Paul F. Tompkins Quotes

I don't rehearse on either of my shows, 'Family Feud' or my talk show. I never rehearse with the guests. I don't want to have any preconceived thoughts, notions, because that kills my creativity as a host and as a stand up.

I'm convinced to do improv. All you have to do is listen to what people are saying to you, and then just add more information to what they've just said. That's all there is to improv, but it's the hardest thing to do.

Improv is mostly what I've studied.

I did a 'Golden Girls' once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least.

I love improvisation. It's quite exciting.

I used to have costumed characters come out, like SpongeBob. It's just fun to make it into this minor event, just to surprise people and experiment and be weird and just have fun with it. I've done just the hour stand-up, and that's fun, but the other stuff makes it fun for me and gives me something to react to and bounce off of.

One of the things that makes any good entertainment, whether it's a play, drama, comedy, television, film, whatever, is that you feel a certain amount of spontaneity.

I love improvisation.

I'm an old fashioned theater major at heart. I love to do a show, do something with friends; I'm kind of a nerd in that way. I like to put on a wig or a fake mustache and do something silly with friends, do a little dance.

With comedy, I like to not rehearse and just have fun with it, because I think being spontaneous is the best thing for a comedy, in my opinion.

I never went to acting school, so improv was my training. Just being quick on your feet helps in everyday life.

I like - there's a better word for it, but I like the danger that a comic brings to a role. It has a feeling, even though everything's scripted and everything's planned what you're going to do. When I see Will Ferrell or Sacha Baron Cohen, there's a feeling that anything could happen.

I love goofing off and being awkward. I have always enjoyed improv.

It's great when improv is encouraged. It's a really fun thing. It depends on who's in the movie and how their process works as well. It takes a director who is open to that because you have a script, but then something funny could happen on set.

I like to do as much improv as I can do.

I'd always liked having a laugh with my friends, and I'd done comedy in plays; but then my friends asked me to join this improv troupe and it went well and I started performing with them.

I'm not a big 'scripted comedy' person necessarily. I'm open for wherever comedy can be found.

What I love about improv so much is that we are all discovering it at roughly the same time. The performers are maybe, what, a half second ahead of the audience? There's very little lag time. I think of a thing, I say it, then the audience is laughing and it all happened in a second.

At Second City and improvising at iO, you're creating a character in an instant. All of a sudden, you're creating this history and this past for your character, and you're discovering it while you're doing it, and that's part of the fun of it.

You know I've never worked without a script before, but with Apatow, it's all improvisation. He calls out a premise, and you have to adapt.

I come from standup and improv.

Whenever I come to Ireland, I end up just bantering with the crowd so the show will just be what it is.

When you do see me, you'll get the idea from when you see me that it's all off the top of my head. A lot of it is a beginning, middle and the end. But it's different every night. I have a lot of jokes in my back pocket I've said over the years.

I'm a chronic ad-libber. So whoever hires me, often to their chagrin, should know that I will be talking a bunch of smack.

The skill of a good actor is to make it always seem like you're in that fantastically spontaneous moment. Very often, a stand-up comedian has a different instinct, which is to reinvent. Once you've laid down some material, and made them laugh, you move on and find some new material.