You know, at 14 years old, you don't really contemplate success and that aspect of work, you kinda do things because it's fun to do. We had an amazing crew and cast, and I had the best 8 years of my life on the show. It's not something you can force, it's either something that happens or doesn't. Yeah!
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It hasn't changed at all. I have an idea, I act it out in my head, and then put it into a dictaphone, usually playing all the parts. The only thing that's changed is expectation. It was nice to come from nowhere. But you just have to put all of that out of your mind, and write like this is your first breakthrough job. And always write about what you know.
You never "make it." That is a mentality that guarantees you'll never be happy. If you are doing it in any capacity, especially for money no matter how much, you are making it, you have never "made it." Trust me. It's one of the many things I'm right about.
I still have the same freedom because i don't care, when I'm writing, that I"m famous. It doesn't help or hurt.
I don't really think about it. I do my act and tell my stories and the rest just happens. I've done with varying degrees of success and failure and been okay with all of them so I don't worry about how I'm doing i just do what i'm doing.
I am amazed at my career trajectory. Very seriously. I am a midwestern guy from a family where television and showbiz were not valued in any way and the whole notion of being a part of this business was very strange and hard to conceive of. Having said all of that, I love sketch comedy but I always thought I might actually have more to offer as a performer, in a slightly dramatic context. My favorite sketch performers; Chris Farley, David Cross, Dana Carvey, have a simpler, more likable energy than I do. I can't believe anyone "likes" me. But please, keep putting up with me!
I suppose I am most proud of the fact that I am still here working in comedy and doing what I love. In life there are a lot of forces that can try to bring you down, but if you stick to your vision and keep at it, you will find success.
Actually most comedians who's success really sticks come to it late in life. It takes a long time to make a really successful comedian and I've known that from the start, truly. I always expected that I'd work in obscurity for a long long time. It's waht it takes and to me it was worth it. I have also alway found new and fun ways to make a living, writing for others, ect.
[not remembering his own success] is good, because what that’s allowed me to do is have a vantage point about my own life that’s accessible to people still. I could see a guy walking down the street and be like, Even though I’m famous, I got more in common with this guy than, like, Brad Pitt. You know what I mean? Like, as a comedian, there’s a certain closeness you need with people. I listen to some of Richard Pryor’s shows as an adult, and it’s more remarkable—moments when he’s talking about freebasing and Jim Brown, staging interventions, and just these kinds of bits. Or the one where he says, "He took me in the basement and showed me the monster." I mean, I get chills thinking about that...
Well, obviously, I don't really know about jobs I didn't get. And entertainment is much more lenient, liberal and understanding about mental health issues than any other industry. (My manager said when I called him from the psych ward- "Oh! I have two other clients with bipolar- call me when you feel better!") If it has, I don't care- I didn't have much to lose by being open about it and it turns out, weirdly, it's been a cash cow, haha.
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I agree with Justin Kirk who played Andy on Weeds..."I don't feel things when they are happening." At the time I was fine with it and looking forward to moving on to other things in life but now I am becoming a little nostalgic for it. We would have begun taping Season 9 this week. I have certain years that were my favorite on that run. I think when any show runs that long you are going to have some years that are stronger than others. I ran into Chevy Chase once and he said that with SNL a lot of people don't remember this but only one out of two SNL shows in the original years were good.
I had a great time on that show. That was a really fun time in my life. I left Saturday Night Live, and was happy after about 2 years of that show, I realized we were going to stick around, and it was happy to have the monkey off your back, when you leave SNL it doesn't mean you're not going to do anything else in your life in show business. So to leave it, and then get something else that kind of clicked, and I could make money at, and was really fun to do, was great. So if I didn't have Just Shoot Me, I wouldn't have had a lot of stuff. I would have never gotten a cover of Rolling Stone, I never would have gotten the house I had, and I got to work with fun people and do a show that I was p...
I think playing Oliver Sachs in Awakenings was a gift because I got to meet him, and got to explore the human brain from the inside out. Because Oliver writes about human behavior subjectively and that for me was the beginning of a fascination with human behavior.
Daily Show was a really intense grind. So much fun, but less about spontaneous laughs and more about building comedy and crafting jokes for the on-air segments. The Office was more about just trying to make each other laugh all the time. So the vibes were very different, but equally rewarding and exciting. And hilarious.
I have to say that the only good reviews I've gotten in my movie life were for The Emperor's New Groove. I really, really liked that movie. It was very hard to do (which sounds crazy, because it's only the voice) but the backstory was, it was originally called Empire of the Sun. And it was myself and Owen Wilson as sort of a prince and a pauper trading places type thing. And we got a year and a half into it, and Michael Eisner from Disney looked at a rough cut and said "I don't like it." And they got rid of everybody but Spade, and they had this dopey llama idea. It sounds like they just made it up on the spot, and he liked it, and somehow those guys put together a whole new idea, and it was...
Each year I'm getting more and more joy out of the process than the outcome...that may be because I've been fortunate to have great outcomes and are taking them for granted but I like to think I'm remapping my neurology and interpreting certain experiences differently. I like talking to other people about how to tackle a story. If I were a character in a movie, my "arc" would definitely have something to do with a journey from isolation to collaboration. In other words, as I near my retirement, my real joy has become exploiting younger writers.
I had actually pitched Nathan for You to Comedy Central before I started working on Jon Benjamin Has a Van. It was inspired by segments I did for a Canadian series called "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" where I'd interact with real people in an interview setting. I first began doing these segments in 2007. But it's always interesting to watch different approaches to dealing with real people, and it was very educational to work with Jon and see how he operated. You Can't Shoot Here is one of my all time favorite comedy bits.
I love that movie. Getting to play that part was such a gift for me. We had a real balance of genuine emotional resonance, with highly stylized high school life. It's all subject matter and humor that I love. Plus everyone on set and in production knew each other, or were aware of each other over the years, so filming was kind of like a party. GREAT TIME.
The only movie I watch end to end over and over again is Walk Hard. It just makes me laugh and relaxes me. the rest I will watch pieces of when they are on cable. I have so many emotions tied to every scene it’s hard for me to be a normal audience to any of it. Except Dewey Cox. And Zohan. And Popstar. I guess the sillier ones draw me in.
I was really worried they would ruin everything that I had built for doing comedy on a national level. I was worried it would look like I sold out and they weren't funny. But they worked. The directors were awesome, they offered me a lot of money, and the spots were really really well written. Then they let me improvise and write lines. It was really a more collaborative process than most movies I"ve been in. How weird is that? But I guess people liked them and that's all that matters. I've said the word "really" a lot in that answer and I'll own up to it. I'm really not ashamed of it.
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