Chris Lilley Quotes

I don't just want to upset people and shock people by saying something really outrageous.

I went to a private boys' school, and we had girls in the last two years.

I'll probably be still playing a school girl when I'm 60.

I feel like I'm so normal. So normal it's boring.

Religious humor is not really my area, so I probably wouldn't do anything about that, or politics or something.

I'm not really a management-type person. It doesn't suit my personality to be bossing people around.

In Australia, I'm built up as this comedy hero, which was never my intention.

It takes me ages to write stuff.

It's pretty awful being told you're a racist.

I think sometimes people become quite emotional about the characters as well, and that's pretty cool that you can get that emotion out of people. And I think that's more my motivation than like, "Hey I want to be the funny guy, I want to be that famous funny guy." That doesn't sit as well with me as the idea of taking people on this ride and taking them into the illusion of the characters. That's much more exciting for me.

I like playing all sorts of ages and genders.

I like the boundaries, the kinds of conventions of a documentary and having to work within that.

I met Kim Kardashian in a nightclub once, and she was really nice. Kanye West was with her, but he didn't speak. He just looked at me.

I think surprises make TV entertaining.

I think after doing a few shows now, people are ready to put me down.

I really like Jeff Lewis and 'Flipping Out' and 'Interior Therapy.' I don't know why I'm obsessed with American real estate and renovation.

People were making fun of redheads before I came along.

Mostly, what I watch are reality shows and documentaries.

Like, Australians definitely don't walk around dressed up in blackface going "Ha-ha."

Playing girls is cool, but its a lot more fun playing boys.

When I wrote 'We Can Be Heroes,' I was just so excited about the concept of playing loads of characters, and a television series allows you to do that.

When I was in school, I was always writing scripts and dressing up as characters. I'd constantly be that guy who'd get up on stage. I used to write imaginary TV shows, like soap operas, for fun.

I was terrible student. I was capable, but I never like being told what to do, so I was always in the bottom class at school. In Australia, a lot of students study to the end of year 10, but don't go on to the final year, and I was asked to leave the school because they just thought I wasn't performing well enough. I used to sneak off to play piano, and defy the rules of the school.

Once I got into high school, any time I had to do a talk or a speech, I just loved being up in front of an audience, it was always a character. And then I discovered that an impersonation of the teacher was a really, really good way to get a laugh, and it would also get you good marks, because the teachers were always bored and loved to be the "teacher-parody." So that became my little trick at school, and I became known for doing that.

I guess my performance at school was doing school musicals, so I was a knight as well at the back of the stage in Camelot. It was all those kind of things. It wasn't the stuff that I wanted to do. The real funny character stuff came out when I was in control of it myself and writing it myself.

I think it just really excites me, the idea of delving so far into a character that people actually believe it's real, and I start to believe it's real. It's a strange thing to say, but it's the thrill of getting all the details right and being so absorbed in the character that people go along with the illusion.

People are always nice; I never get anything mean said to me on the street.

People think that I'm some kind of genius who's got these statements to say, and I'm not really.

I think my parents had a hard time dealing with me.

I never like to think of any character as being over. I'm always thinking of different ways of bringing them back.

I'm definitely attracted to the idea of people that have these big aspirations that the audience know might never happen, but they're lost in them.

I would love to play a British character one day. My accent wavers between Scottish and Irish very easily, though.

I'm not a big fan of 'Jersey Shore' and those kinds of shows where people are really playing up to the cameras.

If you over-think, it affects things too much; I work instinctively, like painting in a way. Think too much, and you ruin everything.

I started doing comedy just as myself, because I thought, "This is what's expected, you're meant to tell stories and do observations." And then I started to realize that I wanted to mix it up a bit, so I started to doing songs, and I had a little keyboard onstage and would bring in little props. Then I thought about the idea of talking about a character and becoming the character onstage. So, it sort of morphed into being stand-up that was more character based, and I found that's the stuff I got the better reaction from and was more exciting for me.

I've done signings where elderly people will line up to get photos with me and ask me to sign things. They don't even pretend it's for their grandkids. They're like, "No, it's for me."

I get bored with the constant probing for the cliched tears of the clown, the dark side of the comic.

I was sure 'Summer Heights High' would be a cult ABC thing; I had no idea it would be such a big hit.

I didn't do very well academically; I was always in the bottom class.

To be honest, after all the crap that happened with 'Summer Heights High,' I was like, 'I'm not going to write anything controversial or edgy ever again; I just can't handle the blame.'

I just do what I think is funny and what's exciting to me.

I'm pretty lucky. I don't get too many haters.

It's barely OK for me to be dressed up as a black guy. But part of me kind of enjoys provoking people.

You can't get any better than TV on HBO, ABC and BBC3.

Fans feel they know me, so they want me to be on-the-spot funny, and it's hard to fulfil their expectations.

You feel the pressure of going to university because you need a back-up plan, which is why I enrolled.

I've met big-name actors doing Hollywood films, and they've said that all they want is an in at HBO and their own show.

I'm not interested in being one of those comedians who wants to look good and be this 'cool' funny person. I don't care how weird or ugly I look.

I'm interested in youth culture - when your parents are running your life, but you think you're the big man - but I'm not trying to make a statement.

Australia has a thing where apparently it's fine for me to dress up as an Asian woman. No one has questioned that.