I've always found it easier to be funny than to be serious.

People say funny things all the time during really serious moments in life.

It's so funny because right now I'm very tired and my brains a little dead I tend to get very focused and serious. So I'm probably coming off a lot more like Scully right now.

'Funny People' is my favorite performance of myself to date. Even though it's a comedy and there are serious moments I really felt like Leo felt like a real person. It didn't feel like I was playing myself. Whether it's a comedy or drama I just try to make it as realistic as possible.

Working with Chaplin was very amusing and strange. His films are so funny but working with him I found him to be a very serious man. Whereas the films of Hitchcock are macabre he could be a very funny man to work with always telling jokes and holding court. Of course when I worked with Charlie he was getting older.

People never ask people doing serious music 'Do you ever think about doing funny music?'

Being a funny person does an awful lot of things to you. You feel that you mustn't get serious with people. They don't expect it from you and they don't want to see it. You're not entitled to be serious you're a clown.

I think things are funny when the character is taking it totally seriously.

Laurence Olivier said in an interview once that when he plays a tragedy he always aims for the funny parts and the other way around. Because in a comedy you look for what's serious. I think that's true. Sometimes things are really funny if you're absolutely earnest. If you're really serious it's hilarious.

Great big serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great big serious novel and a funny novel the funny novel is doomed.