J. B. Smoove Quotes

I never even thought of myself as deadpan until someone wrote an article about me about a year after I was doing comedy. There was a paper called the 'Boston Phoenix,' and someone wrote a description of what I was doing and that's where I first saw 'deadpan.'

Comedians' first ten minutes usually stay with them the first several years of their career. It's their mission statement. Their disclaimer that lets people know who they are. Or were. It's also a good time to make fun of your name if you have a funny or strange one.

I think a theater show is a pure version of me doing my material. The theater crowd is a bit more polite, there really aren't hecklers, and there are a lot of people there to see me, and they're excited about the jokes and hanging out with me for a show.

A lot of comics aren't their on-screen personas; Chris Rock isn't always ranting and raving. What I do is make myself this over-the-top character that people either find endearing or they think is a joke. Then I can do anything I want.

When I started, I was doing all the good comedians I'd ever seen. Then I developed my own voice. My routines are my natural way of looking at the world.

The misconception is that standup comics are always on. I don't know any really funny comics that are annoying and constantly trying to be funny all the time.

I'm hardly a known name, but I don't want to go, like, 'Oh, people call me a storyteller comedian, let me just go up and just talk about my day.' I don't want that to happen.

It's much better to wreak havoc on a show and be a maniac than promote myself. Plugs and anecdotes aren't really in line with my beliefs. Besides, if someone sees me on a morning show and thinks, 'That's not funny; this guy is crazy,' then I don't want them to come to the show anyway.

For the first six months of my stand-up career, I was talking like Danny Dyer. I was doing a lot of 'alright guvnors?' It wasn't true to who I was.

I sometimes use a girl singer the way Henny Youngman uses his violin - as a bridge between one laugh and the next.

There's only one rule in stand-up, which is that you have to be funny. Yet 99 per cent of comics look and talk exactly the same.

When they first start doing comedy, new comics or even people that have only been doing it three or four years, they're doing an impersonation of a stand-up. This is what I think a stand-up should sound like.

I just want to keep doing my comedy work because that's what I do. I made a name for myself playing other characters.

Every time I go onstage, it's a little less 'Chris Rock's brother.'

It took me a good eight to ten years to really formulate what I was doing onstage and start to get really personal with comedy. I always really had timing naturally, it was just about trying to figure out how that timing was going to work onstage.

It wasn't so much figuring out my voice comedically, because that was always pretty clear. It was more about performing and being a good, watchable performer.

There's a lot of nuances to stand-up that you definitely see when you watch someone like Chris Rock in that his body position is also part of why the joke works.

My persona is most importantly just to communicate the material in a way that is most funny and meaningful in the moment. It's more like a character that's sculpted for whatever joke needs communicating at the moment.

'Where's Bill going?' He's going to comedy death. Boom! He pops out of it with another joke. It's my particular style.

Every comedian is just doing the comedy they find funny. This is me and it's not clean in any way. I could get a lot more work on TV playing clean but it's never interesting.

It's hard to get laughs when you're new.

In my Comedy Club sets, I just work on what is fresh and try to build that show as long as I can. I don't like to do burnt material on stage. Even though my crowd loves to hear me do old stuff, I don't like to do old stuff.

Some audiences can shake and bang their heads on the stage to riffs all night long, but subtlety is an art that must be mastered if you're going to be remembered.

Bette Midler can say four-letter words and make you love it.

The key to comedy is commitment - if you're afraid, you shouldn't be a comedian.