When you're on a movie set and you are hopefully making a comedy, everyone's stifling their laughter. You're looking at the crew guys, hoping someone is making that face like, and not like, this is not working out, man.
Where my comedy really solidified was when Bush was elected. I couldn't understand how craven and crass he was, and how dumb other people were for electing him.
If we were making a cop comedy about bad cops or cops who were comically bad at the jobs, then the jokes would be more hijinks and more like slapstick.
Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.
My dream role is Richard Pryor, no question about that. I'm a big Richard Pryor fan. I've always been intrigued about the darkness behind his comedy; that would always be a dream role for me.
It's something that has informed quite a lot of my comedy - that idea of someone who is always trying to get in there with the right crowd, always trying to be a certain type of person and never managing it.
I think some people's comedy IQ's aren't as high as other people's, so they don't really know what's going on. Or they think they know what's going on, but they don't really.
First off, I don't do self-deprecation comedy based on being fat. I would always talk about it honestly. Secondly, I don't care how much I weigh.
There is that stereotype of a nerd with the high pants and pocket protector and that kind of thing. That can sustain comedy for maybe a movie - hence the 'Revenge of the Nerds' franchise - but not for hopefully years on the air. It's a sight gag, not...
A whole generation was raised to learn about comedy from 'The Simpsons.' To get to be in a booth with Homer and Marge and be in Springfield - it was unimaginable the emotions that I felt.
When I started out in comedy, it was common knowledge that it took about 10 years to get good. And that was okay because it took you about 9 years to get on television.
Having done film, TV and theatre, the nicest final bit of the jigsaw is to do live comedy, because you can talk to the audience. It feels really natural to be able to laugh with them, but at the same time still be within the framework of a play.
The very first time I did standup, I went to an open mike on the Lower East Side at a place that doesn't exist anymore. And it was one of those open mikes that wasn't really just for comedy.
The first time I ever got up on a stage, I did a comedy poem. I don't know how I got there in the first place because I was very, very shy.
In 1986, I was attacked in the street as I helped Neil Mullarkey from the Comedy Store Players to put up posters. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time - midnight - and we were English. I got kicked in the head.
I would like to play an average guy. I would have loved to play opposite John Candy in a movie. That was my dream for a long time, and sadly, now I can never realize that. But I'd like to do comedy.
I mean, comedy's hard. If you go back and look at the first season of 'Seinfeld,' it's a work in progress and that's what happens. It just takes time for people to figure each other out, and figure out timing, and to develop creatively with the write...
I am trying to work out what my taste is, comedy-wise. I look up to stand up comedians who appear to be telling the truth, but I don't mind if they are lying.
The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.
The nature of comedy is 'just do it.' But I think what's interesting about it is this joke has been around and why. And it's just saying what's wrong and how wrong can you be if you say it.
If Shakespeare thought comedy worthwhile, that means the rest of us can take a break from tragedy now and then without betraying our calling, even if the modern professional intellectual, a poseur by nature, has yet to discover this.
