I wouldn't totally rule out doing Letterman or the Tonight Show if I had a set that I just happened to write that I thought was funny but was still appropriate for network censors. But I'm not going to go out of my way.
I had seen movies before that that had made me laugh, but I had never seen anything even remotely close to as funny as Richard Pryor was, just standing there talking.
The misconception is that standup comics are always on. I don't know any really funny comics that are annoying and constantly trying to be funny all the time.
The most important thing is to write material that YOU think is funny. If you don't think it's funny, but you're convinced that other people will think it is, well they won't.
When it comes to war, we focus more on the mainstream coverage of the event, rather than the event itself. People dying is never funny. Protest puppets are always funny.
Since she got a cause and stopped being funny. I think she's real funny, but lately it's all been hearts and flowers and tears and saving teenagers and creating a role model. And that ain't funny. No giggles there.
A good actor is someone who knows how to take the part and make it real and make it honest and be effective in it. If it's in a funny movie and, as long as they are cast in an appropriate way, humor will come from it.
Movies either work or they don't work and they're either funny or they're not and we work very hard. To achieve that kind of work is really kind of delicate stitching.