Matt McGorry Quotes

Acting is kind of difficult to intellectualize - it's a far more visceral experience. It's really hard to be able to think about and then employ these kind of esoteric notions of this person's backstory and try to weave it in somehow. It's just kind of impossible.

Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.

My stand-up has always been very character-based. I'm not really the kind of person that's like, 'Hey, here's what's on my mind! Tip your waitress!' I would create the jokes based on the character I was playing. It was always a performance-based thing for me.

Sometimes you'll see people give performances in comedy with an ironic detachment where they'll sort of be remarking on the character from outside of it. They're sort of commenting as they're playing the character. I think it's hard not to do that. I've certainly done that.

I was taught by a lot of great comedy writers to go for the reality in a role, and the comedy will come through.

What I'm doing in the work I do, I prefer not to just have a series of jokes. It's nice when audiences can connect with the characters as well.

Actors that don't look like they're acting and stories that are told well inspire me.

I think of myself as a theatre comic instead of club comic because I tend to talk for a bit before I start being funny. I don't really do the one-liners and five second bits or whatever. But it's good to work stuff out sometimes.

I like a naturalism to my dialogue and my comedy. I would rather have a few jokes sail by that might be more subtle than have every single joke hit hard. I would rather the comedy come out of character as opposed to feeling forced. Even if you're giving some laughs up for it.

As an actor, what's interesting is what's hidden away beneath the surface. You want to be like a duck on a pond - very calm on the surface but paddling away like crazy underneath.

I started out doing multiple characters from day one, when I got my fist job in 'Dumbo's Circus.' I'm used to getting in an argument with myself, throwing myself off a cliff, patching myself up and brushing myself off with an arm around my shoulder.

I like to approach comedy from character, to have the stakes for the individuals in the story be very high.

I don't laugh so much at jokes and premises as I do at a guy who goes onstage and starts twitching and acting funny.

A lot of actors, whatever movie you're working on, you make up a back story just for your own, to work off, even if the audience doesn't have it revealed to them. I think it's important that the audience makes up their own mind.

If you were to hold me down and tickle me to pick my favorite 'plus-comic,' it would have to be Kevin James, a broad physical pratfaller capable of deadpan underplay, a technique honed from years of reaction-shot close-ups on TV, where every teeny fraction of a squint registers.

When you're in a play, 50 percent is the genius of the actor, 50 percent is the genius of the author. When a mime is not perfect, you see nothing.

As an actor, you work to the script: that's our main priority. But you have to be aware and look around for things that help you bring that little bit extra, that touch of realism that rams the point home.

I love novels where not much 'happens' but where the interest is in the ideas and analyses of characters.

I always think of myself as a comedy feeder type person, and that feeder lets themselves get out of your comfort zone as opposed to straight stand up; that feels like honing one skill, like honing one point of view.

Sometimes you can take those dramatic roles and maybe interject a little humor into them, and I think the reverse also works.

My preference is for people who can do sketch comedy or situational comedy, where it's not a joke, but it's telling a story.

Being a good actor is sort of understanding the complexity of the human psyche and also knowing that we are none of us perfect.

A lot of film acting is about being casual.

I loved doing 'The Family' with Eunice and Mama. They were very interesting because there were no jokes written into those sketches. It was all character-driven. And sometimes it got a little heavy.

Most of my acting in general is about what's going on in the head, and the lines are just something that comes out.