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I basically did comedy there for about a year, and then moved to New York. If I had it to do over again, I would have booked myself on the road for at least a year.

Not all comedy clubs or situations are ideal, especially when you're first coming up and I think that's good for you. Eventually you get to express your real personality.

I started out in stand-up when I was 18, which is really masochistic, and I did it really till I started going in movies. I did it for about three years out in LA.

Everyone who wants to make it in comedy goes to L.A., so a million comedians fight for time on three stages. If you get in there in New York, you're working eight times a night sometimes. Who's going to be funny, the guy who works once a week, or the guy working eight times a night?

From 1987 to 1992, I was on the road for 40 weeks a year playing comedy clubs, and that was during the 'comedy boom.'

In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it.

There's a lot of open mics, a lot of comedy clubs. Whatever money I could make was OK with me. As long as I could pay the rent, eat food, and tell jokes, doing it was good enough for me.

Somewhat naively, I entered the BBC's 'New Talent Competition,' believing it was for people who had never tried comedy before. I remember sitting in the dressing room before the show and hearing the other acts - who all knew one another - talking to Rhod Gilbert about how he must be about ready to go 'full-time' as a comic.

I started going to the open mics every day in 2003. You make the comics laugh, they get you work, and you build up your reputation. It was a slow process.

I've played every comedy club and every theatre across the country for the last 25 years and seen a lot of audience members from different ethnic persuasions.

Like everybody, I started out doing 'bringer' shows - the kind where if you show up with a certain number of people, you get to perform. Sometimes I would actually pay strangers off the street to come in and see my set.

See, I'm totally fearless. I got my chops in the most, like, dangerous comedy atmosphere. If you can make it in New York, you can really do stand-up anywhere.

Certainly, when I left New Zealand, there was no career there as a comedian. I was doing more live gigs than anyone, and I was maybe doing three a week. Even then, it would often be the same people in the audience, going, 'I saw you on Tuesday, mate!'

I've spent the last few years just really actively pursuing comedy and that's something I always wanted to know how to do.

When I first graduated college, I told my parents I'd try to pursue comedy for the first year or two, and if it didn't work out, I'd put my nose to the grindstone and try to find a job somehow. I went to UCB, and it clicked with me.

To succeed in comedy you ultimately have to put in the hours and get lucky - The amount of people who are able to break through is so small a fraction of the amount of people trying.

When you're a comic, it's like being born gay. It's what you want to do every night when your other friends are out at night going to parties.

Comedy isn't really something where you get discovered. You can't network your way to being funny or talented. It's not hard to get seen if you're funny. If you're funny, talented, and work hard, you will go somewhere.

I call myself a comic.But I started as an actress. I did plays since I was 5.

I really wanted to, but I just didn't understand how people became comedians. I kind of thought it was something you were born into. And so I wanted to be a veterinarian or an architect. I wanted to be in a band, and for some reason I could understand how you could be in a band because I had guitars and all my friends played music. Comedy was a secret want, but it wasn't anything I pursued.

I always loved comedy, but it never seemed like something that I could do professionally.

I've been trying to bust into the comedy business my whole life. It's hard in Hollywood to do different things. I know this. It's a struggle.

For the most part, comedy is the only fair part of show business.

I think comedy is on an organic upsurge right now because when I started, it was 1978 at The Comedy Store and Letterman had just stopped emceeing his morning show.

I'm looking to be the next comedy mogul.