A Quote by Matt Besser
I saw Chris Rock do standup before he was famous. I was just a teenager. That will always be special to me.
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There are many styles of standup, but the comedians I like are people like Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor. Because Richard Pryor told the truth. Chris Rock. I love Chris Rock. He's funny, but he's also poignant. He's not there just to make people laugh; he's there to make people wake up, too.
I remember before I did my HBO special, Chris [Rock] screamed at me - in a loving way, but still. He was like, "You need to do 200 shows in a row and a month straight on the road before you even think about recording a special!" And I had literally booked two weeks on the road and then went right into the recording. It put me in a panic, but it also made me work harder and made me realize that everyone works differently, and that's okay.
I wouldn't call myself a standup in the presence of Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock, but I do my share of it and it has been and remains part of my activity and I like it.
Standup led me to acting because I liked standup, and I saw people on a stage, and the closest, nearest thing to me was doing plays. It was like, that's the same thing as standup - people are on a stage; they're being seen and saying things - so, because of my love of standup, I moved towards acting.
Jeph (Loeb) will call me with updates, and I'll go, "Are you f--king with me?" I never saw this coming, and certainly never saw it coming while I was still coherent and in the game. That's the difference between me and the previous generations. (Legendary X-Men writer) Chris Claremont had to wait decades before his s - t was on the screen.
I saw my rock'n'roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.
Before I got famous, I was like a rake. When I was a teenager, I lived on nervous energy. And I always forgot to eat. It was not something I was obsessed with. And then suddenly I got famous, people started taking me out to fancy joints. And the pounds pile on. So I'm much more conscious now about when I eat. How I eat. What I eat.
I learned from the guys before me - Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.
I think the biggest influence on my stand-up would be Chris Rock, in that I love that Chris is basically an essayist, in that he'll take a subject and just try and attack it from as many different angles as he can.
I went to watch Coldplay in Florida and saw Chris Martin before they went on. He sang 'What Makes You Beautiful' before the chorus of 'Yellow' kicked in. That was so strange because he's an inspiration for me. I think he's so good, he's sick... he's a really nice guy too.
Actors, you have to wait for people to give you work, or you have to make your own stuff. But standup, I could just say, 'I want to do standup in 30 minutes,' and I can go do standup. Or I could just say, 'I want to do standup in a few weeks in this city.'
I was about 17 or 18 years old, and Chris Rock's 'Bring the Pain' came out, and I was obsessed. You know, it just hit on everything that was going on at that time and was such an in-the-moment special, and he knocked it out of the park.
I want to be really special, I want to be really good. It's not enough to be famous for me. Famous is empty so quickly, it's not what people think it is. It's wonderful, but if you're famous and you feel that you're an artist inside and everyone thinks you're just a celebrity, it's really painful.
Genuinely love doing standup and I'm a comedian first, so for me what makes my standup special is the fact that I don't have to adapt or adjust. I am who I am. I appeal to everyone, hence in the movie doing a world tour.
Rock music pays off. Rock music takes me on a joyride. Rock music keeps me off the hell city bus. Rock music will always look out for me. But I will not let my torture profanity demon shoot it down.
There was this whole middle time that only Chris Rock came out of, you know, 10 years ago it was Chris and a few other people, but that's about it. Chris is in a class of his own; I don't see another comedian who I put in high regard as him.
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