Neal Brennan Quotes

You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.

My stand-up is more like how I am in real life. I don't really do a character thing in stand-up. It's just a bunch of sentences that are supposed to be funny.

My favorite comedians are basically themselves onstage.

It's much better to wreak havoc on a show and be a maniac than promote myself. Plugs and anecdotes aren't really in line with my beliefs. Besides, if someone sees me on a morning show and thinks, 'That's not funny; this guy is crazy,' then I don't want them to come to the show anyway.

Some comedians tell nice jokes that you can tell to your kids. Some use bad words - they work 'blue.' If you don't want to hear a joke that's blue, you shouldn't go to a comedy club where a comedian who makes blue jokes is performing.

There's an audience that is paid to laugh at my jokes. I'm playing a character while I'm doing stand-up. Real stand-ups, man, they're playing themselves. I'd be far too terrified.

Yeah, I mean, I did regular stand-up for a long time. And I did - I stopped doing stand-up when I worked on 'Ellen,' which was for five years. So when I went back to it, I found that, like, regular stand-up didn't really do it for me anymore. It almost felt insincere, like I wasn't saying anything I actually really wanted to say.

Genuinely love doing standup and I'm a comedian first, so for me what makes my standup special is the fact that I don't have to adapt or adjust. I am who I am. I appeal to everyone, hence in the movie doing a world tour.

I just do my act. If people in England don't get my joke I make fun of myself for telling it.

And as a stand-up comic, that's the one thing I'm a little uncomfortable with. I'm not uncomfortable with sincerity in my regular life, but, like in terms of my product that I offer, I think that it's weird, because comics used to be way more sincere in the '80s.

There's times when I'm really shy, so these roles that I get to play, they're how I would love to really be. And that's why I love doing stand-up, because it gives me the freedom to say what I really want to say. I think that's why it's my favorite thing to do.

I'm like the Hulk on stage. It's way over the top. That's Bizarro Chris. Sometimes I get off stage and go What did I say?! I'll watch one of my stand-up specials a year later and go Eww, that was mean.

I'm not a comedy writer, I'm a comedian, so I only write stuff that I would want to say.

I think of myself as a theatre comic instead of club comic because I tend to talk for a bit before I start being funny. I don't really do the one-liners and five second bits or whatever. But it's good to work stuff out sometimes.

When you do stand-up, you're just concerned with trying to leave with some semblance of human dignity at the end of your performance.

I'm a nightclub comic. That's what I do. I work in the clubs uncensored because my mind is uncensored, and those are the thoughts that I have. I do the kind of comedy that I would enjoy seeing.

I'm very hip-oriented. I focus on hips in my comedy - probably more than any other hipster comic who is out there hipping today. My hips, other hips. I work with my hips a great deal. That is what I do. But not in a gay way.

When you're doing comedy on stage, it's great because you have the audience there and they're like another actor in the scene. You feed off of them, laugh. But in film when everyone's quiet, it's all about timing. But the key to that is to be authentic. Be in the moment, and if you play the moment truthfully, the humor will be there.

The writers who have nothing to say, are the ones you can buy, the others have too high a price.

I have to sing it every night, I can't get up on stage if it's some bullshit story.

A writer survives in spite of his beliefs.

To me, being brave is an element that is so important with stand-up comedy. It's not essential. There are many comics who were just funny, and that's fine, too. But that's never been what I was trying to do in comedy. I was always trying to do something that involved not pandering to the audience.

Not all comedy clubs or situations are ideal, especially when you're first coming up and I think that's good for you. Eventually you get to express your real personality.

I always wanted to give people the more exciting version of what I think a comedian should be - because I didn't grow up with comics, I grew up with rock 'n' roll. And when I saw a lot of comics, no matter how good they might have been material-wise, I would get a little bored with them after 10 minutes, only because I feel comedians don't really know performance.

I found doing that kind of comedy without an audience is just... for me, it's almost impossible. You need the audience to do their half of the work.