Debra Stephenson Quotes

Comedy is unusual people in real situations; farce is real people in unusual situations.

In comedy, something may be more absurd, but you have to believe just as much as you do when you're doing drama.

When I write, I create really absurd situations which become false because I am after the joke.

I'm known as a kind of dramatic, serious, almost humorless actor and the fact is, I'm a funny guy, and I spend most of my life trying to find a lighter side of things, and on stage was given plenty of opportunity to do that.

Madness isn't altogether a bad thing in comedy.

If you stretch tragedy, it will always become comedy.

Just because a subject is serious doesn't mean it doesn't have plenty of absurdities.

I always approach every role through a lens of comedy.

Hollywood comedy has gotten really silly and absurd, and I like that.

Comedy opens you up to ideas that a straight-up drama doesn't. You resist those messages when they come to you earnestly or dramatically.

I love comedy that seems kind of a little bit absurd.

Comedy is created when someone is trying very earnestly to do what he feels is the right thing to do at that moment.

Humor is reason gone mad.

I think you have to have a sense of humor about every movie that you're doing. Your character needs to be relatable in a way that, even when you're doing the most bizarre things, sometimes a bit of tongue in cheek is necessary to keep up the believability of it.

What's fun about comedy is you're pushing things a little further than you would in a drama; you're pushing reality a little bit more.

Comedy scares me a lot. I feel like it's way harder than drama. I think my safety net is definitely drama, and I would love to kind of be able to be able to push into the comedy world and do something kind of like a Christopher Guest kind of style show. That, to me, is my kind of comedy. Like, Ricky Gervais comedy. That's my kind of thing.

It's a great counter to doing the soap because it's a comedy. It's real physical comedy.

I always found that drama, really good drama, has a lot of comedy in it.

Funny is as funny does, and funny puts on a walrus mask and slowly gyrates in a mall food court. I laugh at absurdity hardest, then stories, then observations, then bearded men on roller skates.

I have to be entertained by what I'm writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with the darker or more serious stuff.

I like really stupid comedies.

Humour and high seriousness... Perfect bedfellows, I think. Though I usually phrase it in terms of comedy and darkness. Comedy without darkness rapidly becomes trivial. And darkness without comedy rapidly becomes unbearable.

I guess I don't have much interest in writing straight drama. So whatever subject matter I choose will ultimately be dealt with in a comic way.

The word 'comedy' implies slapstick.

I don't get a chance to be funny with the thrillers. I like to be funny, and I think I am really funny. So with 'Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life', it was fun to let loose.