True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt its essence is love. It issues not in laughter but in still smiles which lie far deeper.
There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain comedy and tragedy humor and hurt.
Through humor you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter no matter how painful your situation might be you can survive it.
You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything even poverty you can survive it.
I'm Method trained. How is this character like me? What does she think of her mother? What does her mother think of her? It's like construction and then yes you hope you're talented and that the universe aligns and captures the kind of laborer's work you've done and whatever else sprinkles down on you and it's all caught on film or onstage.
You learn timing on the road. You learn structure and how to read an audience. You learn so much about the business of laughter that you can't learn on a set because it's all on you. Sometimes you bomb and you know not to tell that joke again... You just hope people find the humor in the awkwardness.
One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it.
I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you and that you will work them water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom till you yourself burst into bloom.
When I think about the world I would like to leave to my daughter and the grandchildren I hope to have it is a world that moves away from unequal unstable unsustainable interdependence to integrated communities - locally nationally and globally - that share the characteristics of all successful communities.
What greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the hope of raising a great son or daughter?