Former Co-Stars Who Have A Lot To Say About These Famous Comedians

One might think it's a total blast to hang out with a professional comedian all day. After all, they're among the funniest and most successful merriment makers on the planet at any given time, and when TV and movie producers tap into their talents to make them screen stars, the result is often high-quality comedy. Humor is jovial and positive by nature, and laughing is universally among the most pleasurable aspects of being human. But the comedians who are funny for a living — be they stand-ups, sitcom stars, or the actors who keep sketch shows or big-budget movies together — must all take being silly very seriously. Making a comedic project can be hard work, and it requires dedication to the craft and a lot of labor to elicit laughs. Therefore, those funny people aren't necessarily the characters they play on screen or on stage. Often, they're actually the complete opposite.

Probing the psyche and personality of the world's leading comics is an interesting journey. Few people know them better than other comedians and actors, and the ones who watched them work their magic up close. Here's what a bunch of famous comedians from film and TV are really like, according to the opinions of their co-stars. 

The zany talents of Robin Williams were well suited to the '70s alien sitcom "Mork and Mindy." By the 1990s, Williams had transformed into a full-fledged movie star, adept at comedies like "Mrs. Doubtfire" and dramas like "Good Will Hunting." Williams often had a profound impact on other performers. "Robin was never one of those comedians that was competitive and had to have all the funny lines," Pam Dawber of "Mork and Mindy" told The AV Club. "It was always playtime for him. He's just very generous." 

While shooting "Mrs. Doubtfire" away from home, teen actor Lisa Jakub was expelled from her school, and Williams went to bat for her. "He handed me a letter that he had written to my school," Jakub recalled on her blog. "He wrote embarrassingly kind things about my character and my work, and requested that they reconsider and allow me to return to my classes." Williams was also delightful with his other "Mrs. Doubtfire" daughter, Mara Wilson. "Robin would do anything to make me and the other kids laugh," Wilson wrote on her blog (via ABC News). "He seemed to know instinctively what we would find funny."

In 1998, Williams won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "Good Will Hunting," which was well deserved according to co-star and screenwriter Matt Damon. "I owe everything to him. He said yes to our movie and he got it made," he told Yahoo! News (via Her). "I think that is what I carry with me, the joy he brought in my life."

One of the biggest stars of the 1990s, stand-up comedian-turned-actor Tim Allen once occupied the top of the box office and TV rating charts with "The Santa Clause" and "Home Improvement." In 2022, Allen rebooted "The Santa Clause" with the Disney+ series "The Santa Clauses." Casey Wilson, a "Saturday Night Live" star who actually hated being on the show, appeared as Sara, the adult version of a child visited by Tim Allen's Santa Claus in the original 1994 film.

Almost a year after the show debuted, Wilson appeared on the podcast "B*** Sesh" to discuss her on-set experience. "Tim Allen was such a b****. It was the truly single worst experience I've ever had with a co-star ever," Wilson said (via The Hollywood Reporter), adding that during filming Allen complained to a producer about her line delivery, right in front of her. "He was so f***ing rude. Never made eye contact, never said anything. It was so uncomfortable."

In 2023, "Home Improvement" co-star Pamela Anderson recounted in her memoir "Love, Pamela" of the time when Allen exposed himself to her, apparently because he was familiar with her work in "Playboy." "On the first day of filming, I walked out of my dressing room, and Tim was in the hallway in his robe. He opened his robe and flashed me quickly — completely naked underneath. He said it was only fair, because he had seen me naked. Now we're even. I laughed uncomfortably," Anderson wrote (via Variety).

In the 1980s and early 1990s, TV sitcom producers used the comedy club scene as a farm system for new talent. Many comics wound up with a sitcom loosely based on their act, including Brett Butler, a sharp-tongued, recovering alcoholic single mother from the South. She played a very similar character, Grace Kelly, on "Grace Under Fire," an immediate hit when it debuted on ABC in the fall of 1993. The cast was rounded out with veteran actors to bolster the newbie Butler, including Tony Award winner Julie White as Grace's best friend and neighbor Nadine Swoboda. "Brett was very instrumental in getting me cast in that role, but bless her heart, she was just a wreck," White told the Chicago Tribune. Butler's addiction issues resurfaced in 1996, and "Grace Under Fire" shut down taping so the star could treat an addiction to painkillers. White's experience on set grew so untenable that she was released from her contract shortly before the show was canceled, due to Butler's erratic behavior. "It was a horrible job," White told Backstage.

Dave Thomas, best known for "SCTV" sketch comedy shows, was part of the sitcom, too, as love interest Russell Norton. "It was a tough show to do, because Brett was very unstable," Thomas later told A Site Called Fred. "It was only because I made good money that I stayed."

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

"Seinfeld" is universally regarded as one of the greatest and most innovative sitcoms ever. First airing in 1989 in a TV comedy landscape of sappy family shows, "Seinfeld" took an approach of "no hugging, no learning" to tell the interconnected stories of four nasty, cynical, and self-serving New Yorkers in their struggles against the minutia of daily life. Based somewhat on the observational comedy of co-creator Jerry Seinfeld, "Seinfeld" was often a two-man show, with the fictional Seinfeld finding a comic foil in the nerdy, rageful, and delusional George Costanza, as played for nine seasons by Jason Alexander.

Despite all the Emmy Awards and blockbuster TV ratings, Alexander said that he never established much personal intimacy with his co-stars. "The only one of the core four I really got to know over the nine years was Julia," he said on the "Breaking Bread" podcast (via Cracked), referring to Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Seinfeld, it seemed, was too busy writing and producing the show to forge friendships. "He came down, and we had fun, and we enjoyed each other and it was a lot of laughs," Alexander explained. "But I wasn't a confidant." He added, "So I didn't hang out with Jerry. And as a result, I don't really know him all that well."

Through his work as a stand-up and a series of ribald and underground "party records," Redd Foxx was already a comedy legend by the time he starred on "Sanford and Son" in the 1970s. In 1991, Foxx made his heralded return to sitcoms, headlining CBS's "The Royal Family." Before he joined the tragic list of actors who passed away while filming, after suffering a heart attack on set, Foxx portrayed recent retiree Al Royal, dealing with the annoying presence of his just-divorced daughter who moves back home with her three kids. Singer and actor Della Reese starred opposite Foxx as the comic's wife, Victoria.

Foxx faced large, unpaid tax bills and other serious financial issues in the decades before his death, which is something that Reese — whose close friendship with the comic went back decades — blamed squarely on relentless generosity. "The reason Redd Foxx was broke was if you came and you asked him, and he could see your need, he would run his hand in his pocket and give you something," Reese said (via Historical Wisdom). 

About 40 years earlier, Reese connected with Foxx at a nightclub where he was scheduled to perform a string of dates. When he found out that Reese was unemployed, he pretended to have hurt his back so his friend could perform in his absence. "It wasn't just me. It was people period. He loved people," Reese said. "He wanted to help people. He wanted to do for people."

Bob Odenkirk already had an impressive comedy pedigree when he was hired to play odious talent agent Stevie Grant on "The Larry Sanders Show" in 1993. He'd worked with Chris Farley in the theatrical comedy scene (creating the "Matt Foley, inspirational speaker" character), and wrote for "Saturday Night Live," and acted and appeared on "The Ben Stiller Show," which netted him an Emmy Award. 

Being around Garry Shandling, the leader of "The Larry Sanders Show," made Odenkirk want to improve. The HBO series imagined life behind the scenes of a late-night talk show, and Shandling co-created the show and starred as the titular character. It was the latest in a career of acclaimed work for Shandling, a groundbreaking stand-up comic in the 1970s and actor and co-creator of the meta, fourth-wall-breaking "It's Garry Shandling's Show" in the 1980s.

In March 2016, Shandling died at age 66. "Very sad to say goodbye so abruptly," Odenkirk wrote on X, then known as Twitter. "Garry was a guiding voice of comedy. He set the standard and we're all still trying to meet it. He gave us all opportunities to learn how to do the best work of our lives," Odenkirk said to People. "But, more importantly, as I knew him these last few years, he was a person who never stopped trying to be a better person. That's yet another way he inspired me and I'm sure many others who knew him."

After decades as a stand-up with varying levels of success, Rodney Dangerfield moved into acting in 1980 with "Caddyshack." He led a cast consisting primarily of comedy up-and-comers who had trained in theatre troupes and on "Saturday Night Live," while Dangerfield, who had a hilarious message written on his gravestone after his death in 2004, had only ever been in one movie, and a decade earlier. 

"God bless Rodney," Michael O'Keefe, who played striving caddy Danny Noonan, said in Josh Karp's "A Futile and Stupid Gesture." "But he didn't understand how to make a movie. Harold [Ramis, the director] had to hold his hand through everything." He couldn't get a handle on reciting his lines when Ramis called "action," but instead responded to "do your bit."

Dangerfield nonetheless became a movie star of the 1980s, and he was a seasoned and gracious professional by the time he made the youth soccer comedy "Ladybugs," released in 1992. "What a gentleman he was. How worldly he was in the way in terms of how he could handle me, as a woman. I needed to be treated well for me to feel comfortable in my surroundings, and he made me comfortable," Ladybugs co-star Jackée Harry told reporter Mark Greczmiel at the time. However, during some downtime during filming, he did once force Harry out of her comfort zone. "He made me do some stand-up for two minutes," she recalled.

In the tangled life of Chevy Chase, the comedian was the first original cast member to depart" Saturday Night Live," as he was the show's first breakout star. He returned to host throughout the decades, and before a 1985 appearance, he reportedly sexually harassed openly gay cast member Terry Sweeney and pitched a recurring sketch where the actor would be weighed each week, presuming that he would be wasting away from HIV/AIDS. 

"He was really furious that he had to apologize to me," Sweeney said in "Live from New York: The Complete Uncensored History of 'Saturday Night Live.'" "He acted horribly to me. He acted horribly to everyone." Cast member Tim Meadows likened Chase's return engagement in 1995 to "a car accident," and Will Ferrell called Chase "the worst host" in the show's history (via HuffPost)."

Chase didn't cultivate many friendships on the sitcom "Community." According to showrunner Dan Harmon, Chase routinely interrupted co-star Donald Glover's scenes and made racially volatile comments directed at the Black actor. "I just saw Chevy as fighting time — a true artist has to be OK with his reign being over. I can't help him if he's thrashing in the water. But I know there's a human in there somewhere," Glover told The New Yorker.

In recent years, Bill Murray has become something akin to an urban legend made true and human. The smirking, laid-back comic actor in classics like "Caddyshack," "Stripes," "Tootsie," "Ghostbusters," "Scrooged," and "Kingpin," Murray seemingly floats through life and winds up a welcome party-crasher, generating wild, truthful, but tough-to-believe "Bill Murray stories." But some of those who have actually worked with Murray on making those beloved movies seem to disagree, and don't think he's quite so much of a magical agent of happy chaos.

"He was an Irish drunken bully," Murray's "What About Bob?" co-star Richard Dreyfuss told "Role Recall" (via Far Out). "He put his face next to me, nose to nose. And he screamed at the top of his lungs, 'Everyone hates you! You are tolerated!'" While filming "Charlie's Angels," Murray targeted Lucy Liu with his hostilities. "As we're doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I won't get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on," Liu explained to the Los Angeles Times' "Asian Enough" podcast. "Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it."

Murray was more indirect with his animosity toward Anjelica Huston. "He was a s*** to me on 'Life Aquatic,'" Huston told Vulture. "He invited the entire cast to go and have dinner, except me."

A pillar of the alternative comedy scene of the 1990s and 2000s, Maria Bamford helped pioneer the confessional and not always laugh-out-loud style that explored somewhat difficult topics such as mental health and self-help culture. After her profile increased as part of the "Comedians of Comedy" tours with Patton Oswalt and Zach Galifianakis, acting work on popular comedies like "Arrested Development," as well as cartoons such as "Adventure Time," Bamford co-created and starred in her own brutally self-reflecting and semi-autobiographical sitcom for Netflix, "Lady Dynamite."

Bamford and collaborator Mitchel Hurwitz approached character actor Fred Melamed for the role of Maria's character's dim agent Bruce, as he was their first and only pick; Melamed and Bamford became friends during the filming of the short-lived USA sitcom "Benched." "Comedians get hardened — you know, they have that hardened thing — but she doesn't. She's very honest and naked, vulnerable, but not at all self-pitying or hardened. She's just her. I really liked her," Melamed told Daily Dot. "She always works very hard. She still has to deal with all the things she has to deal with—she takes medications, and she likes to take a nap during lunch. If I wasn't so busy eating, I would too. So she has some small limitations that way."

"Because Phil could do anything, he had more stuff," comedian Jon Lovitz said of Phil Hartman's regularly prodigious workload in "Live from New York: An Uncensored History of 'Saturday Night Live.'" "He was my favorite person to work with. He was my older brother. I loved him. I idolized him. I liked him and yet he was like my grandmother — he'd be so excited to see me he just made me feel great about myself." Other actors around during the late '80s and early '90s of "SNL" felt the same way about Phil Hartman, whose life story ended in tragedy. 

"I'll tell you who was really instrumental in getting me through was Mr. Phil Hartman. He was my rock," Jan Hooks revealed. "I just worshipped Phil. I looked up to him," Mike Myers said. "He was extremely, extremely supportive and hilarious. He never gave up on a sketch and his work ethic was amazing."

Hartman's nickname around the "SNL" production center was "the glue." "Phil would be incredibly generous to some rookie writer by selling the hell out of this kid's piece," Myers recalled. "He would never tank your piece. Afterwards you would just hear 'glue, glue, glue' from people around the read-through table."

After seven years, Will Ferrell left "Saturday Night Live" in 2002 and immediately went on to a movie career. At the end of his final episode, "SNL" Ferrell's castmates paid tribute with heartfelt monologues. "I worked with Will for six years and it was more than anything I've ever done or probably anything I will ever do. He brought joy to everyone and everything he did," Ana Gasteyer said. 

"I loved watching Will in a bad sketch, one that didn't get any laughs because he never gave up. He's the most fearless performer I've ever seen," offered Tina Fey. Then Chris Parnell explained why his tenure at the late-night sketch show bore a large gap. "True story. This show fired me. Then they rehired me. First time that ever happened. Will Ferrell made that happen," Parnell explained. "How can I ever repay that? He was more than a great performer, he was my friend."

One of Ferrell's first and most popular movies was the Christmas comedy "Elf," which featured the very silly comedian acting against tough-guy performer James Caan as his biological father. Caan didn't enjoy Ferrell's antics. "In between setups, he'd be like, 'I don't get you. You're not funny,'" Ferrell recalled on the "MeSsy" podcast (via E! News), theorizing that the resentment showed up on screen in their characters' strained relationship. "I love that the whole time, he's not acting. He's truly annoyed with me."

Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy both first found fame on the "SCTV" sketch comedy series, and later worked on "Best in Show" and "A Mighty Wind" before playing Johnny and Moira Rose on "Schitt's Creek." Levy co-created the series with Dan Levy, and O'Hara accepted the job after initially passing. Then she helped shape the show. 

"When you're doing comedy, number one, you do want to work with the best people. It's hard when you're not working with the best people, so the bottom line is you want really good people who are quite skilled at this particular kind of comedy, character work," Levy told The Hollywood Reporter. "Catherine's playing a great, really funny character that kind of dictated what this relationship would eventually be like," he added. "But quite honestly it was Catherine homing in on her character and creating the character that she did that kind of made things open up for these two as a couple."

Annie Murphy reported that "Schitt's Creek" was almost entirely scripted, despite the substantial improvisational talents of O'Hara. "There are times when Catherine just goes on a tear," Murphy told Variety. "All I want to do is get a box of popcorn and just sit and watch her do her thing. It's not even improv, but the way she chooses to pronounce a word can shock you to hell — making the word 'how' into seven syllables. I don't know how she does it, but she's a witch."

Whether it was during his five years on "Saturday Night Live" or in movies like "Tommy Boy" and "Black Sheep," Chris Farley displayed a gonzo, try-anything style that belied a mastery of comedy. Members of his "SNL" class and film co-stars are still talking about how much Farley dazzled them even decades after his death. "I met Chris Farley on the very first day, but I'd already heard rumors about his characters and how funny he was," David Spade told Esquire. "Farley, for looking dumb, could laugh at the smartest jokes. Nothing got past him. And he was a great laugher. It was so disarming. He always wanted to crack you up." 

"No one did distress better than Chris," Dana Carvey said on his "Fly on the Wall" podcast. "Chris had his explosive rhythm. There was all method to his madness. It was extremely irresistible." Chris Rock, also on "Fly on the Wall," marveled at how much realism and personality he imbued in his roles. "He didn't really have to get into character or anything. You just bought that he was whoever he was playing."

Adam Sandler, who often took the spotlight at "SNL," was a big Farley fan. "He was a tour de force on the show and dominated. He could dominate anybody," he remarked to The Daily Beast. "There's nobody that can walk into a room and take over better than Farley. I haven't seen anyone since he's gone that's taken that spot."

Over a 30-year career in movies that began during a long stint on "Saturday Night Live," Adam Sandler tends to work with the same actors over and over. He likes to cast friends and associates whom he's known for years, and those actors and collaborators all appreciate the loyalty and generosity he's always put on display. "I was a serious actor before I met you, man," Steve Buscemi said while helping award Sandler the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. "I love you, buddy. Nobody makes me laugh like you. And nobody has taken better care of me in this business than you. And he does this. He does this for all his friends. He's done it for so many people." 

At the same ceremony, David Spade discussed how that friendship motivates Sandler. "One time a family member passed away and people were scared to call me. Adam Sandler called, I didn't answer. So, he drove to my house, and he wouldn't leave 'till I answered. He came inside just to cheer me up."

Bob Newhart made comedy for more than 60 years. His stand-up, characterized by calculated pauses, stammering, and subtlety, sent his comedy album, "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart," to the top of the charts, and he later settled into the sitcom life with "The Bob Newhart Show" in the 1970s and "Newhart" in the 1980s. Afterward, he frequently appeared in comedy films and on TV sitcoms in significant supporting roles.

Following Newhart's death in 2024 at age 94, many of his co-stars from film and TV offered their unique memories of the comedian. "Heroes frequently disappoint when you meet them. Bob didn't," Noah Wyle of "The Librarian: Quest for the Spear" told People. "What a dream it was to witness the genius that was Bob Newhart. He was classy, kind, generous, and absolutely hilarious. Every take — every time," Kaley Cuoco of "The Big Bang Theory" wrote on Instagram Stories (via People). "I always say the best actors are very generous people. He was really such a kind and generous man and so funny, but not wrapped up in himself or anything," Zooey Deschanel of "Elf" said to Variety.

"Has there ever been anyone who was so self-effacing on the surface, who's made such a huge impact?" the last living member of the "Newhart" cast, Julia Duffy, pondered to The Daily Beast. "He treated me as an equal from the get-go and that was all the validation I needed. That sort of equality was not yet a given."

While he gave many memorable appearances across five years of the sketch comedy show "In Living Color," Jim Carrey didn't become a household name until 1994, the year he starred in three hit comedy movies: "Ace Venture: Pet Detective," "The Mask," and "Dumb and Dumber." And just like that, Carrey was an A-lister, appearing in major blockbusters like 1995's "Batman Forever." He played The Riddler, opposite Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, and Jones, a very serious, Oscar-winning actor, let his disdain for Carrey be known before one frame had been shot. 

Beforehand, Carrey spotted Jones in a restaurant and introduced himself. "The blood just drained from his face. He got up shaking," Carrey recalled on "Norm Macdonald Live" (via Far Out). "And he said, 'I hate you. I really don't like you.' And I said, 'What's the problem?' and pulled up a chair, which probably wasn't smart. And he said, 'I cannot sanction your buffoonery.'"

A year later, Carrey starred in "The Cable Guy," which made history for being the first to pay its lead actor $20 million. Costar Matthew Broderick didn't envy the scrutiny. "Nice as it is to make all that, it put a lot of pressure on him in a way. It hadn't been that long since he was relatively unknown and suddenly he's the highest paid, you gotta be the greatest genius ever, every minute, so I was sympathetic to the pressure he must have put on himself," he told Deadline.

Martin Short and Steve Martin have been in five movies together, performed live comedy as a duo act for years, and star on Hulu's long-running "Only Murders in the Building." "They're brilliant. They're legends, and they have lived so many different lives, and it's like I'm a sponge and I'm just soaking all of that in," their co-star Selena Gomez told Vogue of her cohort. "They were just like uncles. Marty calls me Bubbala, like: 'How my little Bubbala?'" 

It's of Steve Martin's opinion that his close friend and favored collaborator is of a very rare breed. "Marty is not driven to be funny. It's not competitive or needy or desperate," he told Vanity Fair. Martin recalled actor Rita Wilson once saying that Short is simply the best. "Not the best person at something. Just 'the best person.' Period."

Larry David welcomed Short onto his HBO show, "Curb Your Enthusiasm. "I've never heard a bad word said about him. That's a hard thing for a comedian to pull off," David also told Vanity Fair. "Hands down the funniest guy I've ever met." Short can also handle drama, according to Glenn Close, co-star of their mutual cable legal drama "Damages." "He can pull off very, very complex emotions, and he was magnificent," Close told People. "I loved watching him work. And the fact that he's known as this genius comic made it even better."

An explosive shooting star of comedic talent from the outset, Eddie Murphy was only 19 years old when he secured a spot in the cast of "Saturday Night Live" in 1980, and almost instantly became one of the show's biggest ever stars. His move into movies happened rapidly, too, with "Trading Spaces" in 1983 an early hit. The movie's other top-billed performer, Dan Aykroyd, saw big things in Murphy's future. "Eddie, first of all, at the time we were doing 'Trading Places' was just kind of starting out in film, and he's got this incredible absurdist sense of humor, this beautiful youthful energy, this intelligence about his writing and his acting commitment, great impressionist, and a fine actor and guy with depth," Aykroyd told SiriusXM's "Sway's Universe." "It was just fun to see him emerge as a star and emerge as a performer and start to build his career and reputation."

Along with a surprisingly successful music career, Murphy starred in many smash hits, including 1984's "Beverly Hills Cop. In 2024, he revived the franchise with "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F." Costar Kevin Bacon called it a "bucket list thing" to act alongside Murphy. "He is one of our greatest movie stars ever," he told People, "I never saw him trying to be funny either on camera or off camera, and he's still hilarious."

The 1984 fantasy romantic comedy "Splash" marked Tom Hanks' first leading role in a major motion picture. He portrayed the hero while the goofy second banana role was occupied by John Candy, who by then had become one of the most dominant names in comedy. That was thanks to breakout roles on Second City-branded sketch comedy TV shows, as well as for stealing scenes in "The Blues Brothers," "Stripes," and "National Lampoon's Vacation." As such, Hanks was in equal parts intimidated and impressed. 

"Working with John Candy on the other hand, that was scary. I was such a big fan of both John and Eugene Levy for their work on Second City that I was a little bit trepidatious about going into this, quite certain that they could blow me off the screen without too much effort." Hanks told KATU-TV in 1984. The shoot went much better than anticipated. "When we were doing the scenes my attention gravitated so much that I had trouble not laughing at what he was doing," Hanks added. "He's a very funny guy."

Daryl Hannah, the other lead from "Splash," concurred. "He was just so full of heart and soul, and so hilarious," she told Empire. "Tears-coming-out-of-your-eyes, pee-your-pants hilarious."