Chris Farley Quotes

Second City Las Vegas is very different from Second City in Chicago on the main stage, where they do improv sets. That's how they kind of hone material, kind of work up to new material.

Second City should create a secret handshake, and when you graduate, you have to know it.

I joined an improv comedy group. Ours was named 'Quick Fire!' with an exclamation point. It was when I auditioned for that team and got on it and felt like... I'll just say I felt like I was good at it.

In college, I pretty much abandoned music and started performing with the school's improv and sketch troupe, and at some point, that became my permanent thing.

Well, actually, the Second City thing came about because I was taking a few improv classes there. I thought that the improv classes would help with my wrestling career, which it has.

There's nowhere to hide in the theatre. You can't be the one in rehearsal who doesn't know their lines.

When I was a kid and got in trouble, I'd always say, Mom, I'm in trouble. Well, Mom, I'm in trouble.

I think with improv - and I say it all the time because it's become such a catch thing that you talk about improv - if the scene is well-written, you don't need to improv. But that being said, if something strikes you in the moment and, most importantly, you know where the scene is supposed to go, it's no different than method acting.

Sometimes when, you know, God tries to correct you in private and if you don't catch it he'll correct you in public.

Dad made it to Gold Shield Detective, so he always busted Robin, my oldest brother, and me. Always got caught, whatever we were doing.

Beyond any role that I ever had, really early on as a stand-up, I would see actors decide to try it and they would bomb miserably. What I realized was that stand-up, acting and writing are all their own disciplines.

My son, George, has been a bad, bad boy! Right, George?

This is the culture you're raising your kids in. Don't be surprised if it blows up in your face.

There's such a freewheeling nature to 'Second City,' and the greatest thing about 'Second City' was having a sophisticated audience night after night who appreciated what it was. They knew it wasn't all going to be great when you improvised, so they were very forgiving that way.

I went to Second City, where you learned to make the other actor look good so you looked good and National Lampoon, where you had to create everything out of nothing, and SNL, where you couldn't make any mistakes, and you learned what collaboration was.

When I graduated from college, I moved to New York and started doing improv because I read all about the early 'Saturday Night Live' guys having come through Second City and learning how to improvise, so I wanted to get immediately into that.

I did Second City, and Nia Vardalos also did Second City, so I knew her from there.

I grew up in Chicago and was a huge fan of 'The Second City', so when I moved to L.A., I was looking for anything that resembled that... then I started 'The Groundlings', so I went to a show and it was very much like 'Second City'. I was so impressed that that same night I went backstage and I went up to the funniest person there.

If you ever keep [Vice President] Hubert [Humphrey] waiting again, I'll kick your ass down that hall.

The Second City

In college, I didn't perform so much, but when I graduated is when I discovered Second City. Then I realized, 'Oh, there are people who can focus on comedy and especially improvisational comedy and make a career out of it.'

Once I will warn you, and then I will fire you! I have a zero-tolerance-plus-one policy for gossip. I will teach you once, and then I will fire your butt.

I got my degree in acting and theater, and then I had a teacher who told me to take a class with The Groundlings. And for a second, I thought, 'Well, I don't know about that. I'm a serious actress.' And then I did, and I loved it, and I said, 'Ah, well, I guess this is what I'm going to do now.'

I thought of Second City as just the greatest therapeutic job anybody could ever dream of having.

I came up through Second City, so I'm used to playing 20 characters every night who are very different from each other. I wouldn't want my career to be any different.