Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My background is all comedy. I've been doing improv since I was 17. It's funny, because when I meet people, I'm known as this guy who will punch you in the face or throw you out a window, when I also have a background in comedy.
And I've always loved commercials. I like working out how to organically weave a brand's message into the writing process. It's like an improv show, where comics ask the audience to throw out a word and a skit is built around it.
I think one of the things about listening is that it's always at its most powerful when it's present, when it's right here, when it's right now. And that's a lesson about improv that I think just made me a much more social person.
I acted out a lot. I was very nerdy. I was very isolated, which I made up for by kind of talking and trying to entertain people and get them to like me, so I did theatre and improv in high school and college, but always as a hobby.
I know the benefits of having a really great improv show are amazing because it was this one rare and fleeting thing that was incredible, but the risk just didn't appeal to me. I liked the control of sitting down and writing things.
I did theater summer camps when I was a kid, and I enjoyed them, but they never felt quite right. But then there would always be a tiny improv workshop towards the end of camp, and I would always feel like I liked it so much better.
I have Janicza solely to thank for my growth as an actor because she saw in me something that other people just weren't seeing, and she knew that I could go beyond the normal, funny 'make-em-ups' that I was doing on an improv stage.
Improv classes were too expensive, so I just started going to open mics. And the day I did it, I did, like, three because I just loved it so much. It was so much fun. And it wasn't good, it was just fun to do. It felt like a release.
With improv or a full length play - you know how you go to a theater, and after 10 minutes you say, 'Oh, I don't like this thing,' but you don't want to get up and leave? At a sketch show, it's always something new every few minutes.
I've been working straight since 2003, so I might just want to take an improv or theater class. That excites me. I can't wait to do different characters - not necessarily the leading chick who gets the guy, but the weird, freaky cousin.
I absolutely loved improv! I felt very much at home being onstage. It freed me to be all sorts of people other than myself. It was an escape from myself, if you will. I still love that creative freedom of improv and making people laugh.
If there is one thing BP's 'watery improv act' made clear, it is that, as a culture, we have become far too willing to gamble with things that are precious and irreplaceable, and to do so without a back-up plan, without an exit strategy.
When I was in college, I started an improv group, and I did a bunch of plays and some musicals. I have a theater degree. I'm a school person: I like getting homework and having deadlines. When I graduated, I worked right away as an actor.
The thing about the performance part... starting with improv and standup, you're starting with yourself as the character, and I don't feel as much like, 'Oh, I'm a vessel for -' I feel like someone who calls themselves an actor is a vessel.
I spent a lot of time in Chicago at a place called The Annoyance Theater, where we would develop one-act plays through improv, and you would just improvise scenes and then discover something about the character and use it in the next scene.
My improv definitely shows a different side of myself, which is more true to what my real humor is and what my real personality is, and I think - I guess 'wild' is a good word for it. I'm still sweet! But I won't let anyone walk all over me.
I think it's pretty stupid to write off an entire genre of anything. It's one thing to say 'I don't like country music.' But it's pretty narrow minded to say 'All country music sucks.' Of course, that being said, all short-form improv sucks.
When I was in primary school, I was given a five-line script in 'Anansi the Spider Man,' and I decided to just improv and make it my own. For a second, I felt like Kevin Hart because everyone was laughing. I just continued to do it. Why not?
When I graduated from college, I moved to New York and started doing improv because I read all about the early 'Saturday Night Live' guys having come through Second City and learning how to improvise, so I wanted to get immediately into that.
The thing that's frustrating about improv is that even if you have the best show in the world, it's over when it's over. You get to build stand-up - I really like that aspect of it. I like writing jokes, and you don't get to do that in improv.
Coming out of Dallas and doing commercial work in Dallas - if you had improv background in Dallas, then you were instantly shot to the top of the list of commercial bookings because they loved improvisers because you could elevate the material.
When I got out of high school, I was working in restaurants in New York City, when I heard Bill Anderson from The Neighborhood Playhouse was doing private lessons. I started taking classes, and it was a lot of improv and Meisner and repetition.
It's great when improv is encouraged. It's a really fun thing. It depends on who's in the movie and how their process works as well. It takes a director who is open to that because you have a script, but then something funny could happen on set.
I think people are always really surprised when they realise I'm not a very serious person and that I'm not tremendously serious about acting. I don't like to rehearse; I hate improv. Directors that don't like to talk, they're my favourite ones.
Looking back, when my cousins and I were kids, we'd put together these little skits - these 10-minute improv scenes. I didn't really understand what I was doing - that I was writing these mini-sketches and acting - but we were all totally into it.
Things that make me laugh range from a wonderful stand-up like Jerry Seinfeld, Louis C.K. and Chris Rock to my son Gabe, who does great improv work. I also look backwards to the great comedic actors like Jackie Gleason, Paul Lynde and Phil Silvers.
If you're an actor, if you're not writing as well, or you're not going to improv classes, there are long spurts where you're not physically in production - unless you're Channing Tatum at this moment right now - where you need to be doing something.
I've been spending quite a bit of time writing, acting, and making films. Because I'm doing all this extra writing, acting, and creating short comedy skits with my friends in improv shows, I feel like that's really filled out my confidence on the mic.
The kind of improv that I'm particularly addicted to is the kind that... aims at creating a momentary, fragmentary experience that has a totality to it. It's kind of like fireworks. It's the more ephemeral of art forms - once it's gone, it's gone, baby.
Mork, played by Robin Williams, was my introduction to improv, and my first real peek behind the curtain of television production; I had seen Williams riffing on 'The Tonight Show' and soon put it together that certain scenes with Mork were not scripted.
In Miami, I was studying improv as well as acting. Improv is a great tool to have, just for the comedic timing that you get. When I moved to L.A., I started taking classes with The Groundlings, and I loved it. I'm definitely in love with improv and comedy.
The real art of what we do, at least back in the old-school days, was improv. If you were a great worker, you were able to adapt and that skill developed over time because of all the traveling and working in different areas. You learned how to read a crowd.
I met Kevin when I was 19, at a Second City workshop. We were paired up together in the first class I went to. By the end of the class we formed our improv group, and over the next three years we performed leading up to the formation of The Kids in the Hall.
As they say, there are two rules in improv: Never say no, and never ask why. When another actor asks 'Why?' or says no to something you're suggesting, then it's very clear that they're putting the onus on you, because they're not comfortable with it themselves.
Sometimes with films you have a freedom to be able to, Okay, we got that take so let's try another one where suddenly I'll say this, or you'll get to improv. You can't do that with stage. We have to make it new every time, and also within the structured settings.
The hardest part about improv is getting the audience to relax and enjoy themselves, because most improv is not very good, and the audience is nervous for the performers the whole time. Not that they don't even like the show, but they feel bad for the performers.
Comedy chose me. I always had this urge to be silly that I couldn't control. I remember my father having me read 'The Three Little Pigs' to him, and I would improv all around the story, like when one pig's house got blown over, he put on his gym shoes and took off.
Improv relies just as much on listening as it does you delivering dialogue. That's the hard for some people. Some people just concentrate on what they're going to say, and they're not listening. You have to listen in order to see where the other person is going to.
It was improv that really helped me start coming up with recipes and just believe in my instincts. That's why the first recipe I made up was 'I Ain't Chicken Chicken' because I finally felt bold and fearless in the kitchen, which was an entirely new feeling for me.
I'll drive down the street, and I'll practice improv. I will sit there at a red light and see two guys talking to each other, and I will just start playing both characters. I can't hear them, but I can see their mouths moving, so I'll just put words in their mouths.
My rule of thumb is to always do what's on the page first. Then you can talk to your director about playing with it. Improv frees me up in a character, but I would be mortified if the writers who agonized over their words assumed I thought my improv was more valuable.
I went to a French immersion school, and French-Canadian improv is a big thing, and we had an improv team at school, and 12 of us would get up and make things up against other elementary schools. I'd always wanted to perform, and that was just another extension of it.
I took an improv class in 2005 in Chicago at ComedySportz, which was short-form, more of a games-based improv. I remember it being real fun and helping with my stand-up. If I did an improv class, and then I did stand-up later, I felt looser on stage and more comfortable.
When I moved to New York at 22, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I took an improv class, and the first scene I did, I felt like 'I want to do this for the rest of my life.' It was the first time I ever felt like that about anything. I tried to make a living off improv.
Whatever is on the page is what I'm married to. I'm very prepared. I'm a thespian. I don't like to improv. I don't like to go off course 'cause I think that's where stuff happens. When you stick to the material 'cause it's written so well, that's where the magic happens.
It's so cliche, but I love the feeling you get from improv that anything can happen. The audience is already accepting that there are no props or costumes or furniture, so the performers can be anywhere doing anything; cut from underground to space, and it doesn't matter.
I graduated from Second City Los Angeles. It helped me tremendously, not only in my roles in films but in helping shape me into a writer as well. In improv, you will fail sometimes, so it teaches you to be brave and try anything. The worst that can happen is nobody laughs.
I don't like improv at all. It terrifies me. I like to know exactly what I'm going to say. Being surprised does make me a better actor. Anytime I'm afraid of something that makes me rise to the occasion, it scares me, but it's what makes great actors - being in the moment.
The way I was brought up in improv was that any idea you have is not as good as your partner's idea, so if I see someone else initiating at the same time I am, I just defer to them because I assume their idea is going be better. And hopefully, they're doing the same with me.
After college, I knew I wanted to work in comedy, so the first thing I did was go to where the comedy was. I moved from Charlottesville to Chicago, because that's where The Second City and Improv Olympics are. You have to go wherever you need to go to study what interests you.