Ronny Chieng Quotes

Late night is no different than making a film, really, except that it's faster, and if you do a crap one, you can do a better one tomorrow. Writing a novel and doing stand-up - that stuff is very similar.

Sometimes they keep us in the dark, but it's TV, so sometimes they keep us in the dark because even they don't know yet. You know what I mean? So, it sort of develops as it goes along and according to various needs that arise.

I write for a radio show that, no matter what, will go on the air Saturday at five o'clock central time. You learn to write toward that deadline, to let the adrenaline pick you up on Friday morning and carry you through, to cook up a monologue about Lake Wobegon and get to the theater on time.

I used to write jokes with friends. We'd pick a topic and then think out loud, brainstorm.

I think sketch writing is a good spot for everyone to start because it requires you to develop characters, have a beginning, middle and end and have a bunch of jokes in a short amount of time.

Choosing to write a play is some kind of surrender. I don't make an outline. I sit and work, and suddenly the door opens, and out it comes.

I don't believe in writer's block. Think about it - when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn't it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer's block is having too much time on your hands.

There are times when I am directing, and there are a couple of moments I didn't get the way I wanted, but I know I still have other angles to shoot and I have to be done by noon; I move on.

I want to make my own films from my own scripts based on stories I want to tell, but they take time to put together.

I think the hardest thing to do in the world, show-business-wise, is write comedy.

I'd say any good set or any comedy that I've worked on, that's worked, has been comedians pitching ideas back and forth to each other. A lot of like, 'What if you say this? What about this?'

There are times when I'm driving home after a day's shooting, thinking to myself, That scene would've been so much better if I had written it out.

They're naughty, all those writers - they mess around with people. I know James Gandolfini got a bit fed up on 'The Sopranos': if he said anything in front of a writer, told them a story from his life, it could make its way into the script.

I'm developing more stuff in my voice, more Nick Swardson. It's me as myself in a sense and kind of in my voice, no accent no affectation. I'm growing into my own persona.

Comedians kind of write what comes to them. You can give yourself little assignments, but it's what inspires you.

These things are hard to pin down. We work on a script a bit, then work on a different one.

I'm good at coming up with wacky characters and funny dialogue.

I got written out of 'G.I. Joe' and was like, 'Welp, I'm going to go back to what I do: writing and producing comedy.'

People don't understand how much time and work it takes to make somebody laugh, and how hard it is to write a script, to put together the story, the characters. When everyone laughs simultaneously, there's no greater feeling.

For me, I need to fully immerse myself in a script to the point where I'm literally locking myself away for weeks at a time and I just write it. So I can write twelve to fifteen hours in a day, with breaks in between, obviously, but I need to just sort of live within the world of the script.

'Cheers' was a good first step because I got to write my own material.

What I love about sketch is that the writing of it is idea-based. It's not story-based. It's like, 'This is a behavior, and we're going to write, in a small sample, the funniest way to heighten this behavior.' Sitcoms or movies are about story.

It takes a lot of time to write and put up a sketch show, but that's part of who I am. I don't think that ever goes away, that sensibility - especially coming from the Upright Citizens Brigade. That's just who I am.

I loved doing 'Frisky Business.' I didn't come up with it. I think John Oliver and the writers did.

There have been days where I've had two writers' rooms or three writers' rooms going, and you walk back and forth. And then you sort of throw yourself on the sofa, and you go, 'Just talk at me for, like, 20 minutes,' and my brain will catch up with this particular story. But I find that exciting.