David Walton Quotes

When I was younger, I was nervous and didn't have a huge amount of confidence as an actor. Comedy is something - you know when you're getting it right because you can hear. And you can hear if you're not getting it right! I like to create interesting, weird characters, and they're often best in comedies.

I used to do a lot of comedy. I don't know what happened. I think it's my face.

I'm not cut out to be a detective on 'Law & Order' - I laugh too easily.

Make him laugh and he will think you a trivial fellow, but bore him in the right way and your reputation is assured.

It certainly helps, I think, with some actors to understand the process of acting. You see what extraordinary pressure they're under, there's a huge circus dedicated to a particular moment and they're got to deliver and it can help that you, even if empathetically alone, understand what they're doing.

Mr. McCabe thinks that I am not serious but only funny, because Mr. McCabe thinks that funny is the opposite of serious. Funny is the opposite of not funny and nothing else.

When I was in acting class, we did a lot of really serious scenes, and we didn't do comedic scenes. I felt like doing those scenes, it didn't come out of my mouth the right way. I don't know if it's because my voice is different, or what it is about me, but it just seemed a little off.

I was always sort of a ham as a kid, just always wanting to entertain and to get people to laugh.

There are jokes I know I want to tell, and there's sort of a rough order, but usually I try to change it up every show, to improvise and talk with the audience. I think when you tell jokes, if you're not careful, you can end up telling the whole list of jokes and then that's it. And that can get a little boring.

I think if you try to look for something to show off as an actor, vanity can get the better of you.

I've had plenty of friends tell me that their first time doing stand-up, they do well, and then they tank for a while after that. Kind of like the first time you do a drug, you're like, "Huh! This is pretty darn good," and then you spend all your money trying to get the same high.

I think the second you think that you're funny is when you stop being funny.

What I don't like is taking it to extremes and making all these intellectualizations about what basically is simple music. It's simple stream-of-consciousness stuff in my songs. What I'm trying to get across is misinterpreted.

A great deal of my battle, as an actor, is to widdle away the things that make me self-conscious and try to trick myself into not being self-conscious.

There's a guy in the audience with a distinctive laugh. I hope that guy is miked. The only problem with having a distinctive laugh is I know exactly when that guy isn't laughing. "Oh, distinctive laugh doesn't think that joke was funny!"

You're always on duty because you're in a constant state of observation. That's one of the challenges of being a comedian. I think one of the other challenges is that, whether we like it or not, it's a profession that requires failure. It doesn't just encourage failure. It requires it because it's all trial and error. You need to know what doesn't work to know what works.

I wanted to be an actor to act, and now, being an actor, you have to dress up, you have to be nice, you have to be smart, you have to be sexy, you have to be ready.

I try to play the stiff, as much as I can, and play it dry, which is sometimes hard for me. My problem with comedy is to want to clown it up, but she's the funny one. Those are her jokes, not mine. For me, it's a lot of not doing anything. I just don't want to muck it up.

I actually think it's helped me as a writer to have to act. It's only when you actually start putting yourself out that you appreciate the anxiety that comes with having to try to sell a line, or with trying to own a character.

I wasn't nervous at all. I applied the same amount of efforts to the love scenes as I did to the skating and the acting and everything else.

I'd probably be better in an action role and even a more comedic role as I find myself pretty hilarious.

Not a time with him passed that I didn't say, "You should've been a comedian." [Vincent Price] was hilarious. He was just such a quick, funny wit. I don't think most people would think that about him, and it was really surprising to me. But man, the guy had a brilliant wit.

Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.

Just when you think you're hitting your stride someone will shout "cut" and ask you to move your head to the left. It's such an awkward process. You try to make it passionate but it ends up being mechanical.

When you're doing comedy, you're not trying to be funny. I think things are funny when the character is taking it totally seriously. I think when people are winking, it becomes slapstick, it becomes something else.