Ryan Stiles Quotes

The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what other people say. It's about what you hear.

I like to improvise.

A lot of my work is a matter of reacting to surprises in life.

The lifelong goal of an improviser is to listen to what the other person is saying, taking it in, and responding.

Scenes change all the time. Scenes will change while you're shooting them, and you just have to roll with it 'cause that's what makes it funny. It's not being stuck in your character and how you're gonna do something, but to react to other people and to really have a real-life conversation.

With improv, it's a combination of listening and not trying to be funny.

The word got out that I can ad-lib very well.

Sometimes people have this notion that improvisation is simply intuitive leaping into the unknown.

When I go in to 'Comedy Bang Bang,' I'll go in most of the time with some beats of where we're going with the idea. Everything else is improvised. Nothing is scripted. A lot of times I'll go in there with nothing and it's just conversation with the character.

In the performance sense, I find that interpretation is improvisatory in nature. You can go anywhere with an interpretation on any given day.

Improvisation is the ability to talk to oneself.

For me, improvisation is about working with a partner. That is much easier to do in the interview, because you have a sounding board.

That's what's so satisfying about acting. You can come as prepared as you like, but there's no accounting for what's going to come at you from the other actor. That's part of the joy and the play of it. If you don't have that it's a different kind of performance.

If you write something wrong enough, I'll be glad to make up a new witticism just for you.

There is no roles. No one is keeping any roles. The drummer is also answering everybody and everything. So it is a constant conversation and communication between musicians on an extremely high level with extremely valuable material, motifs, and melodies.

I don't worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.

Part of being an actor is letting things come about organically as opposed to forcing them.

I love improv so much. Listening. I think that's the key. When you improvise, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to create, and to be generating information, and trying to be funny, but if you just listen to what's being said to you, and then react honestly, you generally get better results.

Improv relies just as much on listening as it does you delivering dialogue. That's the hard for some people. Some people just concentrate on what they're going to say, and they're not listening. You have to listen in order to see where the other person is going to.

I'm very open and never write what I'm going to say. Speeches bore everybody else. I have to freestyle. Every time, from one program to another, everything changes and I improvise.

I don't do the same show on any two nights.

The good thing about having chemistry is, when you get to the improv section of a scene, you've got somebody to feed off. It can go on and on and on, and the sky's the limit.

I've never been good at improvising.

I come from a background where I like collaboration and improv. I think that it is important.

I'd like to think my performance is today. I never try to - it's so, as you know, watching me, I have a beginning, middle and ending. But every night the show changes and I relate to an audience and I relate to the young people.