James E. Gunn Quotes

I want to do drama - no one really sees that. People just think I'm the funny guy and I can't do anything else, and that's just not true.

An actor who is good at comedy can also be very good at drama, but not necessarily vice versa.

I find that comedy is my specialty, but drama is slowly starting to move up in that rank. I've always liked playing a character that has depth and that I'm able to bring my own niche to.

If you can jump up onstage and make people laugh, shouldn't you also be able to inhabit a character?

After we'd filmed one series of 'Kiss Me Kate,' everyone was saying: 'The guy's got great comic timing,' - that was the first I'd heard of it. I'm not a comedian, I don't want to depend on a singular box of tricks. I like story and characters, to take on world views that are not my own.

No actor can be a complete artist without trying his/her hand at comic roles.

Comedy is actually very hard. It's hard to choose those moments and know when you can really push it, and know when you should be bringing it back and making it more subtle, and knowing as time goes on, as you do take after take and the crowd around you stops laughing. Whenever you do comedy, you realize you're up against - you're performing next to people who you would think are so unbelievably good at it, that that's a bit of a pressure. But at the same time, it's just fun. It's fun to be able to let out that side of you.

To me, if you are in the same building with Peter Sellers or John Cleese, or any of those guys and holding your own making other people laugh, that's a compliment.

There are people that have only seen me in dramatic stuff and they go, "Oh, I didn't know you could do comedy," and then there are comedy people that go, "Oh, I didn't know you could do drama." I want to try to do both.

I find that I'm just drawn to anything that's going to challenge me as an actress. So any time I get a chance to do a little comedy, that's also a nice change for me. Most of the time people think of me as a dramatic actress and singer. And there's a challenge there because comedy is hard. What do they say? "Dying is easy; comedy is hard."

People forget that we are character actors and we can do other things.

I want to do more films - not just comedies, because I really want to show my range.

My friends were the class clowns, but I was the one in class doing Michael Jordan or teachers for no reason. I've always been amazing at impersonating real people, too, rather than celebrities.

I love doing comic roles and believe I am best at it.

I adore actors/actresses that have range: someone that can transform into a character that is far beyond who they truly are. Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp are amazing at this.

Only comedies can get you that engaged in a movie, dramas people just sort of sit there and eat their popcorn and nothing really happens, they might cry a little bit, but that's it. Horror movies are talking at the screen, guys are elbowing each other, laughing at each other because they got scared. That's the beauty of a horror movie.

There is a lot of acting that is on the table - precisely, good acting. The best movies of mine are the ones that really nobody saw. The Groomsmen, Playing By Heart and Seeing Other People are by far the work I'm the most proud of.

First I was a mimic. Practically from the moment I began talking, I did impersonations of the people in my neighborhood - the storekeepers, the policemen, my teachers.

I was never a hammy child. But I could make people laugh.

There's nothing wrong with an actor that can't improvise, but if you're going to improvise, you gotta make sure you got people that can play the game.

She was a stirrer of the pot, a lover of intrigue and distress, a creature who seemed to draw oxygen from the spectacle of people at each other's throat, everybody in a state of upset and talking about her.

I'm happy to try any genre, from drama to comedy and anything in between. Although, to be fair, for most of my career, I've been at the mercy of what people are willing to put me in.

I'm very fortunate that I get asked to do very different kinds of roles and I realize how much I enjoy that. I enjoy the challenge of transformation. There are actors who play one character, or a certain kind of character, the whole of their lives. I really relish the opportunity to have the challenge to totally transform.

My gift was in comedy. I found out I could make jokes. I could tell jokes. I could write them. So over the years, that's what I've done.

I think I'm the funniest guy in a room full of unfunny people. Unfortunately, my career is increasingly leading me into rooms where everybody is funny. I'm the least funny person in a room full of funny people.