There's always a moment in any stand-up show I do where people are booing. They kinda boo a premise. And then I bail myself out with a joke. But it's like trying to do movies where there's a dramatic undertone.
San Francisco has always been my favorite booing city. I don't mean the people boo louder or longer, but there is a very special intimacy. When they boo you, you know they mean you. Music, that's what it is to me. One time in Kezar Stadium they gave me a standing boo.
A boo is a lot louder than a cheer, if you have 10 people cheering and one person booing, all you hear is the booing.
A boo is a lot louder than a cheer. If you have 10 people cheering and one person booing, all you hear is the booing.
I'm always looking for vacation. I'm always trying to step away from it to watch movies. I'm always trying to carve out free time for myself. But, I love it. I don't think I've ever not wanted to run a show. When I have a show, I'm always really excited. I always enjoy the process.
I think I kind of approached music with this sort of, like, weird thing where I kinda set myself up where I could kinda be myself but not really. I kinda had a backdoor out. So if you criticized me, I kinda had my defenses working. And the problem is that some people seize on that as inauthenticity, which is understandable. So that's painful because it's not that you're being inauthentic...there's a difference between being a poseur and being someone who's so emotionally challenged they're kind of just doing their best to show you what they've got.
When I do stand-up for a long time, I'll get burned out, then I'll get an acting gig. For me, the grass is always greener. I'd like to do a mixture of all of it. My goal is just to do small movies that I've written. That's what I'm trying to do now, just write smaller movies.
As much as we joke around about 'The Bachelor' being the most dramatic show ever, Miss America really is an amazingly dramatic moment.
I found, especially with stand-up, that if a premise works, you can make the joke work. If a premise doesn't work, you can't force it to.
I don't care if people are booing me. They can boo all they like.
I always focused on being an actor. I did stand-up briefly, but I also did a lot of dramatic work. But since I've been on 'The Daily Show,' people think I'm a comedian. That's not how I see myself.
When you're on stage performing stand-up, things only happen one time. I've done bits where I improv a joke, and people are dying. The next show, I try to repeat it, I can't do it. Because with the first audience that was our moment. It can't happen the same way again. We were all there: a certain type of people were at that show and we all got it.
A stand-up act is almost like a pool. You know what I mean? It's like a pool, and you're always skimming little leaves out of it, messing with the chlorine level, putting up umbrellas. You're trying to make one little stagnant body of water perfect. Whereas a late-night show is like a river, always moving forward.
I would like to play some character that's somewhat dramatic. I don't see myself ever becoming that serious, or it sounds weird, but I don't see myself doing something that's really dramatic but somewhat dramatic. I would like to do something that's more real and doesn't have to be laugh out loud funny. I always like whatever I'm involved in... whether it be funny or whether it be somewhat like... I'm not gonna try to get people to really cry.
The words are the words. Seriously. Meaning you don't have boo-boo words. You can do boo-boo things. You can have sex, carnage, mayhem, whatever you're looking for. "The Evil Dead" movies, in my opinion, function better in an unrestricted world.
In the stand-up comedy top, there's room for everyone - if you're good, there's room for everyone. You'll put on your own show - no one casts you. You cast your own show as a stand-up comedian. When you get good at stand-up comedy you book a theater and if people show up, people show up. If people don't show up, people don't show up. You don't have a director or a casting agent or anybody saying if you're good enough - the audience will decide.
I keep trying to write the crowd-pleasing slavery joke and the crowd-pleasing reparations joke, but any time you mention slavery or reparations in any detail, it seems to bum lots of people out. That's a challenge I keep putting in front of myself.