Comedic Pressure Quotes

The thing that bubbles up the most when I'm around other people is that I feel a joy of being alive. But I also am a very sensitive person and have many heavier feelings. It can be tiresome after a while to only do comedy, especially after you grow as a person. It starts to feel like you're playing an older version of yourself.

I always have the same thing - which is the fear of not getting a laugh - that I've had from the time I was a kid; obsessing over, 'This joke doesn't quite work, we've got to get this right.' I was always like that, whether I was a member of a six-person ensemble or whether I'm the center of a show.

I guess I'm like Roger Miller who used to say that he didn't have as many jokes as he thought he did.

Here's what I'm afraid of. I know a lot of comedians, friends of mine, who just got into the 'Doesn't matter what I say. It doesn't matter. They're just gonna laugh anyway.'

I don't like the pressure to try to tell the best jokes. I'm not good at jokes.

This satire business, that was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. I was certified funny. From then on, I had to be funny - people expected it. Twice the work for the same pay.

I have horrible stage fright - you know how you go through the bi-polar stage fright thing? Then you go on drugs to get over the stage fright and perform, but then you're not funny at all.

Fans feel they know me, so they want me to be on-the-spot funny, and it's hard to fulfil their expectations.

Comedy is such a vulnerable thing. With drama, you're not trying to make someone cry. If you do, great, but that's not your goal. With comedy, you're trying to make someone laugh, so to me, it's harder because you are in such a vulnerable position. You're like, 'I hope people like this. I hope I do the joke justice.'

The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.

I went out with seven actors in a row. There are problems with that. I've had the really good-looking dramatic actor, and that has its problems. And then I'll go out with the funny guy. It's almost like the funny guy has more to prove.

You can't be trying to be funny. As an adult actor, sometimes I'll muddle it up by over-thinking things.

It's very difficult once you've been on telly because people know what you do. They give you a little bit of grace but then they're harsher if you're not funny, so you have to be funny.

When you start out, it sometimes feels like you're fighting audiences every night just to prove that you're funny.

I have to do stand-up. I have to do something comedy-involved every day or else I will lose my mind. I already am, but I would go more nuts.

When I'm up there, I'm just thinking that I've got to make them laugh or they won't show up next time.

Sometimes you feel in control, and it's great, but sometimes you just don't feel in control and you really have to struggle to get laughs.

At home in my room, I'm funny, but if I'm commissioned to be that, I don't feel very funny.

There is definitely a pressure for funny people to be funny. People want them to perform all the time.

Going before an audience of people who expect you to be funny is tough. Going before an audience that expect you to be boring, and then being a little funny, is much easier. I prefer easier.

When it comes to comedy, they always say, "Jackée, whatever comes to your mind." But heaven forbid I can't think of something. It's never happened yet, thank God. I may knock on wood.

But I also know in standup, there's nowhere to hide. You get on stage and you deliver, or you are eviscerated and you are thrown into a pile of bodies at the bottom of a mountain.

Comedy clubs can be brutal. Those people are for real, and if you aren't funny, they aren't laughing. They don't care who you are.

To be thrown onto the stand-up stage is an experience that you cannot fathom until you're actually there, because there's no place to go, and everyone is looking at you and you can't even see them because of the lights. And yet you have to manage to start talking and be funny on top of it.

I'm always in situations where you can't be funny, and yet I want to do it anyway.