A Quote by Fred Willard
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.
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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.
Well, actually, the Second City thing came about because I was taking a few improv classes there. I thought that the improv classes would help with my wrestling career, which it has.
I love performing. I love doing improv. It's a totally terrifying experience, but it's something that I've always felt so strongly about and that I'm kind of obsessed with. And just as an actor, it's a great exercise. It's a great playground, you know, to try things out and to work on your skills. Because the mandate of improv is kind of the same as acting: It's all about your scene partner, it's all about being present and in the moment and exploring together as a team, a collaboration.
When I was in high school, I was the guy directing plays after class. I started my first theater company at 19, and my second theater company at 21. I've always been a guy who doesn't do well with the passive nature of being an actor.
I love doing it [hosting the Oscars] because I love the danger of it and you have to come through and think on your feet. That's why that show, no matter who hosts it, it really should be a fast-thinking comedian who is really quick on their feet that can handle situations that happen, or somebody with that kind of mentality that can capitalize on something.
I never thought of myself as a comedic actor. I didn't go to Second City, that's not my background, I'm not a comic, I studied theater and my career when I started was a lot of dramatic stuff.
If you are in an improv jazz ensemble or a small chamber group, you learn to think fast on your feet and how to be flexible and to collaborate and compromise, and that may yield a creative outcome.
I mean, its hard to be an actor in the city - trying to make it as an actor - because you waitress all night, you get home really late and you're super tired and your feet hurt.
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.
I had, like, two goals in my career: One was to try to get into 'Second City.' When I moved to Chicago, my goal was to try to work at 'Second City.' And beyond that, my goal was to make enough money as an actor to not do anything else but act, not have to go and wait tables again.
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
It's hard to sit back and just go through your whole career, because everything's always moving so fast. But the odd milestone is always a nice moment, and when you look at the previous players to have hit those kind of milestones, it's nice to be in that company.
Energy is always paramount when hosting a live show, because you need every synapse firing, so you can think fast on your feet.
I don't think that many people today, understand the nature of what an improv does for an actor in a specific setting. What an improv does for an actor is help him find the life; it's the life that an actor's after.
I'm not really sure if I have anything that inspires me. I think what goes into my work is everything beforehand that I do with my dad. He teaches me acting, and I think maybe without him it would be pretty hard. I started acting for fun, really, because my dad's an actor and my sister's an actor, so I started doing it and it was normal. But it got places really fast, and I started doing feature film auditions and stuff.
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.
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