Physical Comedy Quotes & Sayings

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. — Chevy Chase

By watching the great, old comedians I picked up a few tricks about how to do physical comedy. And whenever I could learn something, I sort of added that to my repertoire. — John Cleese

After doing comedy for a while and knowing how hard it is to do physical comedy right, I learned how incredibly talented the Three Stooges really were after re-watching old episodes. They still stand up! — Carly Craig

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

I always like the physical comedy because I actually do a lot of it in my own life, but not on purpose. I am the klutziest person on the planet. It's easy for me. — Paula Patton

When I first started doing comedy years ago, I used to be the biggest Michael Richards fan. I used to love this dude. He was on a TV show called 'Fridays,' and man, he was tall and lanky - and I was tall and lanky. I love physical comedy, and he was a physical comedian, and I said, 'Man, I love this guy.' — J. B. Smoove

When you're doing physical comedy, everybody's involved, not just the actors. Everybody's behind the scenes following them, and we've got Jillian the cinematographer running after them, then we've got three guys behind her who are cable-wranglers running with her so she doesn't trip on it. Every day was a mad-dash to the finish line. Every day was so stressful. Every day was so fun. — J. Robert Spencer

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. — Demetri Martin

I talked about everything, man. I've always written material that everyone can laugh at. I talked about growing up. I did a lot of physical comedy. That was my thing. I was a physical comedian. I did anything and everything from running on a treadmill, I can paint a picture on stage of anything. — J. B. Smoove

I never was shy, but as far as telling jokes, I'm the worst. I like physical comedy; it's where I feel comfortable. — Malin Akerman

Molly Shannon, for example, is someone I've always really looked up to, because her comedy is so physical and wild and unembarrassed and brave. — Casey Wilson

Because of my comedic-influence growing up, Mel Brooks, Jim Carrey, Steve Martin. A lot of Jeff comedic-influences included Charlie Chaplin and physical comedians of the silent-era. What we were able to do together is to show all these major influences but make it into our own comedy. We've seen the stereotypical boy-meets-girl story a hundred thousand times. — J. Robert Spencer

I love physical kinds of comedy and getting down and dirty and doing stunts. When I was growing up, I was always getting into fights with guys and usually punching out boys my age because I was a lot bigger and tougher. So I'm naturally accustomed to putting myself into the headspace of a girl who can take care of herself. — Cameron Diaz

I think physical comedy is an amazing asset because it tells a story that's more universal than just language and dialogue. I grew up watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. They're very powerful figures in my life. — Josh Gad

The nude thing, I don't know. It's sillier somehow. It's more like physical comedy. But kissing someone, it feels invasive to have everybody watching me. — Ilana Glazer

it's that particular connection between melancholy and humor that Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl examined in Saturn and Melancholy (1964). Just as melancholy is sadness made light, so humor is comedy that has lost its physical weight (that dimension of human carnality that, however, makes Boccaccio and Rabelais great) and casts doubts on the self, the world, and the entire network of relations they form. — Italo Calvino

The only way physical comedy works is if you don't see it coming. And the harder the fall, the funnier it is. You have to really take some shots, and I've walked away with some bumps and bruises. — Chris Pratt

'Jackass: The Movie' is great. I think it's in the tradition of physical comedy, which I'm really interested in. Its relationship to gravity, and how gravity acts on the body. — Matthew Barney

I get to do physical comedy! When do women get to do physical comedy? Very rarely. — Michaela Watkins

There's always been physical suffering in comedy. — Don Martin

The great thing about doing physical comedy for film is that if it doesn't work you're not exposed. It ends up on the editing room floor, so it gives you a lot more room to experiment I guess. But I really enjoy doing it. I'm very comfortable tapping into my inner idiot. — Isla Fisher

George Lopez has to get a physical comedy checkup every year to make sure his bulging eyes don't get out of control ... Good news George ... you are humor free! There's no sign of comedy anywhere in your blood stream. — Andy Kindler

My idol growing up was Charlie Chaplin. I was obsessed with him. I mean, while other kids were watching Jim Carrey and the likes in the '90s, I was watching Charlie Chaplin films, because I was a bit of a geek. I became obsessed with this idea of physical comedy. — Josh Gad

I love physical comedy. I love Oscar Wilde, I love Shakespeare comedies, I love improv. — Elizabeth Banks

I love broad comedy. It has its place. If I were to do that, I'd love to do physical comedy. — Rashida Jones

The key is just to ignore the pain, because physical comedy only works if you see someone get hurt and they aren't actually hurt. If someone gets hit in the face with a bat, falls down, and gets back up, it's funny. If they stay down and their jaw is wired shut in the next scene, it's really tragic and weird. You have to pretend it doesn't hurt. — Chris Pratt

I'm looking for laughs, you know? If it take me to flip over a table, if I have to go physical comedy, I will do it. But whatever the joke needs at that particular time, is where I'm dedicated to. I'm not into beating somebody down and beating myself up. I don't do insults and things like that. I don't do it - I'm a storyteller. — Bernie Mac

Carol Burnett probably had the biggest influence on me as kid. Although I was very young and watched her a lot in reruns, I was mesmerized by the way she transformed, by her physical comedy and the rolling laughter from the live studio audience. I loved her most as Scarlett O'Hara and her well known Cleaning Lady character. — Christine Lakin

I'm not the guy with the enormous comedy nose or the big feet or the bad posture or the whatever; a physical comic has certain things. — Dick Cavett

Acting by yourself is pretty darn hard, especially having to do physical comedy. — Gillian Jacobs

I wrote three years for Lucille Ball. She taught me everything I know about physical comedy. — Garry Marshall

I'm a really gifted physical comedienne. I write and produce a lot of sketch comedy. — Jenn Lyon

As a dancer, I was always the physical comedy girl. I love it so much. — Anne Fletcher

In the purifying sweep of atheism human beings lost all special value. The numb misery of the horse was matched by that of the farmer; the once-green ferny lives crushed into coal's fossiliferous strata were no more anonymous and obliterated than Clarence's own life would soon be, in a wink of earth's tremendous time. Without Biblical blessing the physical universe became sherry horrible and disgusting. All fleshy acts became vile, rather than merely some. The reality of men slaying lambs and cattle, fish and fowl to sustain their own bodies took on an aspect of grisly comedy
the blood-soaked selfishness of a cosmic mayhem. — John Updike

It's a great counter to doing the soap because it's a comedy. It's real physical comedy. — Corbin Bernsen

I like physical comedy. And I like the old comedies. — Patrick Dempsey

It's pretty easy in theatre. The comedy's either physical or verbal, and you're looking at the whole frame at once. But TV executives want close-ups. I keep telling them to look at Preston Sturges' movies. He'll do a whole scene without a cut in it, and it's a riot. — Don Scardino

I believe in physical comedy, because that reaches out most to people. — Norman Wisdom

Life is moral responsibility. Life is several other things, we do not deny. It is beauty, it is joy, it is tragedy, it is comedy, it is psychical and physical pleasure, it is the interplay of a thousand rude or delicate motions and emotions, it is the grimmest and the merriest motley of phantasmagoria that could appeal to the gravest or the maddest brush ever put to palette; but it is steadily and sturdily and always moral responsibility. — Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

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. — Stephen Merchant

I love physical comedy. I adore comedy of any kind. — Marcia Gay Harden

I loved Peter Sellers. I thought he was the perfect mix of physical comedy with out-of-the-box humor. I loved his tone; I loved his physicality; I loved everything about what he was doing as a comedic actor. — J. B. Smoove

I have to say I enjoy physical comedy and I've always loved to kind of take risks. I don't like worrying too much about how I look or how I come across, so that can sometimes ... You know, I like to play those kinds of deluded but fun characters. — Amy Poehler

I have a side of me that doesn't care. I really enjoy physical comedy, thinking of an idea and pitching it to the director. — Isla Fisher

A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered. — David Hume

The physical part of comedy is as hard as a lot of action movies. It scares me, but in a way that I like. — Rachel McAdams

I've got a lot of nervous energy and I trip a lot. I don't have a good equilibrium. In the places where the physical comedy was necessary, it came very naturally and it was fun. — Kristen Bell

Did the Ancient Greeks ever write anything funny - like slapstick? I mean, I think I speak for everyone when I say that there's nothing wrong with a little bit of well-written physical comedy. — Elle Lothlorien

Mindful of this hesitation, Desiree persisted in her physical seduction by pulling her shoulders back - thereby extending her breasts, tilting her head, raising her right eyebrow, and smiling. She blew him a kiss. Who could resist that? — Jack Shaw

I like doing the comedic episodes because it's refreshing. I enjoy doing comedic things and physical comedy. It's fun. — Emily Deschanel

I don't have a lot of physical comedy instincts. I'm more verbal. — Reese Witherspoon