A Quote by Dave Attell
Sometimes it's hard to tell if a joke is working or not for the first couple of minutes.
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I like that we don't have to come out the first 10 minutes and score, you know, with joke, joke, joke. We can open it in a more novel way and keep playing different pranks as we go through the thing.
People can write jokes five minutes after a major world event happens, and have hundreds of thousands of people read them within 10 minutes. Whereas before you write a joke, you don't know if anybody is really touching on it or not, and you tell it onstage the next night. For joke writing it has changed things.
I have been recording every single one of my shows since 1994. Every single joke I've ever done is on a hard drive. I can tell you when I wrote every joke I wrote. I can tell you the first time I said it, when I made it different, when I made it better.
Writing books is fun because after I do a show for a couple hours, I'm in a bus for 22 hours. It's not hard for me to look out the window and tell a joke here and there.
When you screen it the first couple times, you're just trying to get the movie to work, trying to get the story to flow, trying to find out where your areas are where you have enough breath to laugh a little bit. So you're doing that the first two or three screenings, and then finally, you dial the movie in and it's working, and at that point, it's 50/50 as far as what's funny and what's working. Sometimes you'll put something in and it will just die so hard that it'll almost kill the movie.
Sometimes I can't think of a better way to end my day than coming home and just strumming my ukulele for a few minutes. I mean, I joke around and tell people that it's an entire yoga session in one strum, you know?
I like working in television because it's an evolving story that you tell. That's also one of the things I don't like about it, too. Because sometimes it's hard, and just when I think I've nailed something, it changes or we have to change it or change the joke or the character is evolving in a way that I don't have control over.
I always say, if I tell you a joke right now and it's funny, you laugh. Now, we set the lights, and I tell you the joke again, it's hard to find it funny the second time.
When I do a film, the days before or the night before, I throw up. Sometimes it's just in my mouth and I swallow it back, but sometimes it's real. Whatever it is, it's hard. I don't do the first five or ten minutes of my character's appearance in a movie until the middle of the shooting schedule because I don't want him to be defined by my nervousness. So, we do the middle of the picture first.
I coached against Dave the last couple of years, and I was very proud to be the first time a father ever coached against his son. He beat me for 30 minutes the first time and 59 and a half minutes the second time.
Like I said, a sketch is one joke. They shouldn't really be more than a minute, two minutes. There are some shows where the sketch goes on for five minutes. It's like, "I get it! I'm already bored. I did like the joke, but I don't anymore, because you went on too long."
Sometimes an actor will stumble on the joke, and I'm right on them. Back it up before the audience hears the bad version of the joke, because humor is 90% surprise. If they know what's coming, they won't laugh as hard.
No matter what, if I got in for one minute or five minutes - especially that first year, minutes were really crucial for me - I played hard.
It`s always been the same for me. I`ve always enjoyed acting, and I really love good actors; they`re such unique characters. I wish I could tell stories well, or tell a joke. Any time someone can do that it`s so satisfying. Sean Penn, for instance, is a really good actor, and he can tell a good joke or story. But it`s hard to do. Most actors have special talents that make them attractive, but they`re often odd characters.
Sometimes, you're going to have to work hard, sometimes extra hard, and sometimes you still won't get that recognition. That's life. That's the way it is. But if you keep working, eventually you'll get the prize you're seeking.
The U.K. and Europe in general seem to be a lot more patient. The U.S. are expecting 'joke joke joke joke joke joke joke.' They don't actually sit and listen to you.
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