Americans just don't understand dry wit.
I think spending a lot of time with my mom, who's a talker and a storyteller, and my dad, who has kind of a soft-spoken, understated sense of humor, I think that's how I became what I am, which is sort of an understated storyteller.
Nothing's true that I say, because I don't really want to say anything. I don't think my life's that cool, and I don't think my opinion's that valid. They're just silly jokes. Usually I just take a topic that isn't funny at all, like Shakespeare, and work backwards. I just try to find an unfunny subject.
I love doing meta-humor, as long as it doesn't become too distracting and it's subtle.
I think the best kind of comedy is the least self conscious. I think if you just sort of let the comedy happen without the elbow nudge, did you get it, did you get it. I love straight face comedy or subtle - relatively subtle comedy.
The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter.
We all know how funny Morrissey is. Actually, you know what? I say that sarcastically. His songs are some of the funniest songs I've ever heard in my life. I mean, really. I mean, not that the 'Girlfriend in a Coma' is, like, really funny.
So, deadpan I think just means not acknowledging for one second that you think that this is funny and clever.
I don't think it's aiming at gags, I think the humour is woven into it. It's part of how the characters operate and how they deal with disaster because they're worldly enough to have a bit of irony and wryness about their own circumstances. So, I think the humour comes out of that.
Comedy doesn't have to be loud and obnoxious and beat you over the head. It can be this really small detail that, when it computes in your brain, you think, "That's great. That's masterful."
Nobody is here without a reason. I always had a different sensibility. I like a huge range of comedy - from broad and farcical, the most sensitive, the most understated - but I always wanted my comedy to be more embracing of the species rather than debasing of it.
I love Buster Keaton and I love physical comedy when it's done in an emotionally understated way. I just like to play it, and I need the attention.
I believe my friends think I'm funny. All the books are full of humor. Maybe it is a quiet sort of humor that masquerades as not-much-at-all. It is certainly easy to miss.
