and decides to keep it.” FirstsTwoBookIdeasFilmGuySimpleHalfMillionsNovelComedyPlansWrittenProjectsStonesFollowingPlanesConcertsCrashRollingDocumentariesStarksRolling StonesGreat BookPseudoTwo GuysJaggerPlane CrashesSimple Plan Author:Ben Stiller
“What turned me on to comedy was - well, first of all, I like being able to laugh, I like people who can make me laugh.” PeopleFirstsWellsAbleLaughingComedyMake Me Laugh Author:Nathan Fillion
“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.” KnowsWantFirstsWholeUsedActorsAudienceComedyImagineWeekFirst TimeExcitingCamerasShockRehearsalChaoticOld DaysSitcomStunningMinstrels Author:William Shatner
“When I first graduated college, I told my parents I'd try to pursue comedy for the first year or two, and if it didn't work out, I'd put my nose to the grindstone and try to find a job somehow. I went to UCB, and it clicked with me.” IfsTryingYearsFirstsTwoJobsParentComedyCollegeWork OutPursueNosesGrindstone Author:Ben Schwartz
“A Murphy [Eddie Murphy] movie is like a Sidney Poitier comedy - he's that intensely good... He revolutionized acting. He's literally black Brando. Before Eddie Murphy, there were two schools of acting for a black actor: Either you played it LIKE THIS or youplayeditlahkdis. He was the first black guy in a movie to talk like I am talking right now. That did not exist for black actors before him.” FirstsTwoSchoolGuyActorsBlackActingTalkingComedyRight NowMurphyBrandoBlack Guys Author:Scott Raab