Comedy Drama Quotes & Sayings

I think that in any role you have, whether TV or film, it's hard to do comedy and drama within one story. — Callie Thorne

BOTTOM
There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies
cannot abide. How answer you that?

SNOUT
By'r lakin, a parlous fear.

STARVELING
I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

BOTTOM
Not a whit: I have a device to make all well.
Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to
say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that
Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more
better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not
Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put them
out of fear.

QUINCE
Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be
written in eight and six.

BOTTOM
No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight. — William Shakespeare

You know, I've just always been sort of goofy and kind of gone with it. I actually usually work more in drama, but I have been floating back and forth with comedy, and somehow they keep giving me jobs in comedy, so I guess there's something funny about me. — Zachary Knighton

Transparent is a drama/comedy series that could, in theory, make the Emmy nominations next year in either of those categories. It's that good. — David Bianculli

Whether that's an action film or a comedy or a drama or anything in between, I'm willing to prove that I can play with the big boys. — Sasha Grey

I enjoy doing drama, and I enjoy doing comedy equally. — Alison Brie

With a play, you do it and it's gone. Films always date. Television drama always dates. Television comedy, for some reason, seems to go on. — Penelope Keith

If it's strictly comedy, I like to bring some darkness to it. If it's strictly drama, I always like to lighten it up as well. I like to find some kind of dimension and make my characters human, so that it doesn't feel like a sketch and feels more like a slice of life. — Nestor Carbonell

A lot of people who do drama say comedy is the hardest thing, but, not wanting to sound like a bighead, comedy is easy for me, as I've always been fairly funny. — Nick Frost

I can do comedy but it's a certain type. I'm not a physical comedy guy. I'm not Will Ferrell - there's just this crazy and get naked and run through the thing screaming. That's just not my style; my style is drama or - I'm not slapstick. — Mekhi Phifer

All jokes aside, it's a very difficult job playing the straight man. Jason is potentially the most brilliant straight man that ever was because he's also really funny while doing it, which is even harder. I've always seen myself playing characters who are flawed. We use comedy in our lives to obscure the drama. — Will Arnett

What reaches an audience is honesty. If you're saying something truthful that's supposed to be a funny line, it's going to be funny. And if it's supposed to be a serious line, it's going to be serious. But, I don't think there's a distinction between how you play drama or comedy, if it's based in the truth. — Barbra Streisand

A third variety of drama ... begins as tragedy with scraps of fun in it ... and ends in comedy without mirth in it, the place of mirth being taken by a more or less bitter and critical irony. — George Bernard Shaw

Storytelling is a landscape, and tragedy is comedy is drama. It simply depends on how you frame what you're seeing. — Lauren Groff

I was transfixed by the possibility of imagination within this home, no matter how strange it appeared to be. This wasn't the quiet symmetry of my everyday, the rows of terraced houses with their rectangular gardens and the routines as reliable as sturdy hairs. This wasn't the world in which things matched, or even went with. This was a world devoid of harmony. This was a world of drama, where comedy and tragedy fought for space. — Sarah Winman

I like doing comedy, I like doing drama. Naturally I like to do, I like doing dramas, I like conflict, and when I do a comedy, you know, I've found that, like, romantic comedy is the trickiest one, because often it's neither: it's not romantic and it's not funny. So, like, I like a comedy that's biting. It's biting humor or really quirky humor. — Matt Dillon

I think good comedy is a commitment to the absurd in that the situation for the actors should be virtually played like a drama. — Peter Billingsley

I guess you get pigeon-holed in Hollywood, but I'm ok with that because I've been able to do a lot. I started in the theater, then I went to stand-up comedy, and then when I went into the movies to do comedy and drama and big movies and small movies. — Denis Leary

I come from a very expressive family, so it's really not surprising that we became actors. There was a lot of real-life drama in our house. Some of it was drama, some of it was comedy and some of it was comic-tragedy. — John Turturro

I love seeing the Oscar films and epic dramas. But I'd rather watch a romantic comedy than any other kind of movie. There's something about movies like these that make you feel so good and happy and that you want to live in that world
to be that girl and be part of the fairy tale. I have always believed in fairy tales. — Jennifer Lopez

Life is funny. Life isn't categorized into comedy, drama, action, is it?So I don't know why they try to categorize everything. It drives me crazy-why it would have to be just a romantic comedy or ... I want to have a little integrity, a little story, you know — Jennifer Aniston

I think everything needs to be played real, for reality's sake, for truth. And that is the drama and the comedy. When you do that, it's funnier. And when you do that, you really do hit the emotional beats. I do it the same way as I do a drama. I just play it for truth, and then maybe have a little bit of fun with it sometimes. — Jennifer Lopez

I'm never going to say, 'Well, I'm never going to do comedy again.' I love comedies, and it's what people know me for, so I love doing it ... I don't really think about it in terms of 'Well, I should do this because it's comedy or drama.' — Bill Hader

My tutors at drama school commended and criticised my use of comedy in my acting for a long time at drama school. They said I had a tendency to somehow perform the most tragic of scenes in a slightly flippant way. — John Bradley-West

Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more. — Jeannette Walls

Rev Run is a living legend of Hip-Hop, who's still making great music, but now he's also the dad to an amazing family, ... This series takes us inside his world. It's a kind of a reality 'Father Knows Best' with comedy, heart, Hip-Hop and drama-all under one roof at Run's House. — Tony DiSanto

I think for any artist, your voice is always evolving. For me, the constant is finding a tension or balance between drama and comedy. — Lisa Cholodenko

The secret to comedy is not playing the comedy, but actually playing the situation, playing the drama of it. — Nathan Fillion

I think with drama, at least for me, my process, there's a lot of thought. I do a lot of back story. I listen to a lot of music. I'm very committed to a process when it comes to drama, but with comedy, I think it's really about letting loose. — Jamie-Lynn Sigler

Ever since the romantic comedy-drama 'She's Gotta Have It' antagonized black women and black men in 1986, Spike Lee's films have enjoyed the outrage of various groups. — Lee Siegel

Comedy's my first love. I love that so much. You play comedy in drama, too. The difference between genres doesn't really change the method of acting. — Emma Stone

The best thing about serial drama - especially about screwball comedy - is blocked love. — Alison Pill

With comedy, you have to do it right. In a drama, there's a lot of different ways to succeed in a moment. But comedy comes from reality. You can't try to be funny. — Jack Nicholson

Comedy has always been more challenging for me than drama. — Kelli Berglund

Outside of 'Justified,' I do like to keep it to comedy. When I'm not there, I try to seek out stuff that sort of more along the lighter fare. I have more fun on those sets than I do on drama sets just because when it's heavy, it's heavy, and it's hard to get away from it. — Natalie Zea

When you do a drama, you are challenged to trust your inner voice much more. Because when you put a comedy in front of even a 25-person screening, you know whether it's working or not. The barometer is overt. — Shawn Levy

I really like people who can do both drama and comedy and not some like middle of the road do both drama and comedy. I'm not talking about some guy who does these bland dramedies all the time. I'm talking about people that have done heavy drama and who have done heavy comedy. — James Gunn

Doing drama is a very welcome departure from comedy. Although I love doing both, I like to change it up a bit once in a while with roles in serious drama. — Paul Butcher

I want to do more drama. Comedy is the path of least resistance for my company. People know we can do them. People know they get a good response. People want to make them. Who am I to push up against that? — Ice Cube

I've done a lot of drama, and comedy was the one genre I was not being offered. So I became obsessive about getting one. — Rachel Weisz

Drama is more focused and it reveals itself to you, whereas comedy is just right there, when you first read it. — Bob Odenkirk

As a woman Penelope Cruz has changed as she has become an adult. But, as an actress she has not changed that much. She has something great, especially in comedy, and she hasn't been exploited as much as she could be in comedy, but particularly in that mix between comedy and drama. She's got a very special quality about her. You can place her in very extreme situations, especially very painful situations, in terms of how her character interprets it. And sometimes, the deeper and more human that pain is, the better she is at it. — Pedro Almodovar

Drama is played at the pace of chess ... or billiards ... or poker. Engrossing? Sure. But comedy is played at the jubilant, high-octane speed of sports like basketball or hockey. — Mark Waters

Get up every day and consider the stage you're on. Only you can decide whether it will be a tragedy, a comedy or a drama. — Maryln Schwartz

I kind of viewed '50/ 50' and 'Warm Bodies' both as my next films after 'The Wackness.' In my head, I was just like, 'I'll try the big, fun, adventure-weird movie, and I'll do the small, heartfelt comedy-drama, and one of them will probably work out, and I'll get to work more.' — Jonathan Levine

It's usually very, very hard for me to pick up a script that was written and try and see myself as a part of that, especially when you're used to performing all your own material. It's OK with drama, I like being handed great material but I think with comedy it's far more personal and probably a lot harder for me to find a fit. — Eric Bana

Looking outward to the blackness of space, sprinkled with the glory of a universe of lights, I saw majesty-but no welcome. Below was a welcoming planet. There, contained in the thin, moving, incredibly fragile shell of the biosphere is everything that is dear to you, all the human drama and comedy. That's where life is; that's were all the good stuff is. — Loren Acton

I think it's harder to go from comedy to drama than from drama to comedy. Seeing you dramatic all the time, they crave to see you being silly or funny. But, seeing you in comedy all the time, it's hard to see that person go be serious, for some reason. — Evan Peters

'Dating Game' wasn't social commentary, political analysis, Shakespearean-level drama or even blunt-force comedy. It was just the televised equivalent of meeting someone at a bar. But it appealed to our most basic Darwinian instinct: selecting a good mate. You can't go wrong when a show's premise is hard-wired into human DNA. — Seth Shostak

Doing drama is, in a sense, easier. In doing comedy, if you don't get that laugh, there's something wrong. — Betty White

Whatever you do, whether you're doing a television drama or a romantic comedy, you want to be relevant, to some degree. — John Ridley

People feel that drama is more important. Dramas always earn more honors than comedy. — Letty Aronson

I like a certain style of show, I like a certain pace, I like a rhythm, I like a lot of comedy in with my drama. — Amy Sherman-Palladino

I never like to be the same, whether it be comedy or drama, funny or serious. — Faith Prince

I would like to work in both comedy and drama. — Daniela Bobadilla

Honestly, one-hour drama is the hardest format there is. I think it's harder than movies, and it's harder than half-hour comedy. — Alexis Denisof

I am so happy because I want more people to like martial arts movie not just martial arts audience. Even martial arts can be used in comedy, in drama, in horror movies, in different kinds of movies. — Jet Li

I'm grateful to be working. The most exciting thing for me is that I never get bored - I've done comedy, drama, musical theatre and now Shakespeare. — Sheridan Smith

Tragedy turns into comedy when you watch your own drama and realizing it as a mind-created fiction designed to create you a sense of identity. — Eckhart Tolle

I never wanted to do just comedy or just drama; sometimes, going back and forth you can get yourself in trouble which happened to me on other things so you're always trying for a delicate balance - I also think that they compliment each other so well. — Mike Binder

It's a very important skill set for an actor to be able to bring the humor into any moment, whether you're doing drama or comedy. — Nathaniel Buzolic

It's the same kind of preparation you do for something like this you do for anything. It doesn't matter if it's a drama or a comedy, the need to get the emotion and the character arc across is way harder in something like this so was more of a preparation. — Jessica Biel

I think great humor lies in playing the truth of a situation. I see myself as a performer and that applies to a Greek drama or a modern comedy. — Brendan Coyle

I'll always come back to comedy. Doing drama can feel satisfying, but day to day, it's just not as fun as laughing. — Reid Scott

The real challenge in acting is in comedy. It's easier to get that gasp in a drama. Not easy, because you still have to find that emotional pitch. And when you do something in drama and you hear that sob from the audience it's so fulfilling. But as a comic actor, when the laugh is supposed to come and you punch in that line and nothing happens it is dreadful. It's horrific and you feel like dying right there. — George Takei

Having written both comedy and drama, comedy's harder because the fear of failure's so much stronger. When you write a scene and you see it cut together, and it doesn't make you laugh, it hurts in a way that failed drama doesn't. Failed drama, it's all, 'That's not that compelling,' but failed comedy just lays there. — Rob Thomas

Good drama, challenging drama - and comedy for that matter - has a place in the daytime schedule. — Sanjeev Bhaskar

The best comedy, I feel, comes in a drama because it balances each other out. — Ray Romano

Knowing about comedy has helped me with the drama. To see people laugh, it's like there are moments of catharsis in the middle of sadness. — Steve Coogan

There's so much I want to do. I love emotions, I love drama, I love comedy and I also want to take action up to another level, I love comics. — Gina Carano

In comedy, you have to do all of the same stuff you do in drama and then put the comedy on top of it. You, the actor, are aware of the comedy but the character is oblivious. And you have to have a sense of humor. — Jon Lovitz

Barbara Stanwyck, in particular, was peerless in everything from high and low comedy to drama to musicals to film noir. She never took a false step. — Eve Golden

There's a film I did called 'Front of the Class', about a teacher who had Tourette's. That was a beautiful blend of drama and comedy. There's some great moments of levity in the script. — James Wolk

The goal with me, and the way I challenge myself as an actor, is to go from genre to genre. I like that. A lot of actors always challenge themselves. But for me the challenge lies not only in getting better, but going from drama to comedy to action or whatever the case may be, and having a wide array of movies in terms of my filmography. — Dwayne Johnson

In romantic comedies there's a certain ceiling and a floor that you can't necessarily love as hard, or hate as hard, or have as much pain, because you sink the shop of the romantic comedy. But in a certain drama, like some of the ones I've been doing, the ceiling and the floor was my own. And in many ways, that was a higher ceiling and a lower floor, so that was more of a band-with for those emotions. — Matthew McConaughey

I love doing comedy and I love watching comedy ... I'm more inclined to go watch a Seth Rogen film than a serious Oscar drama. — Phoebe Tonkin

I always found that drama, really good drama, has a lot of comedy in it. — Ed O'Neill

Fake is not a word I like to use because there's nothing fake about what I do. It's a show, it's a predetermined outcome; we're putting on a television drama, action, comedy, whatever you want to call it - but it's not fake. Fake would be if I was just about to take a body slam, and my stuntman did it. Fake would be if I was going to take a chair shot to the head, and the chair was made of rubber. I'll tell the world that it's a show, but I hate the word fake. It's such an unfair term to us. — Chris Jericho

I love doing comedy, and I don't get a chance to much. I get to play lots of serious people, and killers, and people with a lot of ... sheriffs. Good people and bad people, but lots of drama, and to get a chance to be genuinely silly is a great treat for me. — William Sadler

One thing I'm a big fan of is the theater of the absurd. That's what I come from, that's what I love to do more than anything. What I love about absurdity is the words "comedy" and "drama" get thrown out the window and it's just life, which is absurd. — Michael Shannon

Comedy and drama are less ageist media for women than stuff like light entertainment. But in TV or film, women have to be more pleasing on the eye than men. — Sharon Horgan

I'm really interested in mythology and folklore. I'm interested in moralities, why we're here, faith ... all of these bigger questions that I think we can place in films that allow us to question and give us a safe place to feel. Those types of questions can pop up in all sorts of different types of films - drama, comedy, action movie. — Brie Larson

Unless you're Jack Lemmon or Cary Grant, there are few guys who can do comedy and drama. — Steve Guttenberg

I acted in high school and studied at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford for one summer. I minored in theater, and I was always acting growing up, but really, I was just more interested in the comedy of it all. — T. J. Miller

People think drama drives story, but I think the comedy is really the heart and soul. — Richard Linklater

When you do a good comedy show, you have to understand that if you don't have drama or sad moments, then the comedy turns into a clowning kind of situation. — Jaime Camil

It's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is. — Jack Lemmon

I have never understood people dividing things into dramas and comedies, — Mike Nichols

There's no such thing as an uninteresting life, such a thing is an impossibility. Beneath the dullest exterior, there is a drama, a comedy, a tragedy. — Mark Twain

Kathy Burke has been a real inspiration. I think she's brilliant. I like the fact she doesn't care what she looks like on TV and just gets really into character. Obviously, she can do drama as well, but it's her comedy I love. — Sheridan Smith

Comedy does offer an avenue to television and film careers for untelegenic people that great drama does not. — John Hodgman

I grew up in repertory theaters, so it was comedy one night, drama the next. I'm used to going from one to the other. And I worked for years in television as well. So, I like the interrelationship of it and having a good relationship with a group of artists creating something really where the sum is greater than all of our individual contributions, our parts. — Howard Shore

Comedy has to do with holding and releasing tension; it's very technical. It's more technical than drama. — John Michael Higgins

I look for characters that are fun and that I'm going to have fun playing. By the way, that's whether it's drama, sci-fi, action, comedy, family movies or action-comedy. I just always want to have fun doing it. That's the bottom line. — Dwayne Johnson

Then we went skinny dippin' and did things that frighten the fish ...
Character, Shelby Eatonton, from the movie, Steel Magnolias. — Robert Harling

(on making the transition from the comedy "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970) to its dramatic spin-off series "Lou Grant" (1977) We were really worried about changing over from a three-camera half-hour comedy to a one-camera full-hour drama. The audience wasn't ready for the switch - even CBS billed us in their promos as a comedy. In fact, the whole thing was impossible. But we didn't know that. — Ed Asner

Germans try to categorize films: in a comedy, you just laugh and in a drama, you're not allowed to laugh. I don't believe in that, sometimes we laugh and cry in the same hour. — Fatih Akin

Life is replete with comedy, drama, horror, suspense, tragedy, romance, mystery, fantasy and a good dose of fiction. While at times the plot may seem to be lacking, the special effects alone are well worth the price of admission. — Derek R. Audette

I always have considered Michael Keaton to be a phenomenal actor because he navigates drama and comedy. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

With drama, you know if you're having a true moment, but in comedy, if somebody doesn't laugh, then you know you're not being funny. That's a really fun challenge, and that's what draws me to comedy. — Brooke Nevin