Sebastian Maniscalco Quotes

I'm conflicted with theater in the city because you want to reach a diverse audience, and that audience doesn't typically go to the theater.

I love test screenings. Some directors don't, I know. But I love it. I think it's because I come from the theatre and in the theatre, previews are where you really have to listen to the audience and really feel how they're responding. I found our test screenings incredibly useful.

After you do a joke a few times, you have material that you know works. Although sometimes I have a joke that has worked a bunch of times and then one night it'll flop. And that's when I really take a hard look at myself and say: 'Well, that crowd is obviously wrong. That crowd has absolutely no idea what it's talking about.'

You have in Vegas the most heterogeneous audience you're gonna get anywhere in the country. In Boston, Chicago, Miami, you know who goes to the theater. In Vegas, you have people who only see one theater show a year, and it's in Vegas.

I do think that, yes, one should always be receptive to the fact that there are many different types of audiences, and they are not necessarily in a clean, reductive demographic like they once were.

My American audiences are pretty mixed. I get all sorts of people, old and young. It's nice.

Audiences are brutally honest nowadays. If they don't like an actor, they have all the right to write him off.

What I love about my audience is it's extremely diverse as far as the ethnicities and the ages that show up.

The audience is so important. Because there's something that I might think is super funny, but if it's just not getting the feedback, I have to let it go.

The audience determines whether they still want to watch you or not.

When you do comedy in front of an audience, they are the ones who tell you whether it's funny or not and which bits are funny and which bits need to be fixed.

A lot of songs I sang to crowds to get their reaction. That's how I knew they'd hit.

You listen to the audience. The audience is wrong individually and always right collectively. If they don't laugh, it isn't funny. If they cough, it isn't interesting. If they walk out, you are in trouble.

You need an audience to help you figure out what's working and what's worth putting on your album or your special - or even just what's worth touring with.

Jesse has opened for me extensively on the road so I’ve seen him do hundreds of sets. He is always super funny, has tons of material and the crowds love him. Bottom line, Jesse Joyce is a great comedian.

Sometimes I go to a test screening and look at the audience in line, and I start to go, "Okay, I bet this is going to work, and this isn't going to work." It's weird, but just going and facing the music and putting it out before a crowd, even before it starts playing, that exercise of putting it up on a screen for people makes you realize things even before it starts rolling. It's really weird. I've heard other people say that, too.

It's important to be a global citizen at the same time and appreciate different cultures and different people and different ways of life.

In the film industry you never really know if all the various ingredients will come together - sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. As an actor, you don't have much control over those things. It's a director's medium in that sense. All you can really do is minimise the risks of being involved in something that might not work and look for something that also suits you.

I think it's pretty dynamic. There's a lot of energy there and life, and you'll have women dressed in their traditional African dress when they come, and you have people from all over the place, and some people have headphones on because they're listening in Spanish.

I'm really proud of the album. It's something I always wanted to do but I had to wait until I was ready. Shakespeare is a culmination of eight years of stand up experience and joke writing. I recorded two shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York. The crowds were great and that's what really makes an album.

I don't know what's funny and what's not so I test out all of my material in front of audiences.

As an actor, early on, you learn that the audience is never wrong. And if you think they are wrong, you need to find a different way to make a living. Collectively the audience is smarter than you will ever, ever be.

When you're in front of an audience, you know if it didn't work. I get very nervous and have a fear of failure that is much more profound than in the podcast world.

The last collaborator is your audience ... when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. Things that seem to work well -- work in a sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece -- suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional or a little overlong or a little overweight or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping from an audience.

If you ask me right now, you've seen the last of Mind of Mencia. I don't want to be a one-trick pony. I would rather walk away and do more movies, comedy and even some dramatic roles.