Comedy Filming Quotes

I really enjoy laughing at work, and I find that it's easier to do that when you're shooting a comedy.

When we were doing a scene, lots of times we would collapse giggling, because it seemed so silly because it felt like we were doing a home movie at times.

On the whole, a director who make the set a comfortable place to work is really important, whether it's a comedy or drama.

I'm sort of laughing and so Zach [ Galifianakis] started laughing [on the set of The Hangover]. And Todd [Phillips] was baffled because what we were saying wasn't that funny, you know what I mean? And it was like all the baby's face. So Todd was like, 'What is going on? Get it together guys.'

I don't watch sitcoms. I really don't. My problem with them is they take so long to film them that there's no spontaneity. I want to see that.

One of the biggest breaks we had actually, one of the biggest, the hardest I laughed on the movie [The Hangover] was the baby was just doing ridiculous things and making hilarious faces. But I'm sitting there and I'm supposed to be having this exchange with Zach [ Galifianakis] and the baby is like staring at me with these huge eyes and acting, and just making the most cerebral faces, and I could not keep it together.

It is hard to keep a straight face during comedy scenes. It's considered really bad form to laugh at someone else because you can ruin their best take. But sometimes it's very hard not to.

I really enjoyed multicamera comedy. You film in front of a live audience, and it's kind of the best of both worlds. It's like doing a one-act play every week, but if you screw your lines up, you get to do it over.

It was a great time. We did hurt ourselves [on Pineapple Express set]. [James] Franco cracked his face open.[Danny ] McBride cracked the back of his head open. I punched Amber[Heard] in the face just to get her in the mood for things. 'Welcome to the set!' But it was a lot of fun. I loved it.

In comedy it helps if there's a friendly atmosphere on the set.

But filming is good for you, because the crew isn't allowed to laugh. You can't get addicted to getting the laugh.

I’m very curious in regards to "The Hateful Eight" specifically about the blocking of the movie. Because in comedies, we don’t block. We basically like have to position the actors’ bodies in the way that is most conducive to filming both of them simultaneously.

In filming you're waiting. You're waiting for lights. You're waiting for people set things up. And when you're not waiting, you're repeating. And neither is conducive to spontaneity, you know. Comedy makes you very, very neurotic because you think, I - but did I nail it?

One day, we were doing a serious scene and fast talking like we do and we could not stop laughing and the director had to stop the production. We had to go to our trailer and calm down and do it all again.

'New Girl' was a wonderful experience, but for seven years, we were shooting single-cam that is not handheld, that is traditionally shot, and they're asking you to improv, and you're on location. It's a real grind.

There was a time when doing "Zoolander 2" that I was literally flying between the "Zoolander" shoot and "The Leftovers" in Texas and at that point, I was getting comedy whiplash. It was a relief, though, to get to Rome and be like, "Oh my God, I get to laugh on set."

Sometimes when you're doing a comedy, the director will yell out "alts" and then the director gets the first laugh.