A Quote by Fred Willard
It scared me to death to think about improv, but I got hired for a year at Second City in Chicago, which made me nervous, but I found I could improvise. Then I was in a group called the Ace Trucking Company, which we'd do, like, a half hour set of material, then open up for improvisation.
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Because I started my career in improv, performing with Second City and the Ace Trucking Company, I always enjoy being in situations where - as an actor - you have to think fast & be light on your feet.
Second City Las Vegas is very different from Second City in Chicago on the main stage, where they do improv sets. That's how they kind of hone material, kind of work up to new material.
I joined an improv group in college, which was a lot of fun. After I graduated, I moved to Chicago to try to get into the Second City.
Writing-wise, I started when I was 17. Whatever was bothering me, I could just write about it in a song. I was in the west suburbs of Chicago, then I moved an hour south, and then I went to school up on the South Side - Saint Xavier, though I was at Purdue for a second before I dropped out.
I grew up in a town with just under three hundred people in Western Australia. When you think about being six hours outside the second most isolated city in the world, which is Perth, and then you think about the town that I'm from, which is called Southern Cross, acting is not a possibility.
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.
What, are you totally psycho?" I shouted. "Maybe I am!" he screamed back at me. "Maybe that's just what I am. Maybe I'm that quiet guy who suddenly goes nuts and then you find half the neighborhood in his freezer." I gotta admit, that one stumped me for a second - but only for a second. "Which half?" I asked. "Huh?" "Which half of the neighborhood? Could you make it the people on the other side of Avenue T, because I never really liked them anyway.
For Birmingham, I scored four on my debut. It's not bad. First one was a tap-in; it set me up nice for the day, and I think I got a hat-trick in 13 minutes. So obviously I was cruising, then got one in the second half and came off!
I was incredibly confident on stage because that's where I loved to be. But offstage, there was no balance. I was a little shy kid that went onstage. And I always said, cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people. But then it became the drug that closed me down. So it started out by making me talk to everyone, and then ended up by me isolating myself alone with it; which is the end of the world, really.
I loved the city, so the feeling in 2001 [election] first was shock, then (I was) nervous, then scared but then it's - I really wasn't happy and ecstatic like I thought I (would be). I was immediately hit with the enormity of the responsibility and the fact that most people in that town - particularly those that voted for me were placing their hopes and dreams in me. That is a big, big stressful place to be.
I remember, I was at the house with my oldest son and I got that call from Johnny Ace. You know that call. Johnny was the guy that hired me, fired me and hired me back, which was kind of cool. But I was just fired, everything stopped, my whole world stopped.
I think it's very natural to get nervous. I've usually got concerns about a specific thing in the opening which might worry me. I have to be relaxed and balanced emotionally and then I can concentrate on the moves during the game. Then things will be ok.
I grew up in Chicago and was a huge fan of 'The Second City', so when I moved to L.A., I was looking for anything that resembled that... then I started 'The Groundlings', so I went to a show and it was very much like 'Second City'. I was so impressed that that same night I went backstage and I went up to the funniest person there.
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.
Yeah, D-Wade called me up last night and said that he saw some film of me in high school and thinks that my form then was better and that I should shoot like that. I told him I'd think about it and then my pops called and said something like that so I decided to revert back and then.
I was never really certain why he scared the bejesus out of me. Nothing scared me growing up. I’ve been playing with dead people since the day I was born, so it’s good thing, yet the Big Bad scared me. Which brings me to the reason I called.” “Which was to give me nightmares for the rest of my life?” “Oh, no, that’s just a plus. Why was I so scared of him?” “Hon, for one thing he was this powerful, massive, black smokelike being.” “So, you’re saying I’m a racist?
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