Daniel Radcliffe Quotes

Bad improv happens with people who are inexperienced with each other and don't know the craft that well. But bad stand-up is something that could happen to someone at any level in their career.

When you're a stand-up, you play in front of 600 people, and it's all about timing. I could never do stand-up comedy; it would be way too hard for me.

When I began doing stand-up, it took me a long time to get an hour's worth of material together.

With stand-up you can just be yourself on stage. And ideally, you can't see the crowd most of the time - it's just lights in your face. But I still have had terrible stage fright.

I've learnt that from stand-up - you should always worry that it's going to go badly, otherwise you're too laissez faire.

I'd never experienced stress before I did stand-up, and it was a massive shock to my system, this thing of waking up, and the nerves of, 'You're on stage tonight.'

I feel like every time I go out, I want to do a good job. I want people to say that he's just as good at stand-up as he is in some of the movies I've seen him in, so I try to do the best every time I go out there.

If you're a comic, you don't have a rehearsal room; you rehearse on stage. My main concern is remembering everything. I've written lots of material, but how do you memorise 90 minutes? That's one hell of a long speech. I've always had problems with that.

At this point, I feel fairly comfortable in terms of performance. I think having a sketch background actually helps a lot. Because my background is acting, and stand-up, in a lot of ways, is acting.

There's no real preparing at home for stand-up. You just go and you just do it.

The only way to stay sharp is to do live shows. There is no part-time comedy.

Impressions are still kind of hard for me and not what I love to do the most, but with characters, I think there's an element of fearlessness. You try to figure out the best reading and wording of the jokes before the show, and then you just really have to go hard.

I started by doing a little funny story, and then I started going to open mics. I realized I had a lot of work to do - you have to get over the stage fright and get your stage presence up. It took me some time, but I finally feel that I'm at a point where I feel comfortable on stage and giving my point of view.

There are many problems with being a comedian: the travel, the late nights, the pressure, the fear of running out of funny things to say.

When I started out in stand-up, I was already used to speaking in front of people, how to project, control my voice - a lot of learning curves I had overcome.

There's something about us as stand-ups that when we're on our feet, we feel more in control of the situation and in control of our bodies and our delivery.

The hardest part of comedy is writing the jokes, and the second-hardest part is telling the jokes. To me, everything else is significantly easier.

Stand-up comedy is something that you have to strive to do, multiple times a night, every night, to be good.

Getting onstage and trying out all of my material and what works well with audiences and what doesn't, what works well in different atmospheres, has been the best training.

Stand-up, I find it really difficult. It's not really my thing.

TV is easier: it's all planned out for you and the audience is there to see a show and they are all pumped up but when you are in a comedy club, you have to be really funny to win them over.

My stand-up is quite good now, people say. It's just like a big conversation each time. Every gig is a rehearsal.

Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.

Stand-up keeps you alive. It is definitely the most specialized field in comedy because you need to stay sharp and well-tuned every night.

I think it's really, really good for me to be on stage once a year. It keeps your chops good. There's nothing else like it.