I was just on twitter talking about Roseanne because she gave mea first job, and I thought of her and Chappelle who I have both worked with, and who have both been called "Difficult" or "crazy." And that word crazy when it's applied to an entertainer can torpedo their career. One time I was on a show, and I wanted to get Burt Reynolds to play my father, and the director said "You don't want Burt Reynolds, he's crazy." I said "I don't want you to be my director. I want Burt Reynolds." So crazy just means creative. And difficult just means hardworking, and opinionated. And Roseanne was a victim to this specifically because she was a woman, which is very sad. But that's all I was saying.
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Related posts tagged 'Creativity'
Often both... some ideas pop in out of nowhere and come easily and almost HAVE to exist... some ideas need love and care and work and attention.
Get familiar with the BURN of the learning curve and just accept that the only way to get better at anything is to fail over and over and over. I saw this video of this amazing archer and he was shooting arrows through tubes and quarters and making these amazing shots and someone next to him said "Lucky shot!" and he said "The more I practice the luckier I get!"
it all comes in seasons and waves. the best we can hope it when we are called on, we are in a creative season! and if we're not, sometimes that panic of a deadline is enough to snap me out of it. but it's all self love. if youre blocked, love youself anyway. it's a better strategy and will make it go away faster than being hard on yourself. take a nap! take a walk! take a drive! watch a movie! it's all writing. just in your subconscious
Self-expression is a hallmark of an artist, of art, to get something off one’s chest, to sing one’s song. So that element is present in all art. And comedy, although it is not one of the fine arts—it’s a vulgar art, it’s one of the people’s arts, it’s the spoken word, the writing that goes into it is an art form—it’s certainly artistry. So self-expression is the key to even standing up and saying, "Hey, listen to me." Self-expression can be based on looking at the world and making observations about it or not. Comedy can also be based on describing one’s inner self—doing anecdotes, talking about your own fears. Woody Allen taps into a lot of self-analysis in his comedy. But I don’t think the...
Your dreams are very well written. I know this, without knowing any of you. People turn anxieties, crises and longing, love, regret and guilt into beautiful rich stories in their dreams. What is it that allows us the creative freedom in our dreams that we don’t have in our waking lives? I don’t know, but I suspect part of it is that in our dreams we are not constricted by worry about how we will appear to others. It’s a private conversation with ourselves, and if we’re worried about it, this becomes part of the dream. I think if we were better able to approach our work this way, the results would be different.
If you ask yourself, `Is there anything I can do to get a laugh?’ you can find a lot of things.
And usually they’re things that other people have found. But if you take something that’s never going to work and you go, `Wow, I wonder if there’s any way I can get somebody to laugh at this?’ it’s a great challenge.
sure, i think it naturally boxes me in. One fun thing is to always try to working outside of boxes though... and i think people have gotten a little too concerened about things like genres and labels. I'm hoping this record is additive to my body of work and makes me a more interesting person to pay attention to.
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.
[In reply to Louis CK, who was leading a discussion about the importance of maintaining a physical training routine and its relation to comedy]
Louis,
I concur that poor health leads to sloth and effects your creativity.
Repeating any behavior continually will effect your writing as it gives
you nothing new to say. I do drugs, yes I do but I only do them socially. Its the fact that I
talk openly about it that gives the impression that there is a
frequency. I’ve probably done mushrooms 6 times this year, acid once
(poor quality), coke maybe 5 or 6 times, and about three xanax a week
to sleep. I dont smoke pot.
So smokes and drink are about my only habits and the cigarettes
certainly n...
That would be me, Robert, when I was EPing Dana Carvey's prime time variety show in 1996. We wanted to to do cartoons on the show, and pretty much anything that make it feel different than SNL. The great writer and deviant Dino Stamatopoulos pitched me something entirely different - what if characters like Wallace and Gromit were clearly having a sexual relationship? I didn't know much about what would be acceptable to the ABC audience watching after Home Improvement but I correctly identified that as unacceptable. Anyway, for some reason, the AGD idea just came to me at the end of that conversation. What if we did two superheroes and everyone suspects they're gay? It was always more about t...
Related posts tagged 'Opinion of other comics'
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Related posts tagged 'Opinion of other comics'
Fucking awesome. He is one of my best friends and the weird part is: We are very similar, and one of the things I admire most about him is how caring, kind, and nice he is. He really is one of the best guys I know, and would lay down on the tracks for any friend of his. I also think he is one of the few geniuses working today. He is one of the best writers, I am one of the worst, so I think we enjoy the difference in one another while still finding the other very very funny.
He also accepts my lunacy, understands my madness and gives me room to do all five.
he really hasn't changed much. he was quite evolved for a 25 year-old. He was already a very cool filmmaker and I'm very happy that he's be able to scratch that itch after all these years.
On the other hand, if you have someone like Bill Hicks who's just this fraud that screams at the top of his lungs and tells you that multi-national oil companies are not a good thing, then that will attract a wide, wide audience of half-smart college kids.
They're good. I don't know them as well as I knew the previous one. But i really feel like the previous cast, that was the best group since the original group. They were my favorite group. Some really talented people that were all comedians of some kind or another. You think about Dana Carvey, Will, Hartman, all these wonderful funny guys. But the last group with Kristen Wiig and those characters, they were a bunch of actors and their stuff was just different. It's all about the writing, the writing is such a challenge and you are trying to write backwards to fit 90 minutes between dress rehearsal and the airing. And sometimes the writers don't get the whole thing figured out, it's not like ...
The smartest SNL cast member was Adam Sandler, by far.
People are going to know this - when I got hired, Adam was hired as a writer, he wasn't even hired as a cast member. And he was smart enough to write stuff for other people AND write stuff for himself at the same time. Made himself indispensable. Made himself into a star. Smartest guy I know.
I like him. I'm not sure he likes me. I think he is a genius, a gentleman, and a true absurdist. Now I respect Andy Kaufman, and there are parts of his philosophy that I even follow, but as a comedian, I didn't find him funny and found some of his stuff just self indulgent. Comedy is ultimately about the audience, not the comedian. So that is a very staunch stance to take, and one that probably makes me not as popular with certain comedians and them with me.
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