A Quote by Tim Allen
I think there's a percentage [of the audience] that don't realize, that don't know that [standup] is how everything began. We planned it, we work hard, rehearsals to get this. It's more of a ... it's not just coming in there in a T-shirt and holding a microphone.
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People say I'm good at standup. I don't even think I'm that great at standup. I just hit hard. I don't think I'm super technical or anything like that. I got a couple knockouts. I think I just hit hard more than anything.
I think as a performer, it can be really great to stand on stage, especially when you have more time, but I do think about the specific people in the audience, how it's hard for them to get up and go to the bathroom, how they chose not to do other things that night and have turned off their phones and everything. So for that reason, I think it's necessary to mix it up and talk to the audience.
I began to realize that poverty was really more of a choice than anything else and that I could change that. And it just really depended on how hard I wanted to work.
From an acting standpoint, when I was a kid, I thought I knew everything there was to know. As the years go by, this craft becomes more intensive as I get older. You realize how much more there is to know and to learn, and how much better you can get, if you really work at it.
I think as a standup performer you have to feel the audience. So the audience kind of dictates what they get, you know?
I did standup for a lot of years, too, but when you come out as a standup, you get the feeling from a crowd - it's a kind of a 'make me laugh' attitude. But when you come out as an improvisor, they realize that they're suggesting everything you do. So they're already invested in the scene, and they actually want it to work.
In standup, you don't have anything near you except a microphone. There's something a lot more self-conscious feeling when there's cameras coming in for close-ups. It makes you very aware.
I've done a lot of theater in my time, and in rehearsals, you're like, 'Well, we find it funny,' but until you get it in front of an audience, it's really hard to know.
I love my lecture tours. I get up onstage. I have my stack of books and a glass of water and a microphone. No podium, no distance between me and the audience, and I just talk to people and get all excited and tell a lot of jokes, and sing some songs, and read from my work and remind people how powerful they are and how beautiful they are.
What social media has done - Facebook, Twitter - is show the audience. I don't have an audience. When I make my work, it just goes out into the ether. I have a thick skin and it just brings me down to earth, you know, to realize how out-there and far away and paltry the audience is that gets what I'm saying. It's depressing if I let it get to me. And it's the same with hanging a show, the way it's put up, like, three stories high and you can't read a single word.
I think what people don't realize is the transition from NXT to the main roster is a big jump. It's getting a whole new audience familiar with a certain character. If you debut too many women at one time, it's hard for the audience to get to know, understand, and see the rise of that character.
I think writing comics is predicated on being a fan - there's no either/or. I'd argue I'm an even bigger fan now than when I started because I know how the hot dogs get made. And I kinda always saw the moving parts. I think I appreciate the good ones more now that I realize how lousy the production process can be, how hard it can be, and how easily something good can get crushed in its cogs.
I have very simple ambitions. If I can just not be boring, I'm ahead of the game. It's hard in television. I think you get enormous reward from the audience. Just give them something they didn't see coming, and you get enormous points.
I've got the knowledge and experience to know what's going on in the cage or the ring. And I know how to entertain an audience and how to use the microphone. I know my market.
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.'
It may sound surprising, but a joke and a crime novel work in very much the same way. The comedian/writer leads their audience along the garden path. The audience know what's coming, or at least they think they do until they get hit from a direction they were not expecting.
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