Humor in Drama Quotes

For me, the ideal job as an actor would be something that is intrinsically a drama but to which I could bring in as much humor as possible.

I like comedy, but I like comedy as a device in drama. It's more interesting for me to use comedy to seduce people into thinking about something serious. If you want to hit a beat in a drama, you can distract people with a little comedy, and you can punch them in the gut with some emotion.

I never understand when people say, 'Do you do comedy or tragedy?' I don't think they're very much different. They both have to be true, and there isn't a great play in the world that doesn't have funny parts to it - as 'Salesman' does, as 'King Lear' does. The whole idea is to reflect life in some way, which means surely you have to have both.

All I try to do is as earnestly and as acutely as I can, conceive a character and try to portray this character just honestly. If the humor is within the absurdity and the awfulness of situations, then let it be seen that way.

A lot of times the movies I think are the funniest are dramas. I feel like dramas are so much funnier because they're actually capturing human beings. Humans are so weird and clumsy, and that, to me, often makes me laugh more.

I like the rhythm of comedy in dramas, if that makes sense. In other words, I don't want to write setup, punch, setup, punch, where the joke dictates the scene; I want to find comedy in which the drama is actually driving the moment in the scene.

There's a tricky tone where you try to get some humor into a movie that's also a tough tale of murder and revenge. You have to ice skate rather carefully between the humor and the action tension part of the drama.

I think the best dramatic actors know how to tap into their character's humor.

I think that even in a drama, we all want to smile, and laugh because what a horrible life if we're just like "I'm in a drama." And so I think in everything you're trying to look for the humor, even if it's a dark scene, because most people want to have fun in life, as opposed to have a boring time, a terrible time.

Most of the time, my favorite drama has comedy in it as well. I think most good dramas have comedy in there. And all of the dramatic actors I look up to are also very funny.

With actors like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Harrison Ford, what made them such icons is that even in dramatic movies, their characters had a sense of humor.