Vegas means comedy tragedy happiness and sadness all at the same time.
You must realize that honorary degrees are given generally to people whose SAT scores were too low to get them into schools the regular way. As a matter of fact it was my SAT scores that led me into my present vocation in life comedy.
Sometimes I make very selfish choices like I did 'Once Upon A Time' for my inner 8-year-old and my hypothetical future child. I've done some movies because I would regret them if I didn't but other projects I've done because they've scared me or if I felt I needed to do a big romantic comedy to help me professionally.
Comedy was the key to everything. I grew up fast and controlled my future by bringing it on faster than it naturally unfolded. I cheated myself out of a childhood but then got a running headstart into adulthood that no one else could keep up with.
People are funny and in the most tragic situations when comedy erupts from nowhere it can turn on its head within the space of a second or a minute. You're laughing one minute and you're crying the next and that's just life for me and that is what people are like.
The prospects for a coherent hilarious and consistent American comedy seem to lessen every year as the poor waterlogged gassy corpse called 'Evan Almighty' proved when it floated ashore recently. So there's a temptation to think too highly of Robin Williams's uneven but occasionally funny 'License to Wed.'
You know if I started worrying about what the critics think I'd never make another comedy. You couldn't pick a less funny group than critics - you couldn't find a more bitter group of people!
Comedy is so subjective. You could be in a room with 400 people laughing at a joke and you could just not think it's funny. You're just sitting there like 'Am I in the twilight zone? Why is everyone laughing?' It's such a personal thing. People have such a personal visceral response to comedy.
In my experience it's not just that serious books get a hearing on comedy shows. But serious books get a serious hearing as well as a funny one on comedy shows.
And regardless of the fact that in this country certainly in the arts we treat comedy as a second-class citizen I've never thought of it that way. I've always thought it to be important. The last time I looked the Greeks were holding up two masks. I've always thought of it not only as having equal value but as the craft of it being funny.