This sounds like a brag, but I know how to make good fried rice. I learned in college. There are two secrets - take the rice after you cook it and let it get cold in the fridge. Then cook the egg like you're making a fried egg and just before it's done, dump the rice and veg on it and swirl it around.
To get asked to do stuff like 'United States Of Tara' and 'Caprica' is terrific. I can't complain.
I think I realized it was an art form at the beginning, but it took me a really long time before I was able to view what I was performing myself as an art form.
But for the most part, for the majority of a stand-up audience, you better have new stuff they've not heard. And if you put an album out, just consider that material gone. At least that's how I see it.
Somebody is going to find a way digitally that is just as innovative. In the end, the tools can change, but there is always someone who can think of something cool to do.
We're rewarding either the reality or the appearance of youth, which is why you have all these people in their fifties trying to act like they're seventeen. You know, it's great to be young. Be young. By all means, be young. But always remember that youth is also kinda dumb, and doesn't know a lot yet.
There's nothing wrong with doing comedies, and I'm not against comedies, either, but I always want to do stuff that keeps me off my guard and gets me out of my comfort zone.
I'm glad that that era of stand-up is over, because I think it adversely affected a lot of people who could have been really, really great comedians. Because they unconsciously or subconsciously stifled their wild impulses, and were thinking about the five clean minutes for The Tonight Show, or the 20-minute sitcom pitch as a stand-up act.
With a comedian, it's the opposite. You put that album out, and they've heard it. If they're coming out to see you, you'd better be doing new stuff. There's always a tiny part of the audience that want to hear certain bits of yours, or they've brought friends to see you, and they've told them about some of your bits. Then maybe you should do them.
I'm going to continue to try to strike a balance, because I really, really do love doing stand-up, and I don't see why it should affect the acting. And again, I'm not going, "I've got to become a dramatic actor now." I just want more interesting jobs. I just want to keep doing stuff that's different.
I'm grateful that I had that uphill battle for 10 years of going onstage and having nobody know who I was, because you have to win them over.
I have a lot of friends who were stand-ups, and they just stopped after a while, because they didn't like that battle, or they just couldn't do it. And then they would get on a sitcom and get visible and get back into it, because the audience was just way easier on them. But they lost those crucial years of learning to turn any audience into your audience.
What I was trying to say in that bit, without saying it out loud, is that there were things - you're right, everything is very politicized these days, literally down to what kind of coffee you drink - that I used to fight with people about. And by the way, not just people like Republicans and Christians, but liberal friends of mine and very radical left-wing types, and alternative, indie types.
I like confounding expectations. I can expand what it is I am able to do, and hopefully get to do more weird, interesting projects like this. There's nothing wrong with doing comedies, and I'm not against comedies, either, but I always want to do stuff that keeps me off my guard and gets me out of my comfort zone. And how the audience perceives that... It's out of my hands. And I don't get that frustrated by it, because I'm on to the next thing at that point.
I'm such a bookworm, and I'm such a people-watcher. It took the Internet a while to catch on in Ireland, because the culture there is, you go to the pub and talk to people there, and that's how you get the news and all the gossip. You just do it face to face. And culturally, you just couldn't understand.
There's something kind of beautiful about that pure love of things. Like, "I'll show that I love the thing I love by hating everything else."
I think most comedians go through that (period), where you have to change or evolve. You don't want to just keep doing variations on the same themes. And, besides, it would look kinda creepy for a guy my age to be doing stuff that, like, a 20-year-old would do. 'Yeah, this is bullshit!' It's, like, 'Really? You don't have bigger concerns at this point in your life?'
I really had to imagine the kind of person that I would have been if I had never left my hometown... I don't think I would have been a very pleasant person.
You know, in Los Angeles, you're constantly in your car, you're sealed up, you're not walking around. Whereas in New York, after a while, all your stuff is kind of public, in one way or the other. I'm not saying either one of those is bad; they're both great for a very specific kind of comedian. And I'm glad that they both exist.
I'm always trying out new stuff onstage. That's where I do all my writing.
I'm not familiar with the metric system.
If you actually do cold readings, it's very close to how people actually talk, because you're experiencing these thoughts anew every moment, and trying to make them come out coherently.
Even if it's other people, like on MySpace pages, we're just as collective of enthusiasts now. That seems to be the world we're in.
All the truly great stand-ups say, "I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work." To me, in the end, the surest thing is work.
You saw a lot of guys, especially in the early '90s, whose acts were a pitch for a sitcom. A lot of them were very funny, but there's nothing worse than watching comedians or musicians who are up there and are doing something they're not interested in.
