Nicholas Stoller Quotes

My background is in improv and writing.

I'd always liked having a laugh with my friends, and I'd done comedy in plays; but then my friends asked me to join this improv troupe and it went well and I started performing with them.

I come from standup and improv.

It was hard doing scenes with Bobby Cannavale because I would break up laughing because he's so funny.

I remember laughing an inordinate amount of time. Setting up scenes that involve ooze coming out basements, or pigs' heads flying through windows is really fun. How could you not laugh?

When I was in improv workshops or doing stand-up or writing comedy with others, or just doing comedy, I just laughed. Funny was funny; I loved to laugh. I always liked people I found generally funny.

On the stage you're there, it's live. There's a beginning, a middle, an end. When something is funny you hear it right away.

I put the storyboard down and came back to it like two weeks later and saw that I had written 'Butt-Head' next to the picture, and it kind of made me laugh and I thought, Well, might as well go for every laugh you can get.

Comedy is my passion. I'm going to do this until I drop.

Something that's good in the mini-culture of 'Happy Endings' is that the goal is to try and make each other laugh. There is a pretty high bar, and you want to make the writers laugh, and you want to elevate what's already great material - and also, we're like, 'Who is even watching this? Let's just go for it.'

I get verbal diarrhea in the writers' room. I just tell everyone a million anecdotes and stories and craziness, and we all double up on the floor laughing.

I worked with Marlon Wayans on the show 'They Wayans Brothers,' and we hit it off. One thing about Marlon, when he casts a movie or a TV show, he expects you to bring it. You've got to be ready to improv, because Marlon will say anything, and you've got to be ready to come back.

There's an art to comedy.

If I'm doing comedy, I try to improvise a lot. Even if they don't use it, it helps me loosen up and figure out the character.

Acting, it's hit or miss. Make them laugh, make them cry; hopefully they have a little entertainment.

It's the comedy that guides me. The acting and all that stuff comes second. It's equally important, but I just try to do that as best as I can.

Comedy requires a lot of energy.

Comedy is so collaborative. You're going to come up with better jokes with people you like joking around with. It just makes sense.

A fantasy of mine is to do a podcast that's Marcel Marceau and I, and you only hear me laughing at him and trying to figure out what he's doing.

Comedy is really exciting to me.

When you get on a comedy show, people assume you're a comedian. I'd say I'm more of a comedy nerd.

Anytime there's originality and comedy combined, it's very potent for people who love comedy.

What's fun about 'New Girl' is that when we sit down for a table read, we are always in the mind-set of, 'Well, wonder what this is gonna be like!'

I'm very interested in any script that makes me laugh.

On 'Sunny,' the main actors are adults, and we're all friends, and we all have the same sense of humor, so there's a lot of improvising.