Roz Chast Quotes

'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.

One of the things that makes any good entertainment, whether it's a play, drama, comedy, television, film, whatever, is that you feel a certain amount of spontaneity.

What I like in comedies are really two things: stories that are character-driven and stories that are rooted in authenticity.

I look at a show like 'Roseanne.' That's super influential on me. It's very funny, very real, with real problems. That was a big influence, and I don't know if you see that all the time in the network world.

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 like to play people that are real, a real person, and then something that's interesting with that person. I think it's a lot more challenging to do that than something that's extremely fantasy-like.

I remember being fascinated by the very nature of comedy from the age of 10; why is this funny, and that isn't?

Acting-wise, I haven't done a lot of comedy, so I would love to work with Jane Lynch. I think she's hilarious.

Henry is entirely invented though by now I feel he's as real as anyone I know.

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

I'm no way one of those comedians who want to do drama. I really do love comedies. I hope to go back to it.

The first season of 'Community' stumbled a bit because the plotlines too often veered into realism, but that is not a problem anymore. Not when prize episodes concern a campuswide blanket fort, or a secret garden with a magic trampoline.

I suppose I look for humor in most situations because it humanizes things; it makes a character much more three-dimensional if there's some kind of humor. Not necessarily laugh-out-loud type of stuff, just a sense that there is a humorous edge to things. I do like that.

Nobody enjoys the 'little show about nothing' humor more than me, but that is never the way I look at it.

Comedy is not something that a person can fake or learn how to do.

The whole trick is to make it feel like you're spying on real people's lives as they get through the day. When I'm writing, I have to trick myself as a writer. If I consciously say, 'I'm writing,' I feel all this pressure and somehow it doesn't feel as real as when it doesn't seem to count as much.

I don't get offered many comedies.

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.

So the laughs had to come from the character, not because we had balloons in our shirts or were speaking in high voices. That was very important to us.

There is still a lot to be said for the well-made, witty, clever, three-act comedy.

'Friends' was an education in intelligent comedic banter; in intelligent vernacular. It was an education in scene study. It was an education in group dynamic. I came out of there with a master's degree in comedy.

Chris Farley, I was a huge fan of his growing up. I would love to do something kind of slapstick and funny, maybe where I could change my look even a little bit.

If you work at comedy too laboriously, you can kill what's funny in the joke.

I didn't necessarily have a total idea when I was writing the movie of where everything was going. I just wanted to have really realistic dialogue and write like people I knew talked. I tried to keep it very real.

You can't be funny for funny's sake. You try to get as outrageous situation as you can but it always has to be believable and based in real character motivations and what people would really do.