Some of my biggest influences are people like Steven Wright and Todd Berry. I'm a shy person, and I don't think people who aspire to do comedy think that's an option.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think comedy stems from being honest, often painfully so. I hope I can achieve that perspective in my own life and also have fun.
A lot of critics object to what I do, but I got into comedy to make people laugh, and I've always worked hard.
What I've found in my career is that 70 to 75 percent of comics are nice and have some sense of social skills, but there are those who end up in comedy because they don't know how to socialize. I don't want to deal with that group.
I know so many people who are so much better at it than I am, and I think I'm a goofier person rather than a serious, dramatic actress, so I probably belong in comedy.
I do comedy at a lot of colleges, and at the end of those shows, I take time to be a little more real with audiences. I try to inspire them to follow their dreams. When I was that age, it was incredible to hear stuff like that.
Comedy will always be central to what I do, it's just an instinct for me, but I am a writer and always have been.
I listened to this interview once with Jerry Seinfeld that really influenced my comedy and all of my writing, which is that when you're starting out in comedy, it's the audience that tells you what's funny about you. And you need to listen to that and make a note of that.
Every time I've done comedy in, like, traditional comedy clubs, there's always these comedians that do really well with audiences but that the other comedians hate because they're just, you know, doing kind of cheap stuff like dancing around or doing, like, very kind of base sex humor a lot, and stuff like that.
I sort of attract people who are interested in my comedy for being able to talk about whatever I want to talk about and not being ashamed of who I am and not hiding it.
Being a comedy writer gives you permission to be an outsider and poke fun at what people think about other people.