Stephen Merchant Quotes

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Stephen Merchant

Profession : Writer

Birth : November 24, 1974

Things don't get better when you become well known or go on TV. I'm just being rejected by a better class of women.

Stephen Merchant

Once I began doing stand-up, I didn't get a kick out of the applause or being the centre of attention - but I did get a kick out of the jigsaw puzzle aspect of it, searching for the right bit, adding another few pieces each night until the bigger picture appears. That's the appeal: the challenge of it.

Stephen Merchant

I just always remember there being an ability to amuse schoolmates. Not in a kind of 'dance-around-at-the-front-of-the-room-with-his-trousers-off' way, but probably with a sardonic quip. I remember getting a school report that said something like, 'Steve's good, but he tries to see the funny side in everything.'

Stephen Merchant

I guess as you get older you sort of see the mechanics, even with the best comedians. There's admiration for people I admire, but it's not guttural laughter. It's a wry 'Oh, well done, sir.' But I sort of miss that slightly; I miss the raw joy of comedy I used to get.

Stephen Merchant

I suffered when I was in my late twenties and early thirties. I was awkward, I stuck out, I was nerdy.

Stephen Merchant

You hear some people saying, 'I'm alive on stage; it's where I feel most complete...' I don't understand that at all; I find that weird and depressing. I don't dislike the audience; it's just when I'm up there, they're in the darkness. There's just a sound of laughing or not. They're not 'people,' they're this big organism.

Stephen Merchant

I was trying for years to woo people through humour, but it seems flash cars are much easier.

Stephen Merchant

I very rarely laugh. I remember I used to have a joy at comedy. I remember going to see Sean Lock for the first time live, just in some comedy club when I was 18, and again, just guttural, pure laughter. I didn't know what he was doing; I couldn't see the tricks.

Stephen Merchant

When I was a teenager, I met a comedian who I admired, and he was very rude to me. That's why when people come up to me I try not to be rude. I don't want to name who he is, but it really put me off watching his stuff since.

Stephen Merchant

A lot of my comic influences are distinctly American: Woody Allen and Bob Hope, for example. They were always the underdogs who were using wit to sort of battle their way through. And it seems to me that a lot of contemporary U.S. comedies are shot through with losers. None of the characters in 'The Big Bang Theory,' for instance, are studs.

Stephen Merchant

Maybe there's a sort of veneer of optimism about U.S. comedy, whereas perhaps in England, we don't mind ending it on a sourer note.

Stephen Merchant

I know that this sounds grand, but I don't try to compete with other people. I like to think there's enough pie for everyone. The kind of people I'm competing with are my heroes - Woody Allen, Billy Wilder - who I know I'm going to fall short of.

Stephen Merchant

I've always been a fan of physical comedy. It kind of hits you in a different way; it bypasses the intellect and hits you in the gut.

Stephen Merchant

It never really occurs to me that I'm doing cringe comedy. It's something that people tell me afterwards, and I say, 'Again? Really? I never set out with that intention.'

Stephen Merchant

There's this way pop culture has been rammed down our throats that people think that if they were just in the right place at the right time, they'd be married to Heidi Klum.

Stephen Merchant

People think all fame is the same, but being on BBC Two from time to time does not make you Warren Beatty. I honestly can't impress that upon people enough.

Stephen Merchant