Tim Minchin Quotes

A lot of comics aren't their on-screen personas; Chris Rock isn't always ranting and raving. What I do is make myself this over-the-top character that people either find endearing or they think is a joke. Then I can do anything I want.

I consider myself a songwriter before anything else. The fact that I have been able to write both of my records and establishing myself as a songwriter is super-important to me. Some people have that gift, where they can take on anything and make people believe it. I like to do a song from personal experience.

I hope Green Day write more for the theater. They're brilliant at it.

Comedians who aren't screenwriters are telling jokes that they themselves think are funny. They're expressing their own view of what they think funny is.

I'm super happy to say that it's not that hard to write bad stand-up. I guess the trick is to write bad stand-up that sounds like you're trying to be good.

I think Sia is a pretty good reference for me because her way of 'singing and the way she composes the melodies and writes the lyrics is very similar to what I've always done.

I remember when I first saw Whoopi Goldberg doing standup, and she was wearing a sheet on her head, basically pretending to be this little white girl with long luxurious blonde hair. Everyone can relate to that. It's an oral history of black women's lives through laughter.

I think comedy suits me best.

My first song was called 'Portrait.' It would just be poetry, and I really never understood how to write the structure of writing a song. I just knew the feeling, and I knew it was supposed to break and change at the same part, so that's how I write music.

I feel like I've always thought of myself as a comedian.

I just don't see myself as a songwriter or a country singer or any of those things anymore. It's more trying to express ideas and emotional textures.

I'm a big believer in comedy writers. I've always defended the honor of all comedy writers. It's extremely difficult, but I've always felt that comedy writers far more easily can move toward drama than vice versa.

I've noticed, as a comedy fan, that I really like Paul Thomas Anderson or Quentin Tarantino because when they're funny, they're actually funny. It's not like when other dramatic writers have comedy, and I'm just like, 'Well, that's not funny. Why are you even trying to make a joke here?'

I've often been told that if music doesn't work out I could be a comedian.

Drag has always been the thing you turn to to remember to not take yourself too seriously.

I always really loved comedy. It's the only thing I was ever good at.

I never wanted to write really cheesy pop lyrics - like, 'baby, baby, the sun is shining' - that's not something that interests me personally. I'm always wanting to write something that has some kind of meaning.

I could write a joke song really easily, but I think something that might be true for my generation is that there's a certain irony or detachedness expected of us, even though we really feel sincere. So the only way to sincerity is through a joke.

Singing is the form I've chosen to express myself. It's the way I emote best.

I'm very observational in my comedy and what I create with the characters that I'm blessed to play. I don't believe comedy needs to be offensive, and I don't believe it needs to be a mockery of anything.

Drag breaks the fourth wall, which is why it's never been quite accepted, because nobody wants to be told that they are really a caricature of themself and to not take yourself too seriously.

The thing about comedy is it gives you a platform to expose your own shortcomings, so it becomes a public display of weirdness.

When you have a star, he becomes the focus of a variety show, and he has to take himself seriously. But with Super Dave, it's all phony anyway.

Science was always a passion, but I also loved 'Monty Python' and 'The Young Ones,' and I discovered the Footlights comedy club at university, where a lot of those people got their start. I had a go and loved it immediately. After that, I just couldn't stop writing sketches, and it all took off from there.

We were never a boy band. We always had much more to offer than that, I thought.