Joshua Ferris Quotes

For feel-good fiction to work, there has to be an element of darkness.

I had a strong vision for 'The Best Man Holiday,' so I was able to translate that to the actors and ultimately to the screen. Things can't get too heavy or too outrageously funny; it has to strike a balance. Tone is everything. If you've set the right tone, you can get away with a lot of stuff. You can get away with making people cry.

I think it would be exhausting and depressing, to write, to watch and to live, if it was just focused on drama. It's heavy. Also, I think the humor really highlights the pathos and the struggle. You can slam it up against drama, and it makes both shine.

I'm trying to make sure that there's comedy as well as sadness. It makes the sadness more memorable.

I think any decent comedy worth its salt has to have heart, otherwise it's just a bunch of jokes. I think people enjoy comedies that have a heart and soul to them.

I try to sing many different kinds of songs. If I sing a batch of humorous songs, I'll throw in a deadly serious song. Or if I'm singing too many serious songs, I'll throw in a ridiculous song, to mix it up.

I like the hot-cold, the sugar-salt, being able to play over-the-top and dramatic things - in the same film. Just as in my life, I can be very funny and at other times almost extinguished.

We take the show very seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously.

If you can have heart as well as the comedy, it takes you a lot further. I think that that's what we were trying to do with 'Gigi.'

I try to play serious scenes a little funny and the comedy a little serious.

I love to dress up. You have to have a sense of fun in life, too. We can all be serious and work and do our bit, but every now and again you have to have a good giggle.

You can do gross-out until the cows come home but if there isn't something to balance it, then it's not going to work at all.

I think that there's a fine line between comedy and drama.

I just love doing broader work - I always get asked to do fairly heavy-duty, intense dramas and interesting, psychologically intense characters. But you know, it's nice to make people laugh sometimes.

I think it's natural if you're doing a lot of comedy to do a lot of drama, because you have to figure out the real version of the joke.

My stories are very somber, so I think I need the comic ingredient. Besides, life has so much humor.

In everything I write, I'm always striving to hit the right mix of light and darkness, humor and pain, fun and seriousness.

If you want to reach any kind of poignancy or meaning a lot of times, coming from comedy is the best way to get there.

For a comedienne, you have to have a little tragedy or a dark side, just not too much. Otherwise it's too disruptive.

You cannot have the drama without comedy.

Sad music, I always thought, is more beautiful than other music. But at the same time, I am in my personal life a very happy guy. I have a sense of humor. I am not the kind of depressed guy all the time brooding. No. I am very enthusiastic about things.

I think there's nothing better than a comedy that also is not afraid to have those heartfelt moments.

When we wrote 'Avenue Q,' we worked hard to create something that could be funny and satirical but also had some surprise moments of heart, moments when the music itself could become a central player and create something sweet and moving.

Whenever I'm on my way to a premiere or something, I always have a good laugh in the car... because it's all so absurd - I'm one generation removed from starvation.

I really like comedy because it is really fun to be in - even though you are playing it straight.