Comedians From The United States

"Once I got into it, I (realized) in this medium, you can use musical theater to connect and make a dream come true, like fly on stage. Through stagecraft you can wow (the audience) and make them feel that sense of wonder. ... You’re singing, you’re dancing, and you’re performing a feat of wonder. I couldn’t stop thinking in those terms. There was so much potential."

"I’ve been lucky - I’ve dealt with, and studied with, VERY successful people, and it seems to me the more successful the performer, the less they have to hide, and the less they feel it necessary to make you feel bad about yourself or what you do. That’s true in many arenas, though – the more comfortable someone is in his or her own skin, the more they have to offer, and the more comfortable YOU feel while around them – you can actually connect and share as human beings. The pressure of trying to impress one another evaporates, because a mutual respect already exists."

"I’m a big fan of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I love them all, and the Wolf Man would be my second favorite. I really love them all but there’s something so unique about the Creature and I just love him. You know, I think they made a mistake in the third part of the trilogy when they converted him into a land beast because it really limited him. You’ll notice that was the end of the story of the Creature, ironically enough. I keep hearing they are looking to remake the film, but I hope they are planning on keeping him as he was- keep him in the lagoon!"

"When I was a small child, for some reason—and I don’t know if this was from cartoons or movies or what—I was very frightened of skeletons. I also was very afraid of the dark. I used to have incredibly terrible nightmares. I was afraid of everything as a child. Now look what I’m doing."

"I had a lot of changes in my life since I turned 40. In fact, even since I turned 50. I became a vegetarian. I have never felt better in my life. I have more energy, I'm so much more alert. I lost 20 pounds, that's right! I really really recommend going vegetarian whatever time in your life. Peace begins on your plate. I'm Carol Leifer and I'm a vegan."

"I recently became vegan because I felt that as a Jewish lesbian, I wasn’t part of a small enough minority. So now I’m a Jewish lesbian vegan."

"A thin and sickly kid, I was pushed around and beaten up by bullies throughout my childhood, until I grew bigger than everybody and it stopped, I knew very well how they operate, and specifically the joy they take in scaring people. I’d stared them in the face so often that it wasn’t particularly challenging to do an impression."

"The interchanges I would have — of course, most of them were positive, and most people understand the movie, but there were plenty where the guys would want to put me in a headlock, or push me around a bit, or get into a little tussle with 'that tough guy from Back To The Future, because he’s not that tough after all'. Well, I’m not that tough after all, because I’m an actor; because it’s pretend! And I think that social media, the greater intimacy, maybe — I mean, part of it is false intimacy, but part of it’s real intimacy; you can go and see things about an actor, that’s kind of why I do the YouTube thing, to present, ‘this is me as a person’, that the audience, now, the pop cultural audience, is a more sophisticated audience and a more multi-faceted audience."

"It’s a quality show and I think it came along at the right time, America wanted something stupid after the insanity of 9/11. The SpongeBob character is a naïve idiot but he also has a heart. He’s a dumb, well-meaning person, like Forrest Gump or Jerry Lewis."

"The Plankton character was only supposed to be in one or two episodes, but I was a writer on the show and I really liked this character. Stephen told me to come up with more ideas for Plankton. I’m not just his voice. I get to create how the character is written and how he evolves over time. You very rarely get that experience."

"I helped Stephen with the story and then I auditioned for SpongeBob, I used my Plankton voice, which sounds like a mix of Tony the Tiger and Gregory Peck. It’s actually an imitation of a friend from high school that had a really deep voice."

"I've had groups of twentysomethings saying they still talk to each other in SpongeBob memes. It's really touching, you know? You get people who have had very difficult lives, and they say that SpongeBob got them through things, which is very touching. Someone told us that they were considering suicide, and SpongeBob made them laugh, and they cycled through that phase of their life. You get everything from that, to I had a great happy childhood and SpongeBob was part of it. You get all colours of the spectrum in terms of people coming up. Not just with SpongeBob either. It may be some cartoon that was a failure, or a videogame that took an hour to record in 1996. But they say it was the biggest thing in their life at one point. It's mind-blowing. You don't realize the footprint of what you're doing is leaving behind."

"I just want to keep working and being enthusiastic and having dreams and working hard to make those dreams come true, anything else is boredom."

"People do what they do by choice, so I don’t really know it’s a matter of people being comfortable in front of the camera. I think it’s a matter of doing the work that’s available to you and then striving in it. If you realized how hard it is to get a job in the entertainment industry, and you were working prolifically in voice over and you can work doing on camera stuff here and there, it has nothing to do with being worried about how you look on camera. It’s about the work and you do the work that is available to you. These actors are that good that they’re able to do the voiceover stuff. It’s hard. A lot of people think that it’s easy to just go and talk in front of a microphone and that’s not the case. You’re not just talking, you’re acting. You’re acting in front of a microphone as opposed to a camera. It’s a lot more specific of a technique than most people think. It’s not, “Oh, do a silly voice!” Try doing a silly voice for four hours, then take a lunch break, and then do another silly voice for four hours. It’s not easy, especially because it’s about the acting. So I think that mindset is a little off."

"It’s something very few actors really get to experience. When you’re a character actor or voiceover guy, it’s job to job. You’re like a migrant worker, almost. The longevity [of “SpongeBob”] is an unbelievable statistical anomaly. It’s like, I didn’t buy that many lottery tickets and I won the lottery. It’s a totally random, harmonic convergence of people you met and your agent getting you an audition. Actors have so little control over their own lives; it’s nice to have something you’re not in control of that’s actually positive. There was a point when “SpongeBob” was cancelled after the first few seasons and the first movie. We went to a wrap party that I thought was the season wrap party but was the series wrap party. Nobody knew. So I already feel like I dodged a bullet."

"Don't laugh but I think the logical successor to Chaplin is Skelton. Red, to my mind, is the most unaclaimed clown in the business."

"With one prop, a soft battered hat he successfully converted himself into an idiot boy, a peevish old lady, a teetering-tottering drunk, an overstuffed clubwoman, a tramp, and any other character that seemed to suit his fancy. No grotesque make-up, no funny clothes, just Red. There is no one around who can take a comic fall as magnificently as he can. He also sings, dances, delivers deceptively simple comic monologue and plays a dramatic scene about as effectively as any of the dramatic actors, Method or otherwise."

"A comedian goes out and hits people right on. A clown uses pathos. He can be funny, then turn right around and reach people and touch them with what life is like."

"The best part about acting is reacting. Audiences don't know that they mustn't sit back and observe and say, "I will watch this." Whether it's my play or anybody's play, they must become participants. Too many people today are observing life instead of participating in it."

"They're taking shortcuts to get a big laugh instead of working for their audience. They can finish a show, hang up their tux and shirt, and put it up for next time. With mine, you have to wring out the sweat and send it to the cleaners. You gotta go out and work for your audience."

"Why quit? It's the only thing I know. Quitting is like hanging up your soul on the wall and closing the door on it."

"They call me the Joan of Arc in the family, and they're always saying, 'Mother's off on another one of her things. She's off fighting the world. She's off tilting at her windmills. But once they came to see the play, I think they understood what all those months [of study and rehearsal] had been about. I sat down with them at one point and told them I'd never finished anything in my life, although I'd started an awful lot of things. I said whether the play was a success or a failure didn't make any difference. What was important was that I finished it, because that element of not finishing projects is a failure in my character. And I think they understood that."

"I am devastated at the loss of one of my very dearest friends. Adam and I had a special friendship for more than 50 years. We shared some of the most fun times of our lives together; our families have deep love and respect for each other. This is a terribly unexpected loss of my lifelong friend, I will forever miss him. There are several fine actors who have portrayed Batman in films, in my eyes there was only one real Batman and that is and always will be Adam West; He was truly the Bright Knight."

"Adam set the bar so high for portraying the role of Batman, He was wonderful, spot on, with a twinkle in his eye. He had it all -- looks, charm, intelligence, I could go on and on. In conversation, he was very animated and once told me that Batman was the father that everyone wanted! I never thought of it that way! He had a great way of playing that 'tongue-in-cheek' nature in so much of the dialogue. I had a long, engaging conversation with him and his wife, Marcelle, about their life in Montana, If I had to describe him in a word or two, they would be 'stellar' and 'exemplar,' qualities that we want to encourage in ourselves and in young people."

"My kind of female power can’t be owned. I may feign enslavement, but I never let myself be unloved, even by myself, that would not do. I rarely argue - I consider. I wait till enough information is in and then the answer, answers itself. My imagination does tolerate empty space. Female power does not disagree with a compliment. Compliments shall be relished, like rich chocolate, like an inside caress. I make time to feel it, all the way up and down my body. Let the world please you. Use your female power. It was set up that way."

"We're trying to create a folk hero ... when you play a legend, you have to play it with a straight direct line, direct speech and movement...Now Bruce, on the other hand, has to come across as the kindest, noblest, most charitable guy - again, "straight-line" - not Cary Grant charming - know what I mean?""

"Playing Batman is an actor's challenge. First it's different; then, you have to reach a multi-level audience. The kids take it straight, but for adults, we have to project it further ... When Batman was a comic it wasn't camp, but the show is. When I got the part, I tried to remember Batman as I knew him when I was a kid - with emotional recall."

"I happen to think that videogames are an ideal means to help broaden the imaginations of young people."

"Needless to say, adventure characters should be just one facet of videogaming. In the same way a painting allows us to gaze upon the faces and souls of people from another age, or a book permits us to linger on the thoughts of great figures from history and fiction, videogames can expand our awareness of the world as it is, was, or might be."

"As an actor... we all have our own methods and approaches to creating a character, whether that's from the inside going in or vice versa. I spoke, mainly, to the executive producer Bill Dozier. We got along very well and we really shared the same ideas about the show, what it could and should be. We knew to play it on several levels - something that could be lasting for the children but also with funny, social satire for the adults."

"I think you can meet the right girl at the wrong time, and it gets screwed up. If you meet the right girl at the wrong time, that girl has to be the most understanding person in the world because there's going to be a lot more bumps in the road. And, hey, it might be the right time for the guy and not for the girl, but if it's not the right time for one of them, and the other one tries to control that, it's not gonna have a happy ending. Both people have to be ready, and they might not think they're ready... that's why I think it's the right girl first."

"To me there is nothing more important in a democracy than free speech and debate. We should debate everything, we should talk about everything, we should engage ideas we aren't comfortable with, and we should let the best ideas win, that's how a healthy society based on rational ideas and a secular government should work, but too often these days it's simply isn't what's happening, and while the far right in this country went off the deep end a while ago, what I've really been affected by is seeing my side, the people on the Left cherry-picking, fact stifling, debate and labeling everyone they disagree with a racist, a bigot, a homophobe, or worse. These aren't liberal principles, much less are they the ideals our founders intended for us to use when they started this country."

"Authoritarians love authoritarianism."

"Love is a burnin' thing And it makes a fiery ring Bound by wild desire I fell into a ring of fire I fell into a burnin' ring of fire I went down, down, down And the flames went higher And it burns, burns, burns The ring of fire, the ring of fire"

"If you look at our country's history, change doesn't come from presidents. Change comes from large groups of angry people."

"You can’t expect anything. In the Evil Dead movies you can only expect the unexpected. These were never designed to be a franchise. These were a very slow growing series of movies and the TV show was a natural outgrowth; it made more sense to do a TV show than a 75-million-dollar movie, for example. It’s dictated by economics and look, a lot of the difference between Army Of Darkness and now is that Army Of Darkness flopped, which most people forget; the series was dead after that. It took until the late nineties to rekindle it on DVD, so we’re actually really glad to celebrate the release of the Ash Vs Evil Dead DVD so DVD collectors can add it to the rest of the series."

"[On Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory] I thought the script was very good, but something was missing. I wanted to come out with a cane, come down slowly, have it stick into one of the bricks, get up, fall over, roll around, and they all laugh and applaud. The director asked, ‘what do you want to do that for?’ I said from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth."

"I trust you, I love you."

"[On Young Frankenstein] I started writing two pages about what I would like to see it become [...] I would like it to be a happy ending. My agent called me…he said, "I wanted to do a film with you and Marty Feldman and Peter Boyle." So I wrote a couple more pages with the Transylvania ending, and she said "This is great, we should get Mel Brooks to direct." And he wouldn't direct something he didn't conceptualize. The phone rings, it was Mel, and he says "what are you getting me into?" I said, nothing that you don’t want to get into."

"This was in Milwaukee when I was eleven years old. I went to see my sister give a dramatic reading. She'd been taking drama lessons. I walked into the hall, and there was a little stage at the other end, and maybe 150 people, parents mostly, or children like myself. The lights went down slowly, very slowly. Then it was dark. Spotlights hit the stage, and there was my sister, standing there in the middle of the stage, and... everyone was listening to her. Everyone. At that moment I thought, that must be the most beautiful thing in the world, to be able to arrange things so that people have to listen to you. So, that's why I became an actor. Well, anyway, my analyst says it's better than running naked in Central Park..."

"Frankly, it's all set up now so that you're weirdly kind of safe. Once you get in those suits, they really know what to do with you. It was hard then; it ain't that hard now. Entertainment Weekly (2014)"

"I'm gonna do four or five of these movies, and it's going to become my career. I'll have to keep expanding the bat suit, because I get fatter every year. I'll be bankrupt. I'll be out opening shopping malls, going from appearance to appearance in a cheesy van."

"I probably could've done this earlier, if I was more ambitious."

"I'll always stand by the first Batman. Even for its imperfections, people will never know how hard that movie was to do. A lot of that still holds up."

"From an art perspective, I don't know how you get better than Beetlejuice. In terms of originality and a look, it's 100% unique."

"He keeps imitating himself, but he has much talent and I think in time he will do first rate comedy. I hope so. But he he's going to have to learn artistic discipline."

"I'm telling you about a child in trouble. If it's pity, we'll get some money. I'm giving you the facts. Pity. You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair; stay in your house."

"A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world."

"I learned from my dad that when you walk in front of an audience, they are the kings and queens, and you’re but the jester — and if you don’t think that way, you’re going to get very, very conceited."

"Ollie's projection of emotions like frustration, agitation and shyness was masterful, and so was Stan Laurel's conception of the harried, ineffectual soul."