Mike Birbiglia Quotes

I consider my comedy to be dramatic comedy. I always wanted music underscoring the dramatic monologue. It was always drama with comedy, in my head.

Stand-up comedy and poverty. Those were my two main endeavors.

In terms of television and movies, I've been really interested in seeing the partnership of comedy and beauty and heart. I think they can go together really well and really thoughtfully. But, I'm a total one-hour drama addict. I think when you're a comedian, you tend towards dramas because that's the less stressful thing to watch.

I would say 80% of the scripts I get are dramas and not comedies or romantic comedies, which is funny because that's what I do every week.

Working with Chaplin was very amusing and strange. His films are so funny, but working with him, I found him to be a very serious man. Whereas the films of Hitchcock are macabre, he could be a very funny man to work with, always telling jokes and holding court. Of course, when I worked with Charlie he was getting older.

Woody Allen's movies are so much a part of me. I grew up watching them over and over and would read all his comic pieces for the New Yorker. In some ways, his influence is so much there that I can't even locate it any more.

I'm a writer and director, and the movie I've seen a million times is 'Stardust Memories' by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen and Charlotte Rampling.

I'd love to be in a feature film, and I don't just mean in a starring role - it could be a small part. And I would like to act in television, to do comedy and drama.

From the onset of the 'Live-Read' series, we wanted to hit all the major writers and Woody Allen is simply one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. He has ability to match pathos and comedy and drama and then turn it all on a dime. If you're going to make a series based on dialogue, you can't find much better than Woody Allen.

My movies are okay, but they're not my specials.

I wanted to do an hour-long show, and I wanted to something that was dramatic and sometimes funny and humorous, as well. I'm just delighted to have this opportunity to be a part of this project.

I love comedy, but I did always consider myself a dramatic comedian.

If someone asked, 'What are your films like?,' the best I can come up with is that they're, like, a fine balance between comedy and drama. And they deal mainly with the clumsiness of humanity.

I love Brody Stevens. He's one of my favorite stand-ups.

Although according to certain philosophers it is quite difficult to distinguish the jester from the melancholic, life itself being a comic drama or a dramatic comedy.

If you make a bad movie about stand-up, then comedians will mock you for the rest of your life.

When you're doing comedy on stage, it's great because you have the audience there and they're like another actor in the scene. You feed off of them, laugh. But in film when everyone's quiet, it's all about timing. But the key to that is to be authentic. Be in the moment, and if you play the moment truthfully, the humor will be there.

I've had plenty of friends tell me that their first time doing stand-up, they do well, and then they tank for a while after that. Kind of like the first time you do a drug, you're like, "Huh! This is pretty darn good," and then you spend all your money trying to get the same high.

Drama is not my passion. If I do it, it's for a check. It's not what I want to do. Comedy's my thing. Stand up's my thing. Everything that comes from that is frosting on the cake.

The whole idea of comedy, there is nothing normal about going up on stage to make strangers laugh. But I'm also not an exhibitionist like other comics. I'm not up there talking about masturbating.

Becoming a comedienne was my way of adjusting to puberty.

I would love to do a drama. I did a couple of episodes of The Good Wife, which is more of a drama. I really liked that; I thought it was interesting. A lot of my favorite comedies play out as dramas.

Comedy is a blood sport. It flays the truth and spurts twisted logic. In America, people become comics because we don't have bullfighting.

If you're going into stand-up, you're hyper-analyzing the world and asking as many questions about a thing as you possibly can so you can figure out the ultimate nature of that thing.

I love comedy. I suppose comedy is my first love, in a way. I did a lot of acting, funnily enough, unprofessionally, as a kid. From when I was 10 years old until I was about 19, I was always doing little sketches with my friends, and doing different accents and voices. Probably about 3/4 of those were comedic, in some way, and the other 1/4 was more serious stuff or more action or more dramatic little pieces that I would make. But, I tend to lean towards comedy.