Many comedians have a dark side that lets them take a negative thing and turn it funny.

If you imagine yourself to be someone who is very uncomfortable in their own skin, then it does funny things to your voice.

I never did standup before. It just looked like it was really hard, looked like there was like up days and down days - and I'm too emotionally unstable for that. I need to always be funny and always be loved.

My husband was very special and very funny and outspoken, and he would have a black and blue every so often because under the table, I'd say, 'Don't say that!'

Things can be funny when people are uneasy. It softens them up and stops them falling asleep on the sofa. I like those moments where people half-smile and half-wince.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson is probably one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life. Everything the kid does is funny. I think he tunes his life to being funny.

I didn't understand key signatures or anything, you know. I'd say silly things at the top of a trumpet part like, 'Note, when you play B naturals, make the B naturals a half step lower because they sound funny if they're B naturals.' And some guy said: 'Idiot, just put a flat on the third line and it's a key signature, you know?'

Thing is, I'm a funny actor, but I'm not good at being funny. I'm going to ramble for a second: I'm an actor who can make things funny in the moment, like in stakes or in circumstances or out of character.

Biggest influence is my parents. It's funny but my mom was the first one that allowed me to play tackle football. My dad was not ready to let me play yet. She definitely was the one who allowed me to do it. Obviously my dad taught me to throw and be a quarterback.

You want to be able to really tackle a character and make it a fully-dimensional human being who is complicated, funny, and all the things that a person could be. If you can achieve that, you feel great. You so rarely get to do that as an actress in general, but as a black actress, it's almost never.