Scripted Comedy Quotes

People think "The Office" was improvised, but it's all on the page. We do that because what we found is that in the early days of "The Office," we went in with it sort of 80 percent scripted and we did some things and then we improv'd and we did - you know, and it gets a laugh on the floor because it's the first time they've heard it.

In television, a sitcom is probably the closest thing to what it's like working in the theater.

If 'New Girl' had been a movie, I don't know whether I would have been given the opportunity to do it.

In the year and a half I was on SNL, I never saw anybody ad lib anything. For a very good reason - the director cut according to the script. So, if you ad libbed, you'd be off mike and off camera.

I thought 'Borat' was a breakthrough comedy, because it was really funny. It wasn't some studio-produced script with 14 writers.

It's just a lovely way to do comedy, where you have the freedom to try stuff, but then you also have a really strong, solid script to go back to if you're brain dead and tired.

I would love to play a normal human being with a little bit of a comedic bend that had a love interest. I would love to explore comedy, like a half-hour kind of single-camera comedy. I think that would kind of suit me best.

I don't think it's unfair to have writers. I think if you're going to do a roast on television, as if you were doing a play or you were reading a script of a movie, you would have the best possible material. And those are the people who score, the people who are willing to listen to the roasting experts and then come out there and own that material.

Our characters were antiseptic but we weren't. And if you remember what we did on BATMAN, as the scripts were written very funny, we played them very straight.

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.

A sitcom is the closest thing for me to doing stage because you work in front of an audience, and if it's well written it can be very satisfying.

With 'The Soup,' obviously it has to be totally scripted out, and then, within that, I improvise punchlines and sometimes setups if I can't read the teleprompter properly.

'Big Bang' is very tightly scripted. Because we shoot in front of a live audience, it's basically like doing a filmed piece of theatre, really.

The characters are not allowed to change if you write a sitcom; they're not allowed to learn anything. There's all these sorts of rules, and you go, 'I just want to be able to write one character and then leave that behind.' Also, as a performer, and I may regret saying this, but it would be my own personal hell to be trapped in the sitcom.

I'm really getting into acting and TV. 'Sports Illustrated' is a big, iconic brand I'd like to work for, too. But TV and acting is really funny and a bit more exciting than shooting all the time.

I'm shooting a pilot based on my show. It's a one-camera show. I play myself.

What a crazy idea to put me on a family show!

I do miss the rhythms of comedy. And I've never been able to perform very well without an audience. The sitcoms I've done had them. It was like doing a little play.

I would love 'Awkward Black Girl' to be on television, with the right team of people who understand and get it. If 'Awkward Black Girl' could make it to HBO starring a dark-skinned black girl, that would be revolutionary.

It's nice to go and be a guest on a television sitcom. It pays well; it's easy because generally it's a supporting role, so you go, you do two or three things, you're in touch with people there. They're widely popular, so they're seen by many people.

I would love to do a comedy, but comedy probably in the sense of a dark comedy like 'Californication,' that sort of thing. Yeah, sure, I think I'm funny.

We have a full writers' room, and with something like 'MyMusic,' we've scripted it out with professional writers. There is some very basic improv from the actors, but everything is very to the letter, so it's easy to edit down to an episode. There are fun little things an actor might throw in there.

What they say about TV shows is true. You're really a family. You laugh, you fight, you get close, you know? Movies are shorter. They're over quicker. You don't form the same bonds.

My first love is acting on stage. A sitcom is a hybrid of stage and film.

A lot of comics fly by the seat of their pants, and they pride themselves on being witty, quick, and off-the-cuff. That's not my show. I wrote a show, and I want to do the show I wrote. I'm not interested in what the audience has to say.