Nigel Cole Quotes

All I've ever wanted to do is entertain people - make them laugh, think, smile, feel creeped out or scared; whatever it is. I'm getting the opportunity to do that in various roles.

I figure you're only here for a matter of moments. Ever since I was a kid watching movies I've always wanted to make people laugh or have some sort of emotional reaction.

I think I would say 'The King's Speech' is surprisingly funny, in fact the audiences in London, Toronto, LA, New York commented there's more laughter in this film than in most comedies, while it is also a moving tear-jerker with an uplifting ending.

No one - apart from my agent, perhaps - should leave one of my shows in tears.

The heart of the theater is the play itself, how it dramatizes life to make it meaningful entertainment. To achieve depth and universality, the playwright must subject himself to intense critique, to know human character and behavior, and finally to construct art from the most mundane of human experience.

To be perfectly honest, drama is a lot simpler than comedy.

Professional wresting is like performance art. It truly is. You're taking the crowd on a ride, on an emotional roller coaster.

'Baskets' is incredible - 'Baskets' is so funny and poignant and sad and dark.

When you see 'MHN,' you will see that the film is based on relationships which are serious, but there is a sense of humour to it, too.

I think I could have a funnier, more economic sets. But that's the comedy I do. And I understand if people aren't interested in it and would rather listen to someone else. But I'll never understand the anger people have toward me.

Why should I waste my good time making a straight dramatic film? The people who can't make you laugh can do that.

I don't really think about film or television or going directly to the internet. I just think about doing something that people are going to get excited about.

You have more of a responsibility to make the audience laugh. In comedy, we do have to say, "All right, it's been two minutes in the film. We need another laugh here." With drama, there's no pressure in that regard. It's a different kind of pressure, but it's not like we need to make someone laugh.

I like entertaining people. I like being on stage. I like being in the life. This is what I do. This is the only thing I know how to do besides rob people and fight. Even when I was robbing people, I was entertaining them. But that's just what I love doing.

I like films that are so funny, dramatic and lifelike simultaneously, that you are laughing and cringing simultaneously all throughout the film.

The audience requires not information but drama.

Your only guidepost is your own instinct and judicious editing. In my stand-up act I learned that in the first 10 minutes I could say anything and it would get a laugh. Then I'd better deliver. In the movie it's the same thing. You get a lot of laughs when people first sit down and then the story better kick in. Many years in front of an audience, I would hope, give me a sense of what works.

I love those people who do story-telling and who ramble on, but I don't do that, I tell jokes - the sort of jokes that anyone really could tell in the pub.

I don't think it's good when entertainment tries to proselytize and I don't think people ultimately want someone showing up in their living room and just hectoring at them all day long. But if you can create a space where people are caught up in something - whether it's a drama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, or science fiction - that's when people give over their minds and allow their emotions to flow.

I think comedy and music are both things that we need as human beings. I think that both art forms can touch people.

One of the things that's funniest about the entertainment industry and comedy is that people go 'Oh, you're great, but I don't know what to do with you.' The great thing about the Internet is that nobody has to figure out what to do with you. You can figure out what to do with you, and you can say, 'I made this thing, and I'm going to put it out, and now if people want to come see me and buy things from me they can.'

I get approached to do shows all the time. There's a lot of money in sitcoms, but I've never been the kind of guy who wanted to do one. I don't think people want to see me saying "Honey, I'm home." It's just not my thing.

Today, they make films where you have to sit for an hour and a half and watch somebody in the process of dying and, for me, that's rather depressing. Films, in the good old days of the golden age of Hollywood, used to want to inspire people and give them uplift. You're paying good money to see a film, and you don't want to leave depressed!

In movies, comedy and tragedy are all the same.

Drama is a complete meal, vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates. It's a slow burn thing. It's got an arc. Comedy is more like coke.