I think if any young writer or someone who wants to become a writer or a performer is
listing then what I would say is it is so difficult at the beginning, particularly as
a writer, to do good written comedy that I suggest at the start that you steal or borrow
or as the artist would say are influenced by anything that you think that is really
good and really funny which appeals to you. And if you study that and try to reproduce
it in someway then it will have your own stamp on it, but you have a chance of getting off
the ground with something like that. But if you sit down one day never having written
before with a pencil or a computer, but I write with a pencil, and you say I'm going
to write something completely new and original and very funny, you can't do it. It's like
trying to fly a plane without having any lessons. You've got to start somewhere and the best
way to start is by copying something that is really good.
But people seem to think I was advocating stealing in general. No. Once you've got off
the ground you develop your own style; you don't need to steal. Better if you don't.
But at the beginning, as I say find something. And a wonderful lesson my friend William Goldman
a wonderful screenwriter and I both teach the same thing we discovered independently
and that is we say to someone find an actor or a scene that you absolutely love and just
watch that actor in a movie say or watch that scene again and again and again so that it
no longer has an emotional impact on you; you know longer find it dramatic or funny
you just watch it. And in a sense emotionally speaking you're bored with it. At that the
point when you're not affected emotionally anymore you can begin to see how it's done
and how it's constructed. So that's the advice I would give at the beginning: model yourself
on someone you really like.