Colin Firth Quotes

I learned as a young man that I don't write jokes, but that I can deliver more mundane material and get a laugh. I call myself a humorist.

I feel more comfortable in drama. Comedy's is a high-wire act. I find it stressful. It's a precision science, in a way. And when you're filming, the thing comedy depends on becomes a much more difficult commodity. The thing you depend on is spontaneity.

I think I realized that Dave Barry was funnier than I'll ever be, and he made no attempt to make any actual points. He had a general libertarian point of view, but in general, he just liked to make jokes.

Today's comics use four-letter words as a shortcut to thinking. They're shooting for that big laugh and it becomes a panic thing, using four-letter words to shock people.

A lot of people think that comedic acting is a lot harder than dramatic acting, but for me it just feels natural. It's extremely calculated, you have to be aware of every beat, but I love it. I hope to have a long lasting career in comedy.

Comedy - particularly the frothy and frivolous - is notoriously neglected by festivals and awards. But it's bloody hard to get right.

I think the second you think that you're funny is when you stop being funny.

It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it.

If you think it's easy to write jokes about fried calamari, you've probably never tried.

I've never been funny. I don't think I'm funny. People say I'm funny. I go, 'No. No. I'm not.' But again, knowing what it means to film on a TV show and on film, you have to repeat, repeat, repeat. You have to do the same thing a number of times if you're filming a sequence. And to carry that energy in a comedic mode, would be a challenge that I really would frightfully scared, but I'd have to buck up and pull up my bootstraps and say, 'I can do this. Let's figure it out.'

I had great affection for Dana Carvey, and I think we all thought, "Dana's the guy. There's the comic genius."

There was something about that form of comedy that's just difficult. It never really felt like you could just fully commit to all the colors that you carry with you.

I think comedy is difficult, and I'm amazed so many people want to do it. I'll be buying jeans and somebody will say, "I'm a comedian" - the guy selling you the jeans. The desire to be a comedian is weird. I found it weird myself to want to be one; I was a schoolboy when I wanted to be one but I didn't know how to do it. That was 50 years ago, so times have changed greatly. There seems to be a long line of people desperate to do it and most of them are quite good.

I think it's that much harder to make a good comedy than it is straight and apparently serious.

I knew Steve Carell because of Little Miss Sunshine, so I felt very comfortable with him. Maybe he always does it to guest stars, but I felt as though he was being particularly funny with me, and particularly stretching the boundaries of improvisation. He's such a comic genius. I hate to use that word, because everyone throws it around, but Steve Carell is channeling something.

I feel like all comedy does require a lack of vanity, but multi-cam, especially.

Roy Blount, who is the funniest person I know, journeys deep into the dark heart of humor and brings back a wonderfully insightful, superbly crafted song of the soul that had me laughing and crying too

I think I'm the funniest guy in a room full of unfunny people.

I think the job of a comedian is to make people laugh, but also challenge them to laugh at things they didn't know they could until now.

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!"

I could never be Charlie Chaplin. But the films that were made by people like him, or Gene Wilder, or John Candy, the people that inspired me so much were the people that were able to combine humor with heartbreak so beautifully and fluidly. Those films I think were what inspired me to want to come to L.A. and audition for movies.

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

You're always on duty because you're in a constant state of observation. That's one of the challenges of being a comedian. I think one of the other challenges is that, whether we like it or not, it's a profession that requires failure. It doesn't just encourage failure. It requires it because it's all trial and error. You need to know what doesn't work to know what works.

Two things are not debatable: eroticism, and comedy. If you don't think it's sexy, or funny, there's no way I can change your mind.

I think people who do comedy tend to do it well, and to do it painfully and truthfully. So making the leap to drama is easier for them because everything they've done is from pain anyway.