A Quote by John Bishop
What made me a comedian was staying on the stage and starting to talk.
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In my first stand-up acts there wasn't material even. You know, I'd go on stage and cry and read a Dear John letter or gut fish on stage. I could be odd - and it's what interested me as a comedian.
I find that I'm fighting to keep my energy and my passion centered on the work and not on "Will this get me an Oscar?" - which is the way people are starting to talk to me. I'm not interested in the way people are starting to talk to me. I'm not interested in looking at a role that way. That's not what I ever did, and it's not how I can continue to do my work.
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 have a funny sense of humor. If I was a comedian and I was up on stage, people would think that's funny, because I'm a funny comedian. I'm an entertainer.
I may sound like a megalomaniac, but I feel like I'm equipped to become a great, memorable comedian, if I keep working my ass off and staying at the pace I'm at, and I feel a responsibility to do that because of the women who have done it before me, and the ones who need to do it after me.
Whatever happens in life can happen on the stage, but as a comedian you should always be clear what your target is. It's fine to be gratuitously tasteless if that's what you are intending to do. It's that old line: I don't defend what a comedian might say but I defend to the death his right to say it.
I don't think anyone's particularly conscious of thinking suits are the thing, but when you see a comedian on stage in jeans and a t-shirt it doesn't matter how good they are - it always looks like amateur hour when they walk onto the stage.
When you see a comedian on stage, the best comedians make it feel like a conversation. But it's not. We have very little interest in what an audience has to say during a performance. Being a stand-up comedian, you're an egomaniac to some degree. Everyone wants to hear what you have to say, apparently. That's not how real relationships work.
The thing is, I was never really a comedian - a comedian would scoff at the notion of me as a comedian because I've never done anything, really. I've always just been some guy who's funny.
When my birth parents were murdered, I stayed outdoors all night with the bodies. Years later in America, around fourteen, my psychiatrist explained to me that staying with the bodies that night made me fearless. He said that it made me an 'emotional exhibitionist' and told me never to let people convince me that I was weird for speaking with clarity and passion.
There's a weird loneliness that comes with being a comedian, especially standup. Even with improvisers, I think there are certain moments of truth where you feel really, really connected to audiences, and that's when you're on stage. I think there's definitely something inside the personality of a person who wants to be a comedian that's looking to connect at all times. That's where the adrenaline rushes in their lives come from.
When 'Center Stage' first came out, I had some little girls on an airplane who didn't want to actually talk to me but wanted to talk about me at the top of their lungs. And they took pictures of me while I was sleep. And you know what's the worst part? I get really, really airsick.
I see myself as a comedian rather than a female comedian. I happen to be a woman, but I am a comedian by trade.
What made me a comedian was that I wasn't really a songwriter, I was more of a poet.
I am a comedian but it's usually not a compliment to be called a prop comedian but I guess I sometimes use props. And I always confuse humorist with comedian. That's strange.
Everyone, everywhere, and all the time, used to laugh at me when I was growing up. So, when I was around 18, I thought, 'I'll become a comedian, and then if everyone laughs at me, I'll be famous.' So I went on stage one night and, for the first time in my life, everyone stopped laughing at me.
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