Stephen Merchant (Stephen James Merchant) Quotes
I've always been a fan of physical comedy. It kind of hits you in a different way; it bypasses the intellect and hits you in the gut.
Quotes to Explore
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I cultivated this fan base that I really didn't really understand or appreciate until I put my first headlining tour up for sale. 500- to 1,000-capacity rooms weren't an underplay for me at the time. I'd never done a tour before!
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I'm a student of comedy in general, so I've always loved Billy Crystal. But I'm a different type of showman. I'm a clown and a jester.
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I wanted to be less well-known in comedy.
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I try to be an ethical, moral person and a nice person, and I like to have that reflected in my comedy. I'm not a mean comedian, and I don't think that my comedy is mean. I think that for the most part, it's more focused on the diversity that we all handle and try to provide a distraction from the disaster of modern living.
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I'm a big fan of movies, but I'm a bigger fan of filmmaking itself. I fell in love with it when I was very young, and I have always loved to learn the craft, every aspect of it.
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I was not influenced by composers as much as by natural objects and physical phenomena.
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If I could sew comedy and philosophy together, then I've done a good job. The primary goal is always going to be laughs and the secondary goal is always going to be saying something without it being a lecture.
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We often operate effectively on the physical battleground but not on the psychological battleground. We fail to communicate our resolve.
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Comedy is basically self-deprecation.
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The entire New York comedy scene has moved to L.A. - it's bled the New York comedy scene dry.
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Let's not call physical comedy falling down and pratfalls. All humor is physical, no matter how you dish it out. It's timing, like a dancer or an athlete would have.
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This hiatus coming up I'm looking at a comedy because I need the balance.
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Perhaps I've been perceived more as a romantic comedy actor, but overall, I enjoy acting in any shape or form.
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I'd really been wanting to do a television series. I was looking for a comedy.
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Dan Curry is the funniest guy in the world. I can sit in a room with him for hours, and he's just cracking me up constantly. And Kitao is the next Terry Gilliam. A lot of comedy directors are just comedic writers, but they don't have any sense of aesthetic or visual vocabulary.
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Tarantino thinks the Bing is a great room for comedy.
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My comedy comes from pain. I can't stand to see someone hurting.
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Comedy, when it works, is light on its feet and has the illusion of complete spontaneity: as if there is no film, no camera. You are standing there experiencing it all in real time. This illusion, I believe, is why so many people think comedy is easy.
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The thing with physical comedy is that you have to actually try to do the thing you're trying to do - you can't fake it.
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Comedy used to be a vehicle for change. Now, comedy has gotten to this quirky, nonsensical place, which I enjoy. But I do think there is room for discussion-based humor. We can tell those stories in a way that feels edifying.
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Mean comedy is not really something that I personally gravitate towards or something that I do.
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Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.
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When people write a novel, they want to have that reach and that impact. To get it with a first novel, you can either see it as an albatross or a calling card.
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I've always been a fan of physical comedy. It kind of hits you in a different way; it bypasses the intellect and hits you in the gut.
