Nicole Byer Quotes

I think there's something really freeing about improv, that it's a collective, creative, in-the-moment piece. That's really exciting and really frustrating, because it's there and gone. There's an amazing interaction with the audience that happens because they are very much another scene partner.

I have to visualise my jokes, live my jokes, feel the audience because every audience is different. It's like having a different dancing partner every night.

When I was doing ensemble theater and comedy work, I felt I had some talents. But when I started doing my shows in Berkeley and found that I could be funny on my own, I was shocked.

The more you work in this business as a comedian, the closer you get to just being yourself onstage, on camera, the more well received you are.

Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.

Once I began doing stand-up, I didn't get a kick out of the applause or being the centre of attention - but I did get a kick out of the jigsaw puzzle aspect of it, searching for the right bit, adding another few pieces each night until the bigger picture appears. That's the appeal: the challenge of it.

If you do television, and it's great, it's the best job there is. Every week it's another opportunity to really make that work and figure out how to make it work better. I love that it's like theater too, and the audience, and it's so short, like twenty minutes... It's like a Haiku or something.

Working with Danny Thomas was truly an adventure every week. Danny didn't always say the words as they appeared in the script. I learned more by osmosis than by sitting down together. He was a force to be reckoned with: an explorer of television.

I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.

When you have the cast, the sets, the lights, an opera takes on its own life. I'm not one of those directors who marches in with a set of plans.

A couple of friends and I started a sketch comedy group when we were teenagers, just for fun and to start creating stuff. It was a blast.

Anybody with a sharp brain and a mic can become a comedian, but there's a need to move beyond it. The audience wants to witness the marriage of theatre, comedy and something more.

I learned that the best way to work is to allow the scene to live on its own before making major adjustments, whether in rehearsal or on film.

I never really saw myself as a standup comedian. I always just thought of myself as someone who used the eight minutes or 10 minutes she was allotted and had a blast.

I'm an entertainer, so in whatever form I entertain... The thing about being a rapper is that you have more control over your form, whereas with acting you have to compromise a lot.

I really can't describe what my stand-up is like - people see it and they say it's like that, or it's like this, and that's really up to them, that's fine, but I don't sit around all day analysing it. I just try and enjoy a show and interest myself because if I don't do that then I won't interest anybody else.

I try to see interviewing as performance art, and just take it as it comes.

Our first gig was a battle of the bands. We did 45 minutes of comedy and never played a note - and we won!

Bouncing ideas off people when you're thinking up comedy is great.

We're lucky enough, especially in these 'Madagascar' films, to be working with some of the best people in the industry, who are not only great actors, but great comedians and improvisers and filmmakers. And they then become a part of creating their characters.

I wanted to make a living, but I really was not interested in money at all. I was interested in being a great comedian.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

You work with stand-up comedians or you work with somebody in theater, you work with somebody from 'Star Search' or 'Survivor' or a kid, it constantly changes how you play with people.

When you deal with a comedian who has a specific act, you can't hold 'em back. You got to work with 'em, dude. What you think, I'm just gonna do what's on the page, say 'yes sir, no sir'? I'm creatively beyond that.

If you check your ego at the door when it comes to comedy, you've got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.