Top 86 Comedy Actor Quotes
#1. There's not a comedy actor who doesn't want a chance to do drama, and vice versa. As actors, we're always looking to be pushed and to do the other side of the coin.
Matthew Lillard
#2. People used to think of me as a comedy actor.
Rami Malek
#3. Perhaps I've been perceived more as a romantic comedy actor, but overall, I enjoy acting in any shape or form.
Jaime Camil
#4. To tell you the truth, I always wanted to be a sketch comedian and a comedy actor.
Artie Lange
#5. As an actor, you read so many scripts and parts written for Asian-specific characters, and you see a lot of stereotypes and a lot of one-note characters, especially in comedy.
Randall Park
#6. When someone's an actor and you're an actor, you meet them and you feel like you know them. We're in the same business, and we all speak the same comedy language.
Harold Ramis
#7. I'm known as a dramatic actor. But because I don't do a lot of comedy, I love watching it because I can really immerse myself in it and not think.
Riley Smith
#8. I'm an actor. I've always been an actor. I've always approached all my comedy as an actor. I don't really care about jokes either. I tire of jokes.
Brett Gelman
#9. Sometimes I think your intellect can get in your way as an actor or an artist. When you come from a world of improv and comedy, you're able to let it flicker and fall out.
Paul Dano
#10. The worst thing you can do as a comedy director is be on set and think of something ridiculous, or an actor comes up to you with something ridiculous, and you say 'No, no that's too much.' Let's not worry if that's too much, let's shoot it, and then decide if that's too much when we see it.
Todd Phillips
#11. The whole thing with comedy is that you are always in control. Writer, director, actor, producer, and sometimes bouncer. And you are just a piece of their puzzle.
Dane Cook
#12. Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder.
Ben Kingsley
#13. It's fun because I really do love meeting new people. Comedy can be so different from show to show and from writer to writer and actor to actor. People don't set out to make a bad show.
Fiona Gubelmann
#14. Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training.
Christopher Walken
#15. Running my show is really like an actor being in repertory but where, in one day in one performance, you do scenes from a drama, a farce, a low comedy and a tragedy.
Dick Cavett
#16. To me, real comedy comes out of behavior. It's the choices you make as an actor. It's never about, "I want to do a comedy script." I can't think of it that way. And besides, some of those movies, those comedy movies, I can't even watch them.
Robert Duvall
#17. If I'm not on tour, I can run down to the comedy club and do a little stand-up. If you're an actor, you can't go - I guess there's forms of it.
Louis C.K.
#18. To do comedy, you have to be a pretty good actor to start with.
Robert Webb
#19. My background is in musical comedy. I didn't know I was going to be an actor. But all my points of reference have to do with musical comedy and in being kind of a showoff.
Christopher Walken
#20. I'm just an actor. If it's drama, I add as much humour as the part will stand. And if it's a comedy, add as much drama as you can, so it balances out; you don't wanna be too serious.
Michael Pena
#21. Movies serve many purposes, and I've visited many of those genres, from the most light, frivolous comedy that is just trying to make you laugh, to movies that explore the most complicated side of the human soul. As an actor, I play all of those things, and I still like it.
Antonio Banderas
#22. I loved Peter Sellers. I thought he was the perfect mix of physical comedy with out-of-the-box humor. I loved his tone; I loved his physicality; I loved everything about what he was doing as a comedic actor.
J. B. Smoove
#23. I mean, sometimes ... a comedian becomes an actor, and they just don't deliver, because the bottom line of comedy is to be funny, and the bottom line of acting is to be truthful, and they get that mixed up sometimes, or don't even notice that that's the thing.
Eddie Izzard
#24. Comedy holds the greatest risk for an actor, and laughter is the reward.
Cary Grant
#25. I wasn't a trained actor, I was trained in musical comedy theater, and when you do that, the audience is completely part of the thing. It's like Elizabethan theater. You play the scene, and then you turn - the audience is part of it.
Christopher Walken
#26. I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy.
Steve Martin
#27. In comedy, beware the split focus. The audience should focus on the face of the actor. The audience must see the setup. If there is action elsewhere on the stage, the comic line can be lost.
James Carver
#28. I believe singing should be like being an actor. People shouldn't have any problem buying an actor being in a comedy or a drama or a horror film. That should be the same way with music.
Darren Criss
#29. In comedy, you have to do all of the same stuff you do in drama and then put the comedy on top of it. You, the actor, are aware of the comedy but the character is oblivious. And you have to have a sense of humor.
Jon Lovitz
#30. I'm not a broad comedy guy. I've been funny in movies, but I'm not a comedian. I'm an actor who's sometimes funny.
Matthew Lillard
#31. I'm trained as an actor for the stage - classically trained, believe it or not - and I worked closely with Stella Adler for years. People don't know that much about it. They just think I am these people. But I've been in this comedy racket, because it's just how everybody wants to see me.
Michael Richards
#32. I do love comedy, I have to say. That's one of the greatest things about being an actor: You get to try new things and play around in different genres.
Stuart Townsend
#33. It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it.
Colin Firth
#34. Comedy is difficult for an actor. But I think I have a good sense of humor and manage to make people laugh and make them happy.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
#35. Whenever you're making a dark comedy, you're always looking for the yin and yang in an actor.
Jamie Babbit
#36. Because I've done so many hour dramas, people tend to think of you as more of a dramatic actor and don't see you as doing comedy.
Amy Acker
#37. I've done some movies because I would regret them if I didn't, but other projects I've done because they've scared me or if I felt I needed to do a big romantic comedy to help me professionally. Then I'll take a teeny movie when I need to work on myself and become a better actor.
Ginnifer Goodwin
#38. Every actor thinks he can do comedy, and it's not true.
Denis Leary
#39. A famous actor, Edmund Kean, on his deathbed, was reported to have said, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."
Melvin Helitzer
#40. I always have considered Michael Keaton to be a phenomenal actor because he navigates drama and comedy.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
#41. As an actor you get categorized by other people, but it's not like I arrange myself into comedy mode or serious mode. If it's good writing you just have to play it true - if it's funny, it's funny. But obviously you don't want it to be amusing if you're playing Hedda Gabler!
Sophie Thompson
#42. I think the best advice I'd say to any actor when you do comedy is play it straight.
Ricky Gervais
#43. I never looked at my future as comedy. Even at Second City, I always thought of it as acting. I knew I was going to be an actor financially, emotionally, egotistically.
Scott Adsit
#44. I was a failed actor but I still wanted to show off, so I ended up doing live comedy.
Graham Norton
#45. It's a very important skill set for an actor to be able to bring the humor into any moment, whether you're doing drama or comedy.
Nathaniel Buzolic
#46. I eventually became an actor, starting with doing stand-up comedy in New York and then theater wherever they would let me. Finally, I moved out here to Los Angeles and got on a show.
Nolan North
#47. When I started acting, my whole focus and intention was to work as a stage actor in a company where you're asked to different roles - do a comedy, do a tragedy, etc. I haven't had any reservations about jumping from one type of genre to another.
Kyle MacLachlan
#48. I always wanted to be a journeyman actor. I wanted to be able to do comedy and drama, classical and contemporary. I like to do film and theater. And I pride myself on that diversity of being a journeyman actor.
Wendell Pierce
#49. For me, it doesn't matter whether it's a comedy, a Western or horror. As long as you've got a good story to tell, the genre almost doesn't matter. As an actor playing the role, it's all rooted in reality.
Patrick Wilson
#50. I was a huge fan of comedy and movies and TV growing up, and I was able to memorize and mimic a lot of things, not realizing that that meant I probably wanted to be an actor. I just really, really amused myself and my friends with memorizing entire George Carlin or Steve Martin albums.
Hank Azaria
#51. One of the biggest misconceptions about me is that I'm a comedian, which I'm not. A comedian is someone who can stand up in front of an audience and make you laugh. I've never done stand-up and I never will. I'm a comic actor. My comedy comes through my characters.
Eugene Levy
#52. If the audience knows what's behind the door and the actor does not, that's comedy. If both the audience and the actor do not know, that's mystery!
Melvin Helitzer
#53. 'Birdman' is basically 'All About Eve' - the 1950 comedy about rehearsal rivalries in a Broadway show, and another Best Picture laureate - reimagined as a Batman suicide mission. The movie couldn't be actor-ier.
Richard Corliss
#54. It was wonderful to be able to play a character who had so many colors and who was able to play comedy, to play incredibly vulnerable, which he did a lot of the time, to play the love story, and to play the relationship with the son, which is quite unusual. That's a gift to me, as an actor.
John Noble
#55. If you want to be an actor, you need to learn how to act first, even in sketch comedy.
Nicole Sullivan
#56. The comedy of class, played so straight, is a wonderful thing for an actor to sink their teeth into.
Shirley Maclaine
#57. I am a stage actor. I do mostly improv comedy. The only national television stuff is 'Archer' and' Frisky Dingo.'
Amber Nash
#58. When someone who is known for being comedic does something straight, it's always "a big breakthrough" or a "radical departure." Why is is no one ever says that if a straight actor does comedy? Are they presuming comedy is easier?
Carol Burnett
#59. It's funny, because I was trained as a dramatic actor at New York's Colonnades Theater Lab in the '70s, along with Jeff Goldblum, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. People I worked with there saw a comedian in me. I'm still most at home in comedy.
Peter Scolari
#60. But long story short, I didn't start doing stand-up because I wanted to have a TV show or be an actor or even wanted to write sketch comedy. I got into stand-up because I love stand-up.
Demetri Martin
#61. As it is, I have a limited range as an actor - light comedy. I have never been a fan of romantic comedies, and yet that is what I have ended up mostly doing.
Hugh Grant
#62. If you are a great dramatic actor then you often don't know if people are enjoying your stuff at all because they are sitting there in silence. But with comedy it's a simple premise. If it's funny, people laugh. If it's not, they don't.
Steve Coogan
#63. I'm a goofball, so I think comedy is one of my stronger points, as an actor. I just never get to do it. But, I'm taking classes at Groundlings, where Will Ferrell and Lisa Kudrow studied, and it's all improv comedy. It feels good to be able to do that and be funny.
Tinsel Korey
#64. If you're trying to be an actor, sometimes you get lucky, and you end up on 'The Office', but if you don't, and you know that you have something to say, it's really, really fortunate to be able to get to write and star in your own comedy.
Riki Lindhome
#65. I'm not a comedian, I'm not a stand-up and I don't come from a comedy background. I am an actor, but I've had a very fortunate foray into comedy, and it seems to have become a bit of a strength, and you can't complain when you become known for something.
Darren Boyd
#66. You know, I was a huge fan of comedy and movies and TV growing up, and I was able to memorize and mimic a lot of things, not realizing that that meant I probably wanted to be an actor.
Hank Azaria
#67. My passion lies in amazing, complex characters and really well-written stuff - not to say I wouldn't want to do a comedy if the right comedy came along ... I'm an actor in Los Angeles, and I have a family I have to support.
Michael Cudlitz
#68. Sometimes I'm doing a big movie, or sometimes I'm doing a TV show, but as an actor, it's almost the same thing for me. If I'm doing action, or comedy, or something more heartfelt, it's a different approach, but it's all acting for me.
Hiroyuki Sanada
#69. I'm not a comedian. I don't do stand-up. I don't tell jokes. I'm a comedic actor, and approach my work that way. The comedy comes through the character.
Eugene Levy
#70. I'm always drawn towards the darker stuff, because I think it's just a lot more interesting. But it's also good fun doing the comedy, and I think that's why 'Misfits' has been great in that way, as you get a really good balance. I think it's best to try and do everything as an actor, really.
Iwan Rheon
#71. I went from an unemployed actor's life to doing stand-up comedy, and that was fortuitous. It's not the usual way the crow flies, going from being in a TV sketch show to playing one of Shakespeare's finest characters, but, hey, that's the way it has happened.
Catherine Tate
#72. People always call me a comedian. And I don't really see myself like that. I guess I just consider myself an actor who does comedy. But who wants to do other things as well.
Kristen Wiig
#73. An actor who is good at comedy can also be very good at drama, but not necessarily vice versa.
Desi Arnaz
#74. What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write; and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you've got to do some writing.
Michael Caine
#75. Every actor knows that tragedy, being linear and inevitable, is taxing - but comedy, which depends on the element of surprise, is the hardest act of all.
Robin Morgan
#76. A kitten is the delight of a household. All day long a comedy is played out by an incomparable actor.
Champfleury
#77. People want their actors to do comedy, too. They don't want any comedians next to the actor. They want one solo hero and want to see everything in him.
Akshay Kumar
#78. I began my comedy as its only actor and I come to the end as its only spectator.
Antonio Porchia
#80. Josh Radnor is that rare thing: a writer-director who thinks like an actor but still knows how to create a comedy with shape and vision. Liberal Arts is the best movie about college I've seen since I don't know what ... Dryly affectionate and super-sharp. Elizabeth Olsen is every inch a star.
Owen Gleiberman
#81. As an audience member, I like watching Rupert as an actor when he's most playful, ... I think Rupert is really adept at comedy I think that's where his strength lies.
Benjamin Bratt
#82. I didn't set out to be a villain in film. I'm a character actor, and if my first movie was a comedy, I could have played a geek just as well.
William Zabka
#83. I became an actor by accident. I suppose I figured since I was in musical comedy from the time I was a teenager, I suppose I figured that I'd always been in that world to some extent.
Christopher Walken
#84. My drama instructor suggested I try comedy. I was resistant at first because I considered myself a serious actor, but of course I fell in love with it.
Cecily Strong
#85. Comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write.
Michael Caine
#86. Only criminals and madmen walk into Central Park after midnight...or, occasionally, an actor. (Dark City Lights)
Jane Dentinger
