There are so many low points with stand-up. You are perpetually humiliated, so it doesn't really matter anymore. I don't have any dignity left to lose. An audience can't hurt you anymore when you've been completely dismantled.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
With stand-up you've just got that one chance. Audiences can be quite fickle.
A good stand-up, you lead the audience. You don't kowtow to the audience. Sometimes the audience is wrong. I always think the audience is wrong.
I stand up for what I believe. I don't know if it's always paid off for me, because I've been ridiculed and humiliated.
I'll never stop doing stand-up. There's nothing better than getting in front of 2,500 people and making an entire room laugh.
Stand-up came out of three things. Frustration, necessity and arrogance. I didn't have a great career ahead of me in anything. Someone literally said to me, 'You should try stand-up,' and took me to a venue.
Stand-up was my entree into the entertainment world. I didn't have to act out somebody else's words. I could just stand there with a microphone, and nobody would interrupt me. It's the most narcissistic thing you could probably do.
The thing about stand-ups is you can't really get good unless you're failing in front of a large number of people. That makes stand-up comedy unique: you need a tremendous amount of reserve within you to take the rejection from the audience, and without it, you can't do anything.
Stand-up is like a movie every night. You write it, direct it, produce it, the audience votes, and you go home. There's nothing more satisfying.
Stand-up will always come first. I've been doing it for 22 years, and nothing compares to that connection you have with the audience. It's euphoric.
The best part about being a stand-up is the connection with the audience. There's nothing more gratifying then when you can make 300 people applaud and stand up - because that's all you.