A Quote by John Ridley

As an ex-stand up, I can tell you that a comedy club isn't a place you go looking to get the abuse you just can't seem to find in daily life. The stage is a performer's domain. You protect that domain. You are not on stage to take what's given just 'cause you're getting paid. If you are attacked, you retaliate.
To just to get up on stage and sing every night at 9 or 10 years old was unbelievable to me. It wasn't that I was getting paid; it was that I was getting paid to do what I like to do.
I was new to acting on a stage in a narrative as opposed to acting on a stage as a stand-up. And like everything else it's just like comfort level. The first time I did stand-up I was at a place called the B3 in New York on Third and Avenue B and I not only didn't take the mic out of the stand, but I clutched the stand of the entire time.
When you go through a tunnel - you're going on a train - you go through a tunnel, the tunnel is dark, but you're still going forward. Just remember that. But if you're not going to get up on stage for one night because you're discouraged or something, then the train is going to stop. Everytime you get up on stage, if it's a long tunnel, it's going to take a lot of times of going on stage before things get bright again. You keep going on stage, you go forward. EVERY night you go on stage.
I knew I wanted to be in comedy but the path of least resistance was doing stand-up in folk music clubs where I could get on stage. I guess you could get up no matter how bad you were and you didn't have to audition. You just got up. Everything else required an audition and if you auditioned for a TV show, you would stand in line with a hundred other people. But at the clubs, it was okay just to get up, so that's why I started in stand-up.
You always get nervous on stage because when you get up there, you want to do great. The crowd has you pumped up so there are always a little bit of butterflies. That's all part of it. But as far as getting stage fright, clamming up there, not generally, I just enjoy it on stage and have a great time.
We aim in the domain of politics at republicanism; in the domain of economics at socialism; in the domain of what is today called religion, at atheism.
We have to be able to reject disproportionate and unjustified responses in the cyber domain just as we do in the physical domain.
During my stage shows, I am so energetic. It's constant! I just don't stand still. I actually got given a mic stand from my team to say 'Just calm down. Stand still for at least two songs.' But now I just pick it up and walk around with it.
I'm not a performer who will come on stage and tell you everything about my life. It's just not who I am.
Prince is the ultimate performer. Prince is that dude that's going to get on stage by himself, if he need to, but hold you in the palm of his hand. Like, you can't take your eyes off the man when he's on stage, and he could just be sitting there playing his guitar.
With stand-up you can just be yourself on stage. And ideally, you can't see the crowd most of the time - it's just lights in your face. But I still have had terrible stage fright.
I was amazed to go Oscar and win it. It was fantastic getting up on the stage there and looking down. I thought, "That guy looks like Steve Martin, and that guy's like Arnold Schwarzenegger." But it was Steve Martin, and it was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then they have this terrible kind of conveyor belt backstage - literally - where they take you to this big hangar where the world's press are gathered, and they make you stand on a stage, and they introduce you.
The whole concept of stage fright is fascinating. Actors get stage fright, but they wouldn't be on the stage in the first place if they just succumbed to it. There's this love/hate relationship with the spotlight.
I take a subject, then I go on stage, and whatever is in there comes out. You can edit as you go and continue to work it out on stage until it's something you like, but I never think about it. I just go up and flow.
I liked horror and comedy, basically, from a young age, but I just ended up getting into comedy because there was - I could do stand-up comedy, and that was my way into this business, and then there was no stand-up horror, and I didn't know how to get into that world.
Getting to do shows with Lady Antebellum, Keith Urban, and Sam Hunt is just awesome. It's so inspiring because I grew up such fans of Lady A and Keith, and to be able to sing my songs on the same stage as them and then stand side stage and watch them is just a really special thing.
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