I'd like to think I'm a little more memorable or specific now. People laugh at me in a way they wouldn't laugh at another comedian, rather than being like, "Okay, who's the next joke-slinger? Give me some jokes so I may laugh and go about my day!"
Improv requires your audience to be informed about what improv is. With stand-up, anybody can sit down and watch stand-up and laugh at jokes.
I do a few jokes about the economy but from an everyday person perspective. People like to laugh, and they especially like to laugh during difficult circumstances.
With me being in so many pain from when you have a betrayal from your best friend - who was my husband - and the girl got pregnant, I couldn't even get out of bed. The only thing that saved me was my stand-up. I would get on stage and just talk about stuff, and I made people laugh. A lot of women e-mail me and say, 'How do you smile? How do you laugh at something like this?' That's how I do it. I laugh because that's how I get through pain.
I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.
"I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting" ... "But that's not all people laugh at." "Isn't it? Perhaps I don't grok all its fullness yet. But find me something that really makes you laugh sweetheart... a joke, or anything else- but something that gave you a a real belly laugh, not a smile. Then we'll see if there isn't a wrongness wasn't there." He thought. "I grok when apes learn to laugh, they'll be people."
Stand up is really fun because if I think of a joke or a funny idea, then I can just go and tell some people and if they laugh, they laugh right away.
Whenever I open a movie, I go secretly to the theater and stand in the back and enjoy the moment. I laugh when people laugh, and when people cry, I laugh.
David Zucker was great! Those guys are funny. I mean, they are funny. There's a wonderful thing about doing that kind of work like Superhero Movie: You have to be real, but you also have to get the laugh. There you are, your director and the producers are right there at the monitors, and you either get the laugh or you don't. And so you just do it until you get the laugh.
I love doing [stand-up]. I love making people laugh no matter how. Whether it's a commercial, or a TV show, or a reality show, or a talk show, or a special, or a book. However I can make people laugh, that's what I want to do.
I have a really crazy cackle laugh, and I think sometimes people don't realize that they're not laughing at my jokes, they're actually just laughing because of my laugh.
In the old days talks would have made me angry. But now that I've come out, everyone knows the truth. That's like a protective shield against comments like that. Stupid remarks and jokes no longer hurt me, because I can stand by being gay. Nowadays I can even laugh at jokes about gays. Now I feel free, hungry and strong.
The basic function of a comic is stand-up because it's so straightforward and simple. If the audience don't laugh, you didn't do your job. I've had some audiences where I didn't care if they laughed or not because they were either too drunk or stupid.
The angels laugh at old Karl. They laugh at him because he tries to grasp the truth about God in a book of Dogmatics. They laugh at the fact that volume follows volume, and each is thicker than the previous ones. As they laugh, they say to one another, ‘Look! Here he comes now with his little pushcart full of volumes of the Dogmatics!’—and they laugh about the persons who write so much about Karl Barth instead of writing about the things he is trying to write about. Truly, the angels laugh.
I'm an entertainer first. But I do as a stand up comedian, the way for me to evolve is to make a difference, to make people laugh and learn and do something different. Because there's too many comedians out there just making people laugh. And anybody can do that.
So I hope that there are people out there laughing. Laugh loud, please. Laugh until your lungs give out because I will have the last laugh.