Mike White Quotes

I'd love to do a comedy - something where a character has to use humor to navigate the absurdities of life.

The best comedy, I feel, comes in a drama because it balances each other out.

I learned a great lesson early on, even before I was really an actor, from that movie 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' that John Hughes made: that you could make a movie that's really, really, really, really funny, and sometimes you can still achieve... making the audience feel very deep emotions as well.

I always have humour in my action movies. I think characters that make jokes under fire are more real. It somehow helps put you in their shoes.

I think comedy is drama, often. It's hard to have comedy over a period of time - commercials are one thing, but over a period of time - comedy and tragedy go hand in hand.

I would love to do a comedy spoof, like a Spinal Tap kind of thing.

My favorite kind of humor is basically, if it was happening to you, it wouldn't be funny, but to observe it, it's hilarious.

Comedy is drama. I think that if your characters are feeling something that is very real, then they have to respond in a way that feels real to them, and some situations, the only response you could possibly have is to respond in a way that's so extreme that people are going to laugh.

I know the new comedy god is surrealism, but it doesn't touch my heart.

The energy in a comedy is very serious. Somebody said comedy is a tragedy plus time. When you have a tragedy, for example, like this, like, 'We're going to die,' and you have time, like, five hours to die, it becomes a comedy.

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

A farce, or slapstick humor, does well universally.

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

Some comedies, they want you falling on your face and doing silly things.

Comedy can be very deep sometimes.

It so fascinates me how we always laugh when somebody falls on a banana peel, how comedy and injury are often so interwoven. I've always been a sucker for that.

'Veerey Ki Wedding' is a comedy of errors in more ways than one. It's one of those basic, perky comedies. We're not trying to give out a message or anything.

Especially with a comedy, you've got the clear cut goal of trying to make a scene funny. It's not like drama where you're trying to achieve some kind of emotion or trying to further the story along. You're trying to figure out what's the funniest way to do something.

I believe in physical comedy, because that reaches out most to people.

I think we're the only jokeless show on television. I mean really, we have no setups and no punch lines. It's not a joke show. There are funny lines and funny moments but again the comedy is born of the human experience and awkward pauses are a great part of what it is to be human.

My definitions of comedy, drama, and straight man are all blurry for me. I don't think of it in those terms.

I like to play the comic relief or parts that aren't necessarily comedic but that I can find the comedy in.

Comedy is not my first go-to sort of genre.

A great production of a black comedy is better than a mediocre production of a comedy of errors.

A lot of comedies, I think, make the wrong choice of having the straight man being this bland emotional conduit for the audience.