When you're a standup comic, you get up and you try stuff, and you're always kind of seeing how far you can push things.
Aasif Mandvi
If you like standup and decide that it's overtaking your life and want to hate it, watch 1,000 standup comedians who are trying to get on a TV show.
Adam DeVine
As a comedian, it really gelled when I started doing standup. Because standup is so much about bravery, especially in the early days. There is no doubt that it is going to go terribly for you over and over and over again. But you cannot get funny without bombing.
Aisha Tyler
Standup comedy is inordinately difficult. If doing something else for a living will make you equally happy, choose that instead. I'm serious. Comedy is punishing.
There was a stage in my career, especially with standup, where I felt, because I didn't know why I was doing well, that anyone who would tell me anything; I was sort of like, 'What did they say? Yeah, I'll take that advice.' Now I'm a bit more careful who I choose to listen to.
Aisling Bea
People see me on the 'Daily Show' or 'About a Boy'. But the reality is that I only got into this business to do standup comedy.
Al Madrigal
I did standup comedy. I opened once for Jay Leno.
Alan Colmes
I wouldn't call myself a standup in the presence of Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock, but I do my share of it and it has been and remains part of my activity and I like it.
Alan Thicke
Standup comedy was my weird hobby. I would drag my poor parents out to the only open mics that were in coffee shops instead of bars. I'd get up and go, 'Hi, I'm 17, and I have jokes about matriculation!' At the time I was like, 'Why is no one laughing?'
Alexandra Petri
My first summer in college, I interned for Arena Stage in D.C. and taught a disastrous class on standup comedy to middle schoolers at the Arena Stage camp. I had never taught anything before, and needless to say, I quickly lost control of the class.
At the end of the day, I'm not really trying to make a statement with any of my standup.
Ali Wong
A couple of female standup comics I know refer to their kids as their Little Career Killers. I was like, I really do not want to feel that way.
I'm more influenced by characters than standups. I love strong, comic women because it's so hard, and I have so much respect for anyone who can do it. I'm a big fan of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and people like that.
Amy Hoggart
I think standup is pretty good for an introvert because you are performing, but, I mean, it's on your own terms. There are so many people in the room, but it's a one-sided conversation. And you actually don't have to interact - unless you want to.
Amy Schumer
I'm not a standup, but I play one on TV.
Ana Gasteyer
I don't enjoy writing newspaper articles any more than people like reading them. I'm a standup comic, not a journalist, although sometimes onstage I will say: 'What else is in the news?' Writing is work, which I'm not comfortable with.
Andy Kindler
I even get tired performing standup, which is normally a low-impact exercise in futility but looks hard the way I do it. That's why I take a lot of breaks, often stopping in the middle of a joke to catch my breath, or blame the crowd for not laughing before the punchline.
One of the first jokes I wrote was this nail salon bit that ended up blowing up on YouTube. That's kind of what propelled me into standup.
Anjelah Johnson
I crave the variety, I really do. I'd probably say standup as I think that's what I do best, if I may say so. But it can be a really self-absorbed, obsessive way to live your life, whereas doing theatre is very collaborative and creative and intense, I'd hate to miss out on that.
Ardal O'Hanlon
Sometimes I start off shows by explaining to people that it's just a bunch of stories - I always say 'It's like standup, just less funny.'
Ari Shaffir
It's weird because standup can be like therapy. Comedians can't be satisfied with just having fun with our friends. We've got to figure out a way to do it on stage.
Richard Lewis has this incredible ability to look like he's just... you know it's an act that's been honed. What you have to do in standup is create spontaneity, somehow; even though you've done this act a million times, you gotta look like you're almost just thinking of it now, to make it entertainer.
When I became a standup comic, my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor, and you know, I think that comedians, like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that's not original.
When you improvise, you work off the laughs from the audience, but when you step on stage to do standup, it's silent.
Louis C. K. is one of my all time favorite standup comedians.
The name of my first comedy album was 'Raised by Cable.' Coming up and watching all of these weird movies on different channels was such an influence on me and an influence on how I do standup. It informs everything I do.
I've always been a comedy nerd, and 'Partners in Crime' was probably more influential for me than anything else because it was not only standup, but Robert Townsend had those short films.
Standup led me to acting because I liked standup, and I saw people on a stage, and the closest, nearest thing to me was doing plays. It was like, that's the same thing as standup - people are on a stage; they're being seen and saying things - so, because of my love of standup, I moved towards acting.
I was always just like, 'Standups are making it up.' A lot of people have that myth about standup. And so it wasn't until I was in college for theater school in Boston that I realized I can actually start going to open mics and figuring this out.
I think any good standup or actor is part philosopher, part psychologist and sociologist, because you're constantly recreating behaviors.
I am not a big fan of very prepared standup. I like when Dave Attell writes and I appreciate it but I much more enjoy with he does crowd work. I'm not that kind of comic that prepares a specific set. If I see a comic do the same prepared set night after night I am so bored.
You have to have a thick skin, yes. If you're going to do something as foolhardy as standup, you've got to be able to take it on the chin if someone has a go at you.
Standup is a form of therapy. It is OK to tell problems to your audience as long as you are being honest and not boring them. I tell them that I am saving $75 an hour when I talk to them instead of a therapist.
In my standup work, I always do these characters, older people who are just off to the side. It's easier to write a story about the guy who made it to the top, but the middle is so much more interesting, so much more murky.
It's still a soft R, but when I watch other people's standup, I'm dumbfounded that people call me dirty. That's only because I did family television.
I really love standup because it's something that I've been literally doing for 40 years, which means I'm a thousand years old.
I continue to do standup because there's a connection with a live audience - there are skills that you do learn as a standup comedian that help you on a set.
Whenever people hear that Kurt Cobain was a fan of my standup, it's like hearing Jimi Hendrix loved Buddy Hackett or something.
I had a standup act, and I ended up turning it into something that was really watered down and accessible. Something that went from scary and threatening to something that was almost to the point of being corny.
Standup is really the only thing in the entertainment business that you do totally alone.
In standup, it's just you. You're your own writer, your own critic, your own director, and it's never the same. You really don't always have it down. Your continue to learn, you continue to risk, and I really love it.
I do standup once a year, when I host the CMAs.
It's a young man's game - standup comedy.
Tracy Ullman, I grew up watching her shows and standup and improv and specials. Bette Midler and Whoopi Goldberg. They inspire me to do it all. I always wanted to do it all; I never wanted to be put in a box.
'Dinner' is completely scripted. There are some improv elements, but I'm not interested in pranking people. It's more like a play than standup.
I do standup every week in L.A. at the Laugh Factory and the Improv.
Metal is easily my favorite thing - Exodus and Anthrax and Megadeth - so it just kind of organically came through in the standup act.
When I go into schools to speak, I am not giving a speech - it's really a one-man show. I call it 'didactic standup.'
I personally knew and worked with Sammy Davis, Jr. Sammy hired me to open for him at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas when I was a 19-year-old standup comedian, and that's where my fascination with his incredible story began.
I started out with comedy in college, but had my major in Recreation Administration - which meant I wasn't going to get a real job - so I started doing a little standup.
