I put on such a good show, the story is outrageous, and people don't want to hear that I'm basically a reasonable human being. As long as it continues to get me print, I'll continue to perform in an exuberant manner.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Anybody who's done standup will tell you that there's nothing like it. The show starts at 8:00, the curtain goes up and there's nobody else except you and the audience, and you just perform for them for two hours. Nobody yells, 'Cut!' There are no retakes. That is still the most exciting medium for me, and I love it.
If you don't have a story that will hold the audience, you won't have a successful show.
As a writer, it's fun to create. And once you get into a long-running show with very established characters and a very established tone and format, after a while it's a really great job, but that's what it is - a job.
One of my producers said this business is like a hamster on that little wheel thing that goes around and around. You may have a great day and get great ratings, but then you've got another show to do - whatever moment of success or happiness you have you've got to keep grinding it out for the next day.
In this fragmented world, with such short attention spans, you've got a couple of episodes to make an impression. And if you don't, you start to lose your audience in a big way.
I could keep trying to do the same kind of comedies. You know how it's going to go, and you can get an audience with it, but then I feel like a hamster on a wheel.
I'm a great audience myself. I tried to keep in the background while others were on, but sometimes I'd just get hysterical.
The one thing people like about my show is it's universal. Everybody can relate to it. I think people enjoy going to a show and saying, 'Something like that happened to me.'
My show is more storytelling now than it's ever been. It's what I'm good at.
I admit there's an element of brutality in all my work - it's part of the truth about human existence I always want to explore - but the last thing I'm trying to do is put on some kind of freak show, inviting people to get off on other people's pain and humiliation.