I'm a comedic actor, not to mix words, but it's something I think about. A comedic actor. I like to think that Christopher Guest, Phil Hartman, Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness are comedic actors. And Dan Aykroyd, too. Those are my heroes.
At the end of the day, I want to be part of the same conversation as Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor.
When I'm stopped in the street, people want to talk about 'The Two Ronnies' and the sketches we did.
In terms of comedians, I loved, growing up, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, Carol Burnett, all those people.
Ice Cube went straight outta Compton to hearing, 'Are we there yet?' Eddie Murphy blew up striding across the stage in a red leather ensemble that would have made Elvis Presley chuckle, yet is probably best known to anyone born in the 21st century as the overly chatty donkey from 'Shrek.'
I was obsessed with Carol Burnett and then Tracey Ullman. Like, obsessed with their shows.
It's still amazing to me to walk down the halls of 'SNL.' You see pictures of the greatest comedians we grew up worshiping, basically. It's crazy to be able to still work there.
I've met so many remarkable people so far, coming up through stand-up all these years, who just aren't alive anymore. Because they are dead. Some really great people who helped change my life and career, people like Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, Rodney Dangerfield, Johnny Carson.
Bill Burr, Freddy Soto, Joe Rogan, Tom Segura… those people influenced me a lot more than any of the older guys like Richard Pryor.
I am glad that actors like Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan are doing justice to comedy. But in our days, nobody could beat Sunil Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan.
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, they made it cool to be funny and to be embarrassed and to look a thousand different ways and show a bunch of different areas of their lives.
When I first started out, 'Time' magazine did an article on what it called 'the sick comics,' and they were myself, Shelley Berman, Nichols & May, Jonathan Winters, Lenny Bruce, and Mort Sahl. We were considered 'sick.'
I've always loved the Marx brothers and Charlie Chaplin.
I was scared to death because for the comics of my generation, HBO specials are like the pinnacle. I'm thinking of all these unbelievable comedians I've seen on HBO: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Damon Wayans, Richard Pryor and Billy Crystal. I started having a panic attack seeing my name in that list of people. It was pretty overwhelming.
What would be a show that I would rescue? If I could bring anything back, it would be 'The Carol Burnett Show'. Tim Conway is just... I just watched him so many times do stuff over and over. He's just so amazing.
I mean, 'Kids In The Hall' is the reason I have any career at all.
I grew up watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
Anyone in the comedy world knows that Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell are two of the funniest guys around.
Garry Shandling is someone I've publicly gone gay for, for jokes. Oh and anyone in the Twilight movies. I don't know any of their names, but all of them. The wolves, the vampires? They're all fantastic.
I've studied Charlie Chaplin for years. I've studied Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, all of them. I don't play around. This is not a game.
I come from a time when people like Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby told stories that were devastatingly funny without being off-color.
When I used to see Rick Moranis do something, to me that was immediately funny. Or George Carlin or Martin Lawrence.
People ask me about my influences and I say all the comedians in the 1970s and Dave Allen was a massive influence and a very big influence on a lot of modern comics.
As a young girl, if you do something funny - especially if you're Jewish - someone says, 'Oh, have you seen Gilda Radner?'
I always was trying to make people laugh as a kid. I was a big fan of Carol Burnett and Gilda Radner. I watched them and I remember feeling as a child, when I heard the laughter they got, a little jealous that they made someone laugh like that.
