Michel Gondry Quotes

I started performing as a stand-up comedian on my own in the mid-1990s.

There aren't any concrete steps to becoming a comic.

Every now and then, when I think about it, I think, 'What would I even talk about onstage?' It's never been, 'I wonder if I'm funny. I wonder if I can come up with jokes.' It's more, 'What would it be like without the leather suit and the anger?'

I had a moment where I was onstage once... As a comedian, you just think, 'Be funny as possible all the time - like, funny at all costs - jokes, jokes, jokes.' That's how my mentality was.

With stand-up you can just be yourself on stage. And ideally, you can't see the crowd most of the time - it's just lights in your face. But I still have had terrible stage fright.

When I was starting out, I was just bringing a garbage bag of jokes onstage, pulling them out like, 'What about this? No? Alright.' I was just trying to be funny about anything.

When you're a comic doing a special, it's like you're directing your first movie.

Whenever I realize I'm being a goofball, I write it down. When I release the joke onstage, I love watching the effect it has on the audience. No one wants to see someone talk who takes themselves too seriously.

I'm really more prolific than most stand-ups. My act changes. I do fold in new experiences, new observations, whatever you want to call it.

Not everyone can be as successful a performer as myself, who gave 10 great performances the first time I ever did comedy, and then toiled in obscurity for years.

Any comic is a very good actor. Look at Don Rickles. He is saying the same joke every night for 20 years and making it look like he just thought of it.

When you're doing stand-up, you can comment if something fails, get a laugh from that.

It's weird to sit as a comedian. Being still drives me crazy.

I get burned out on standup. But I like acting. I do like it. But sometimes you just feel like a monkey. You just feel like a complete tool. But I like it. I do like it. Stand-up is just more free. A lot more freedom because you just do what you want to do.

When you're a stand-up, you play in front of 600 people, and it's all about timing. I could never do stand-up comedy; it would be way too hard for me.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

When I was doing half-hour shows, I loved it and was preparing myself for the hour shows. Then when I did the hour shows, I was preparing myself for the specials and features.

I'm hardly a known name, but I don't want to go, like, 'Oh, people call me a storyteller comedian, let me just go up and just talk about my day.' I don't want that to happen.

As much experience, education and awareness as one can attain is important for a comedian.

In improv, the whole thing is that it is a relationship between the two people, as a back and forth. In standup, you don't really want to be listening to what somebody is saying; you want to project your jokes into their face.

Stand-up comedy is all you. It's your show, it's your game. You control every aspect of it - of that experience and that expression. There's really nothing quite as satisfying.

Before doing my first open mic, I was sitting in the back watching all these comedians banter back and forth and fire jokes and up each other, and I thought, 'This is where I wanna be.'

I don't like comedians who don't have conviction, and with stand-up, it is always best to have an angle.

Some comics have long routines to get them in the mood - I just prefer to sit down, write out the same jokes in a different order and then have a little prayer that I won't be met by silence.

It's also that comedians don't have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They're writers who perform their own material. It's more interesting. And they're sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone.