Mekhi Phifer Quotes

I do really like serio-comic movies that treat real difficulties in a real way.

You can't just play crazy. It makes you push yourself to stay in the realm of reality. And when you do that, it's a lot funnier. That's my favorite, when you think it's a real strange person and not just someone being wacky.

For me, making a lot of dramas on one side it's a different sort of challenge, and on the other, it's not a challenge at all, meaning that my goal is to try and bring the realism and acting you might find in a straight drama with the intentions and conflict, where it doesn't feel tongue-in-cheek, but rather committed and real.

The secret to comedy is not playing the comedy, but actually playing the situation, playing the drama of it.

'Funny People' is my favorite performance of myself to date. Even though it's a comedy and there are serious moments, I really felt like Leo felt like a real person. It didn't feel like I was playing myself. Whether it's a comedy or drama, I just try to make it as realistic as possible.

I approach a comedy the same way I do a drama. I try to make it as real as possible.

Comedy is drama. I think that if your characters are feeling something that is very real, then they have to respond in a way that feels real to them, and some situations, the only response you could possibly have is to respond in a way that's so extreme that people are going to laugh.

Growing up, I loved drama and fantasies. I hated the Marx Brothers. I took all that confusion seriously.

I think the best comedic actors don't play it for comedy, they play it for reality. Then you find it funny because it's real. Playing the genre is the worst thing you can do - it's embarrassing.

You have to avoid caricature, at the one end of the spectrum, and sentimentality, at the other; which is not to say that such characters shouldn't be funny part of the time, or that their actions shouldn't evoke genuine feeling.

I think it's natural if you're doing a lot of comedy to do a lot of drama, because you have to figure out the real version of the joke.

Drama comes more naturally to me. It's the comedy you really have to delve into.

Every character I've played is goofy, but it has to have some type of reality.

Albert Brooks. Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Larry David. The best comedic actors play broad and real simultaneously, coming across as both larger than life and all too human.

Over-articulation kills the character because it becomes one thing and that is not how it happens in life and it is not beautiful to watch on screen either.

Everyone says comedy is really hard, but with 'The Office' the naturalism was everything so it didn't feel like doing comedy; it just felt like doing a really offensive character who thought he was funny.

I can't not have something attached to like what actually happens in real life. Like I can't do a romantic comedy without there being something where like, in the case of Annie Hathaway's character, her character ends up having Parkinson's, you know? To me, I feel like that's love, you know? Like to me. So every movie has to have that kind of sense of that.

I feel like with comedy, the crazy things that happen are never serious you know? Like, rubble being poured onto you in drama would be something that's absolutely terrible, but in a comedy it's absolutely terrible but so funny.

I think everything needs to be played real, for reality's sake, for truth. And that is the drama and the comedy. When you do that, it's funnier. And when you do that, you really do hit the emotional beats. I do it the same way as I do a drama. I just play it for truth, and then maybe have a little bit of fun with it sometimes.

I naturally think in terms of comedy whenever I see anything because tragedy is so close to comedy, so I like to add the tragedy to the comedy or a little bit of comedy to the tragedy in order to make them both feel more real to me.

The beauty of the world of Unbreakable is that you're playing it for reality. It should never feel like a comic book movie. It feels like a straight-up drama. It's real. You're confronting the possibility that comic book characters were based on people that were real.

When I approach villains, unless it's a drama, I'm a comedian, so I approach most things from a comedic point of view.

I don't do things that are comedic. This is such a crazy idea.

I don't do comedy. I think if a situation is funny you just play it for real and if it's funny, it's funny.

If it's strictly comedy, I like to bring some darkness to it. If it's strictly drama, I always like to lighten it up as well. I like to find some kind of dimension and make my characters human, so that it doesn't feel like a sketch and feels more like a slice of life.