Frank Caliendo Quotes

I always knew I could hold people's attention and make them laugh every 30 or 40 seconds, and I got approval and attention for that, so the behavior was reinforced. Later, that became an important skill on the street corner.

I grew up fascinated with comedy and with people who could capture someone's attention.

"You're next, after the feather dancers." And you had to get their attention, because otherwise people would go, "Oh, a poet." You really have to learn.

When you work in front of the people, either in a film or in television, the people who are in the room with you are not watching you work, they're working so you'd have to light a fire to get them to watch what you were doing.

Years ago when I started doing TV and making appearances in big arenas, the place would put security guys up there and I said, "Please don't do that. It's very distracting to see ten cops in front of the stage. Everybody's looking at the officers instead of me. I don't want that." I also found that people will dare to break a barricade. If they have a barricade, somebody will always try to jump over it. I've found that the more open I am, the better.

At the end of the day, storytelling is actually very simple in its origin as long as there are people who want to tell stories and there are people who want to hear them.

I think, as a comedian, the funniest you can be is with people you know, and [whom] you've known for years, in a pub. That's as funny as you get, and so the aim [while stand-up] is to get that funny on stage with 5,000 strangers, to get that funny in a room where people shouldn't be listening but they are.

Once the cameras rolling or the audience is in the seats, I'm on. I can't help it. I go into a trance.

I can introduce new parts because when you are on stage in front of a very happy audience or people who love what you are doing, you are able to do extraordinary things that you yourself didn't think you could do before.

The thing for me, and I can only really judge this by what I respond to myself as an audience member, I really only respond to a movie if I'm interested in the people who are in it. It's really that simple. If I'm not, then it's all noise.

People paused to listen to Denise Chávez and she had them - with gum on her shoes, she had them. She said she stepped on gum when she came up to the stage and she couldn't move, so she had to stay in one spot otherwise people would see the Chiclet.

There's nothing more vulnerable than just standing in front of a thousand people, or ten thousand people, and doing your best to entertain them, touch them in some way.

There's a guy in the audience with a distinctive laugh. I hope that guy is miked. The only problem with having a distinctive laugh is I know exactly when that guy isn't laughing. "Oh, distinctive laugh doesn't think that joke was funny!"

It's just what I'm born to do, I'm born to entertain people. I could do it for thirty-thousand people or three people, it's just what I know how to do. My soul objective only is for me to have the audience say 'when's the next time I can see him?' That's what I do.

I was always sort of a ham as a kid, just always wanting to entertain and to get people to laugh.

A lot of actors think that the more lines they have the more attention they get. That's bullshit. I make people look at me. I don't have to say a lot of words.

I like people to go away from a Queen show feeling fully entertained, having had a good time.

I don't like not saying anything. I don't like having a wall between me and the audience. I want to break down that wall and communicate with the people in the room, 'cause we're there together and we're having a nice moment.

I told a joke and people laughed and it was the best feeling. I knew I wanted to do this as a career. I never knew I could get such a high from telling a joke. There's something so extraordinary about having people listening to you and hanging onto your words - it's a great feeling.

You want the audience to get your movie, and you want the audience to like it. It's as simple as that. If they don't understand what you're trying to say, you've failed. Of course, you can't get 100 percent of the crowd to understand the movie, but you know when you've reached the people you want to reach.

I think we musicians are emissaries. Every time we go before the public, we're there to make converts. We can either be ugly and contemptuous in our behavior, which will turn people off, or else we can carry ourselves with dignity and pride.

In the first act, you get the audience's attention - once you have it, they will repay you in the second. Play through the laughs if you have to. It will only make the audience believe there are so many of them that they missed a few.

I think it's important to keep the audience interested. But the best advice that I've gotten is to live in the moment. Sometimes you can get too into your head when you're in a scene.

There are jokes I know I want to tell, and there's sort of a rough order, but usually I try to change it up every show, to improvise and talk with the audience. I think when you tell jokes, if you're not careful, you can end up telling the whole list of jokes and then that's it. And that can get a little boring.

I think of myself as a theatre comic instead of club comic because I tend to talk for a bit before I start being funny. I don't really do the one-liners and five second bits or whatever. But it's good to work stuff out sometimes.