Jessica Williams Quotes

You get callbacks, and they either give it to what they call a 'name' performer, or they decide to go in an entirely different direction.

I've been trying to get into comedy for years. I had a meeting with one of the networks a couple years ago, a general meeting, and when they asked what I was looking for and I told them I'd prefer to do comedy, it was as if I had two heads.

I got an agent when I needed one, when I had a contract negotiation for the first time. I was doing the Second City E.T.C., and I got invited to audition for the last season, it turns out, of 'In Living Color.'

Director Baz Luhrmann flew me to New York to read for 'Moulin Rouge!' Maybe I was a little blase about it.

Don't worry about me. I plan to continue to be in show business. I have already been booked to be in a production of 'The Sunshine Boys' with Jay Leno.

The first time I had got an offer to come to Hollywood, I turned it down. I said, "No, I'm an actor of the stage.

Being on "SNL" was a goal that I had when I was younger. When I got fired, I just felt really mad and I felt really grossed out by the system and grossed out by myself and it just sort of knocked me on my ass.

I'm going to leave The Wanda Sykes Show and try to get her job because $5 million ain't too bad!

Comedians are always going to be in the showbiz middle class, you're not Brad Pitt; you're never going to be Sam Rockwell or Shia LaBeouf or Leo DiCaprio. You're a comic.

I had no regrets when I did it, I have even less regret now because I can't imagine staying on the West Wing show and then, six weeks later, Aaron Sorkin leaving.

I bet I'm the only person in history who went from being the star of a sitcom to the host of a public-access show in less than a year.

I used to tour a little bit with Jim Carrey and help him out on his first Showtime special.

Show business is like Champagne. You'll appreciate it more if you don't drink it everyday

When you're a comedian, the Holy Grail is an hour long HBO special.

If you ask me right now, you've seen the last of Mind of Mencia. I don't want to be a one-trick pony. I would rather walk away and do more movies, comedy and even some dramatic roles.

My first year on 'SNL', I made $90,000 dollars.

It was not my class of people. There was not a producer, a press agent, a director, an actor.

Johnny Carson is a comedian who is seen every night in millions of bedrooms all over America...and that's why his last wife left him.

When we graduated [ from Cambridge], we were grabbed right into television. I was grabbed straight into the practice of writing comedy. It was all writing and performing. You wrote something in order for you to perform it.

Film and television was so strange to me because I didn't grow up in the business, I didn't know anything about it.

I had no intention of becoming a comedian. I just wanted to make people happy. I tried everything-I shucked oysters, I painted houses, I sold vacuum cleaners. But there was always a voice saying, You should be doing something different. And it was usually my boss and I was being fired.

Later, when I was at Caesar's Palace, and [Joe and Gil Cates] were trying to get me to have opening acts for the show, they gave me a list of people, and Rosie O'Donnell was one of them. I said, "I don't really need any opening acts. I have funny stuff in the show, and I do a lot of comedy and stuff."

[ Hosting Saturday Night Live ] paved the way for Parks And Rec and The Grinder, the Comedy Central Roast, and that whole side of my career.

I'm looking to be the next comedy mogul.

I don't want to be a TV star for the sake of being on TV. I want to have a TV show that's based around my comedy.