Film and Television Acting, 2nd Edition

 

7

Comedy

 

 

 

The Big Difference

There is a forgiveness factor in drama that allows it to partially fail yet have a certain measure of success. People can be specific about which scenes they liked or disliked without having the whole event ruined for them.

Not so with comedy. It’s a ten or zero. If you don’t get laughs, you don’t have a comedy. My definition of acting hell is to be performing in a play billed as a comedy, not get any laughs, and know there is another hour of play to go.

Let’s look at a successful comedy. In theater, the reaction is immediate. The actor plays off the audience reactions. A good comic actor learns from each performance and enhances the part, finding laughs where there were none before.

An actor in film has no ...