Mitch Hedberg Quotes

When I was in primary school, I was given a five-line script in 'Anansi the Spider Man,' and I decided to just improv and make it my own. For a second, I felt like Kevin Hart because everyone was laughing. I just continued to do it. Why not?

If I'm not clear with the character, I can't do anything with it. But once I get that character, the possibilities are endless. When you have such a defined character, I feel like I can actually read the phone book and make it funny.

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.

To me acting is like a jigsaw puzzle. The jigsaw puzzle is of the sky and all the pieces are blue. Out of this you have to create a human being and put it together.

I come from standup and improv.

The beauty of stand-up is that it's very flexible, it's very malleable and immediate. Whatever is in your head that day you can verbalise in some way that night. It's the medium that suits me best.

He can't even be at a casual read and not be creating the whole thing in his mind. I remember feeling very awed about how much he still seems to be so in love with it, and so dedicated to making everything really real and really spontaneous.

When I was a kid, I used to make up all these characters. I love comedy a lot, and I don't get to do it often. Somewhere in the middle, I shifted into doing drama.

Comedy is the ultimate truth. Jazz is hitting the notes that that no one else would hit, and comedy is saying words that no one else would say.

Comedy will always be central to what I do, it's just an instinct for me, but I am a writer and always have been.

It's funny, the hardest thing to do is to make something look like it's fast, loose and improvised, and get somebody to laugh.

If you can sell that you're the King of Scotland, or Henry V on a tiny stage in a studio theater somewhere, then you can probably sell that you're a starship captain or a time traveler.

My approach as an actor has always been the same, in that the greatest gift that you're ever going to have is your imagination because you're not going to have all life experiences. So you draw on things that are sort of close to it but you spend your time expanding on it or drawing something specific on whatever your situation is.

I always wanted to tell stories and act.

As a child, acting just seemed like a natural extension of my love of play - and if you've forgotten how to play, you shouldn't be an actor.

I think if you're trying to be funny, sometimes you're bending a piece of metal in a direction it doesn't want to go. And sometimes comedy just needs to find itself.

Acting is an art form. If you are not creating something that's unusual and informative and at least has the possibility of being illuminating, then you are not into it as an art form.

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

I was never really a writer, I was always more of a performer.

I'm not an improv guy.

I prefer being known for my stand-up because I write it. I love being an actor, and saying other people's words is great. But then, when I do stand-up, I love getting my own point of view out there.

I just think there's always room for humanity in acting, one can only hope, so when you bring in the whole life of a person that's playing a character, then surprises happen and are allowed to happen, and so it makes it more interesting.

I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.

People may think I'm trying something new by telling stories, but they're just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That's what I do.

It's the comedy that guides me. The acting and all that stuff comes second. It's equally important, but I just try to do that as best as I can.