In college, I won the Irene Ryan; it's kind of like a collegiate Tony, which got my career going. I was honored. I won a fellowship to the Kennedy Center, and that's where I got my agent.
I really didn't get to experience college. I enjoyed Ohio State, but I didn't feel like I had a chance to live the college life. When some guys got bored, they went out partying or to the student center. When I got bored, I went to the gym.
I did Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman. It was a sequence where the president got captured and they made a doppelgänger of the president who was kind of goofy. They were Second City people who were the producers and writers, and they told my agent, "Well, we know Fred can do the kind of goofy, but we're not sure he can do be the straight president, kind of the Clinton-esque." So I really got my back up and I called my agent and I said, "Goddammit, I insist that I go in and read." And I did a great job and I got the part.
Choosing an agent is like picking a college. They give you a pitch, you hear what they've got to say, you hear what they're going to do for you. Ultimately it's a good gut reaction.
It's almost like going to high school before you got to go to college. You felt a little bit better before you got to college. That's how I feel about Brooklyn.
I have listened to college radio quite a lot. I never went to college, so actually the college radio station is sort of like the closest I got to some kind of college experience.
I grew up in such a small area that there really weren't any acting classes. So I had to wait till I got to college, at the University of Washington. I was a theater major there and got my training. Then after college, I packed up my Honda Civic and kind of fulfilled the cliché of driving down to Los Angeles, and literally, brick by brick - you know, the slow and painful way - I built my career.
I was doing this children's theater play, and it was non-Equity. We were out of town to do it at the Kennedy Center, and it was always kind of, 'Well, the producers may have to turn this into Equity,' and that's what happened. It was kind of a silly children's theater play, but that's how I got my card.
Before stand-up, I didn't even have an agent. Once I started doing stand-up - boom. I got an agent. In fact, I got three agents. I got a lawyer. Now I get taken seriously.
I decided that I was going to be the Kennedy who makes her own name and finds her own job and works like a dog. My comeuppance was when Arnold got elected - I became the Kennedy who was married to the governor.
As I got older, I'd say probably when I got to, like, seventh or eighth grade, I was living in Atlanta, Georgia at the time, and I went for an open call for an agent, a local agent out there, a woman named Joy Purvis, and she ended up picking me up.
After high school, I went to VCU and got a B.F.A. in theater. I got to do a bunch of stuff professionally throughout college. I actually got my SAG card in college.
My agent came to me with a deal from another publisher and I signed a deal and got the advance with no idea of what I was going to do. I probably procrastinated for almost a year, but we had meetings and I was basically going to spoof "Take Ivy," but then it kind of turned into something else. I wanted it to be a book of all the things that made me who I am, like Brooks Brothers, Hot Wheels, "The Andy Griffith Show" and G.I. Joes. I couldn't sit still and do it, so my agent had to come to my house and force me to do it.
Anytime you come in and you have a player like Tony go down, it's always different. You can't be a Tony Parker, but I think it's just staying focused and doing what got me here.
I made, like, five records as Dirty Projectors before I got out of college. And then I put a band together when I got interested in going on tour around that time.
Being honored at Berklee College of Music; I got a doctorate. I am Doctor Patti.
This is a slow business to have success in. There are exceptions, but for the most part it's kind of like the last writer standing.... I've got gray. I've got plenty of gray. I'm creating a career slowly, like a coral reef.