Justin Theroux Quotes

You need a wisecracking buddy standing next to you? That's the role for me. You got the guys who are knock-down, drag-out handsome. That's what people want to see. Let that guy be the hero. But there's always a role for the Everyman.

I'm never the romantic lead. I'm the guy walking in on the romantic lead, going, "Oh sorry! I'll leave you guys alone."

I felt audiences are happier to take comedy people who play darker people because there's a link between the psychosis of comedy and the psychosis of being a twisted character.

At the end of the day, audiences just want to laugh and be entertained. They want to escape from their reality, and that's why we make movies, to get people to escape from the realities.

Because Buffy really has become the straight man, every once in a while it's nice to be the one that tells the joke and it's nice to be the one that is the joke and it's nice to do something that's a little bit different.

The nature of an ensemble means when you're a supporting character and not the lead character, you get little tidbits here and there, but you're usually there to provide bits of comic relief and little bits of action or something.

I'm kind of like the goofy number-seven guy in a lot of movies.

Art should be witty, like a good Eddie Murphy movie, to make your life a little easier and better.

We need comedies in the world! We need to laugh, it's all so hard.

With comedies, it's been very gratifying to be able to clock in, laugh all day, and then clock out.

People say: 'Why do you want to play the straight man?' Well, it's because he gets to be in every scene.

Because I am a character actor, I thought I would be the fourth or eighth banana on a sitcom, and that would be OK.

The only real reason for self-referencing is the fun factor. It's fun for the writer, getting little peeks at what old characters might be up to. And it's fun for readers to spot a familiar face, or pick up on a made-up book title or something from an earlier story. I don't know that it does -- or even should -- contribute to the story in hand being any better than it would have been without it.

There is real honor in being a total goofball

My only goal is to make the crew laugh, basically. It's the only litmus I have to know, is this good or not?

I think in many ways Johnny English is a more believable character.

I hope people come to the shows because they feel like there's something there that I can't necessarily articulate, but it's real and it's fun.

There are a lot of comedic actors who are just out to be the funny one and get all the laughs and they'll sacrifice your joke, the scene, the story just to be the star. All they want is attention and to be number one. You can spot those guys from a mile away and they're the worst.

It was always the most fun thing in the world to think of a joke area and talk about it with someone like Jim Carrey, and then he would get on stage fearlessly and tear the house down. That's something I always enjoyed. It also allowed me to not be terrified.

A show is going to be good and fun to work on, if the research is interesting.

I like the hip writers: Fitzgerald, the guy who committed suicide, Hemingway, all those guys. Some of them were alcoholics and drug addicts but they had fun. They were real people. They formed the culture of American literature. Hemingway admired Tolstoy, Tolstoy admired Pushkin, and Mailer admired Hemingway. It all flows down. The greats are all connected. One day I'm gonna write a book myself. The first chapter will be about what a rough deal my momma got. She believed in you guys and your society.

When I worked with Chevy Chase, Michael Ritchie would say, "Just ad lib and try to break me up. Just insult me. Anything." When we were doing his close-up, or when my back was to the camera, I would come up with jokes or quips or anything, to get a real reaction out of him. He was smart enough to know that was gold. So it was great fun working with him and Michael, and getting to see how the two worked together. I think Fletch and Clark Griswold were Chevy's two best roles. He's so incredibly talented and still vastly underused.

If anyone takes me seriously then they actually must have a problem .. Music is fun its not algebra.

Here's what I really love: I love a funny story that I can tag a serious line on the end of.

Let's do some comedy. I always like to add some comedy to my show. Those who've seen me before might know that.