Jonathan Levine Quotes

I thought all comedy was stupid. I went to watch a friend do stand-up and I thought absolutely everyone was terrible.

For aspiring comedians? Don't listen to me. Just go on stage and do what you think is funny.

I love the idea of doing comedy, whether it's action comedy or just straight comedy. It's such a big, new world for me that I'm starting to realize that any character that I relate to, in any way, shape or form, or that I have any appreciation for, given enough preparation, I can find that person.

Comedy started out as my hobby and then it became my profession. It's like being on call all the time, like having a built-in beeper. You can't just leave the office and relax because you never know when you'll think of something funny.

When I began doing theatre in high school I saw that I could get laughs from people but I didn't really connect that to going on and becoming a comedian. I was interested in acting and while I was at Boston College I was part of an improv group, Mother's Fleabag, which had a long history and has been known as one of the best college improvisation groups in the U.S.

I'm not a comedian. I didn't study sketch comedy; my background isn't that.

I've never considered myself a comedian. I'm a comedic actor.

I don't really consider myself to be a comedian. I mean, it's not like I'm sitting around writing jokes or anything. I just like dressing up and pretending to be other people.

Comedy is commitment and playing a character and falling into the role, and I've been doing that since I was 19 years old.

I used to think of myself as a comedian. I've always admired comedians. Their minds, the way in which they se the world is so striking, the way they juxtapose things, the way they can see humor in people. There's a liberation in that.

I act the way I talk. It probably comes from starting out in Second City, improvisational theater. I can go from take to take. I'll ask for another take.

I always honestly dreamed of coming to Second City in Chicago, although I've never even been there to see a show. But I did a ton of sketch comedy at the Second City in LA, which (at the time, in a different location) wasn't really a theater, it was just a space where you took some classes.

When you try to go back and watch improv on tape, it almost never feels as good as it did when a crowd was laughing at it.

We use improv in all kinds of fun ways. Sometimes it's to invent or discover new things, sometimes it's to weird out the other actors, and sometimes it's to create a sense of fun, to find new things inside the scripted lines.

I'm not a naturally funny man. I find that I can only be funny, if I become someone else.

The only two TV shows I saw do that, where they don't warm them up and you can really bomb, was Saturday Night Live - and that's why it gets a lot of heat, too. Obviously it gets criticism fairly, too. But a lot of it is because Lorne [Michaels] lets the audience decide and doesn't force them to laugh.

One of the great things with comedy is that there's no such thing as a mediocre comedy; it's either uproarious or crap. That's the problem.

The improv stuff, that's always surprising so a lot of times that's really funny.

I'd love to do comedy. I'd probably have to get my laughing fits in check, because generally if I've done comedy, I'm usually the straight character that plays against the very obviously funny character, so that's really hard when the person is really hilarious.

If I had a choice, I would do comedy all the time. It's just the most challenging thing. To make someone laugh is the most challenging thing, and the most rewarding thing, in entertainment.

I do lots of crowd work in my set, because I enjoy writing material through riffing and conversation.

I did try when I wasn't doing the singing to do as much comedy as I could because I thought with Comic Relief you are duty bound to anyway.

Everybody tells jokes, but we still need comedians.

With the Roxbury guys (on 'Saturday Night Live'), I think the breaking point was when Stallone came on and wanted to do the sketch just because. And we're, like, 'Well, now we've got to create a story, so, what, are we bopping our heads with Rocky? What are we doing?'

I'm not an improv guy. I'm not a nerd, I play one on television.