David Mitchell Quotes

Rhythm and timing are so important in comedic acting.

There's this little recipe that you have to hit pretty well to get somebody to laugh. And it's a combination of the way in which you say something, with the facial expression that you have, married with the body language that you have, etc.

I hate to give myself credit for anything, but I will say I really enjoy, as an actor, and especially with comedy stuff, playing with different rhythms and with different ways around a joke. There's always an obvious route, and there's one that maybe is a little bit different.

One joke coming from one person can land completely flat, while somebody else delivering it in a unique way can really elevate it.

Comic timing is something you are either born with or do not have.

When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometimes bouncer.

For comedy, timing is key.

Estelle Getty used the language of a truck driver, or a sailor. Bea Arthur didn't wear shoes. Bea Arthur was a comic genius. Her timing was extraordinary.

Stand up is really fun because if I think of a joke or a funny idea, then I can just go and tell some people and if they laugh, they laugh right away.

I'm really good at standup. I always win at standup.

I think comedy is one of the hardest things to pull off. You either have timing or you don't, and that's something I don't have for sure.

I remember going to Bob Preston's dressing room because I was losing a laugh - as you do in a long run. He said, 'Give me the script. That's where you're going off the road.' That's comedy. It's never the line itself; it's in the foundation.

When you're doing stand-up, you want to stand onstage and, to the extent that you can, uncomplicatedly entertain.

A joke is a way to say, 'I'm going to do something funny now. If I don't get a laugh at the end, I'm a failure.'

You can't teach someone to be funny, but you can teach comic timing. If you listen to a good comic, you can learn how to put it on a page.

Something about not waiting for the laugh of a laugh track allows you to take lines that otherwise might be seen as just direct jokes, and make them seem realistic.

I know what's funny, and I probably know the best way to deliver the joke. Whether it's walking out of a room, facing that way, facing this way. I just have a sense of that.

With silly stuff, it's seventy-five percent confidence. I always tell people that it's because I'm nervous about getting that next laugh and I need to hear it. I always want to condense a joke.

I think everyone's different but in comedy, I try to do my scene to make the director and the other actors laugh. If I can make them laugh and we have the same sensibility, then I'm on the right page.

Soon I learned that the worse the puns and jokes, the funnier they could be, if you knew how to deliver them.

You learn what can become a good joke and can be repeatable. You have a shorthand about how to introduce a joke to someone.

If you have the right voice and the right delivery, you're cocky enough, and you pound down on the punch line, you can say anything and make people laugh maybe three times before they realize you're not telling jokes.

I told jokes badly.

If I think something's funny, I try to mold it into a joke as soon as possible. Once I have a joke, I say it a million different ways on stage until I find a rhythm and it feels like it's as good as it can be.

To do comedy, you have to be a pretty good actor to start with.