Danis Tanovic Quotes

Dramas are incredibly compelling. I feel like 'Silver Linings Playbook' is a drama, but because it's funny, people market it as a comedy.

I don't really find things funny unless they're deeply tragic at the same time. I think if you're funny just for the sake of being funny, it's just frivolous nonsense. To me, all the best comic plays have been written about really serious and rather bleak things.

There's comedy even in tragedy. There's comedy in life. And in 'Castle', we go for that comedy.

I'd have to say that my favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning. 'Little Miss Sunshine' is like that. That's my fave genre, if I had to pick one.

When I was a playwright earlier in my career - my senior project in high school was my first produced play - I used to put on the title page: 'A tragedy with laughs.'

You can channel a lot within a comic framework, and I think 'The Guard' had a lot going on outside of the comedy, which is satisfying.

You know, what I like about 'The Family Tree' is it's a kitchen sink movie; you can't think of anything that it doesn't either throw into the story for conflict or poke fun at or attack, even, so I like it.

I think a joke is a form of truth-telling. A good joke that's absurd contains elements of our daily darkness and also a possibility to escape that darkness. So, for me, humor is an attempt to capture everyday tragedy and everyday hopeful moments that we experience all of the time.

I love down-and-dirty and grit. But I do think that my favorite dramas are ones that are dark comedies because I think that the only way the audience and the actor can really go as dark and deep as you may want to go is if there's some levity added to it.

As a comedian, I am attracted to truths that are uncomfortable. I like funny bummers.

Comedy defends the commonplace; tragedy explodes it.

I naturally think in terms of comedy whenever I see anything because tragedy is so close to comedy, so I like to add the tragedy to the comedy or a little bit of comedy to the tragedy in order to make them both feel more real to me.

My favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning.

Comedy is brutal. It's powerful, though.

A joke's a very serious thing.

I wanted to do something in the style of a comedy of manners.

I think you can tell the human condition better through comedy.

I try to find humor in everything I do, because I think all great plays - even great tragedies - have enormous humor in them.

Most period drama is so earnest. A lot of it is about making yourself take seriously things you wouldn't normally.

I haven't played Hedda Gabler yet, but maybe if I did I might find the funny bits.

'24' is a pretty serious show - there isn't a lot of improv that is happening. Having said that, I do play around with the delivery. A lot of the humor comes from playing a character who is very furious and really up in her own brain and in a serious situation. That is humorous to me.

'Natural Born Killers' is really a misunderstood romantic comedy.

Humor's a weapon if you want to make it one.

In a comedy, after the day is done, you can figure out ways of how to make it even funnier for the next day. In dramas, it's very different - the mindset that you're in.

There's obviously a lot of tragedy in comedy; I really enjoy the paradox of what a really good comedy is.