Garry Marshall Quotes

By watching the great, old comedians I picked up a few tricks about how to do physical comedy. And whenever I could learn something, I sort of added that to my repertoire.

And the only studies were - Rodney Dangerfield was my mentor and he was my Yale drama school for comedy.

My idol growing up was Charlie Chaplin. I was obsessed with him. I mean, while other kids were watching Jim Carrey and the likes in the '90s, I was watching Charlie Chaplin films, because I was a bit of a geek. I became obsessed with this idea of physical comedy.

Working with Lucille Ball was just a master class in how to do comedy.

I learned physical comedy to a degree that most child actors never will. I really just became a student of it - became obsessed with it, to be quite honest.

I enjoy doing physical comedy. I'd love, you know, them to throw me some shtick that way. I'd love to do that, if they need physical comedy, if they'd let me display my wares that way.

I'm not a natural comedian, as an artist. I studied comedy growing up. I would watch Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, all day.

I never thought of myself as a comedic actor. I didn't go to Second City, that's not my background, I'm not a comic, I studied theater and my career when I started was a lot of dramatic stuff.

One of the greatest gifts to mankind is laughter, and one of the greatest gifts to laughter is Lucille Ball. God has her now but thanks to television, we'll have her forever.

About a year after I moved to Los Angeles, I decided I wanted to be a joke writer for a late night talk show. So I met with a late night joke writer and he told me that I should start by doing stand-up comedy, because that would really hone my sense of humor and joke writing ability. Eventually I took a stand-up class and a few months later I had a seven-minute act.

I'd love to do more comedy. It'd just be nice to go into work and not be crying every day. Some broad slapstick would be great. Falling over banana skins would be wonderful.

I do not have a good control of running sight gags. I laugh like hell when I see them, but I don't know how to invent those jokes.

People like Bill Murray are incredible at what they do and are definitely my flavour. Although Will Ferrell, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ricky Gervais are also incredible actors. In their comedy, they make these stupid people feel so real. These guys are really setting the bar very high, and I learn as much from them about acting as I do about comedy.

I look up so much to those movies, 'Airplane!' and 'Naked Gun.' I think that stuff is so funny. I grew up just loving all that stuff and sort of idolizing Leslie Nielsen.

I'm all about the slapstick, generally. If you fell off it, into it, or through it, I'm probably nearby wetting myself.

Bernard Manning is controversial but he had incredible timing. I wrote the character of Brian Potter in 'Phoenix Nights' for him to play but unfortunately he was too poorly to do it. I thought it would have been perfect casting but it didn't happen.

If I modeled myself after anybody, it probably would have been Richard Pryor.

When I grew up, one of comedy idols was Rowan Atkinson, who of course is Mr. Bean and uses physical comedy. Same with Jim Carrey. Both of those guys. And Peter Sellers. Most of my comedy idols are physical comics.

But my comedy hero was Stephen Chow. His deadpan comedy, all the stuff he wrote like 'From Beijing with Love,' it's incredibly funny.

When Rock was on 'Saturday Night Live,' that's what propelled him into the mainstream and made everyone realize, 'Holy crap, this guy is really talented.'

I took a class at The Second City, and it became contagious.

A lot of my comedy is physical, so you don't have to understand English to get that I'm choking to death on cinnamon or falling out of this tree or whatever.

I love Buster Keaton and I love physical comedy when it's done in an emotionally understated way. I just like to play it, and I need the attention.

I've always idolized Amy Poehler, because I think she's the best of the best as far as female comedy.

[At Boston College] I started working on the kinds of skills that you need for comedy. It's about being creative and learning to use your gift for being able to let loose and be very unself-conscious. It took me time though before I was really able to get comfortable doing that.