Marc Evan Jackson Quotes

In Miami, I was studying improv as well as acting. Improv is a great tool to have, just for the comedic timing that you get. When I moved to L.A., I started taking classes with The Groundlings, and I loved it. I'm definitely in love with improv and comedy.

I joined an improv group in college, which was a lot of fun. After I graduated, I moved to Chicago to try to get into the Second City.

When I was at Upright Citizens Brigade, I would pretend to be a sad, drunk rapper.

I started doing improv my sophomore year.

If it weren't for The Groundlings, I would never be on Saturday Night Live.

Comedy is really my passion. I started out way before television doing sketch comedy with other women. Very much along the lines of, at the time it was 'Sensible Footwear', but now it's 'Smack The Pony', 'French And Saunders', that kind of thing. That's how I started out.

My experience is at The Groundlings Theater, where we created different characters and did sketch comedy. And sometimes the characters were outrageous, but they always came from a real place. So even working there, we had to create characters from the people that we knew.

I did Second City, and Nia Vardalos also did Second City, so I knew her from there.

My stepfather had a connection with The Second City and told me I should go there. I woke up in a cold sweat one night and said, 'I'm moving to Chicago.' That's how I went to Second City.

I got my degree in acting and theater, and then I had a teacher who told me to take a class with The Groundlings. And for a second, I thought, 'Well, I don't know about that. I'm a serious actress.' And then I did, and I loved it, and I said, 'Ah, well, I guess this is what I'm going to do now.'

I've been doing improv since high school, and I've been getting paid for it since I was 20.

I started in action, and then I went to comedy school.

I don't want to do procedural: I want to do longform.

When I moved to New York, I didn't know how much improv and comedy would play into my life. I thought I was going to do theater and Broadway and stuff.

I wanted to be a director and comedian and my plan was to go to NYU. I wanted to be in UCB.

When I came to Chicago, I didn't even know what improvisation meant, as far as pertaining to comedy. I knew about Second City, but I didn't know what the word 'improvisation' meant.

Seeing the energy of 'SNL' made me want to be a part of it. If that was a job, I thought, that was the job I wanted. That was my plan. Comedy.

The Second City

People who have theater or sketch-comedy backgrounds seem to be more, you know, our speed. Like Amy Poehler and Will Arnett - we double date.

The truth of it is that people are not going to want to go to improvisational theater if it's not funny. You can succeed in doing all the things you're supposed to do - be truthful to scene - and if it's not funny, I'm telling you that no one's gonna care.

I remember on 'Dr. Katz,' there was no script really at all. There were just scene outlines.

I started in improv and went into different kinds of things.

I used to do improv in New York, and it was sort of embarrassing to tell people that I was the Web video girl and having to explain that was a viable form of entertainment.

I started in Shakespeare. I'm classically trained, which, how hilarious is that? Then one night, I saw Second City and thought, 'Wow, that's what I want to do.' But I never thought it would morph into screenplay writing.

It takes a lot of time to write and put up a sketch show, but that's part of who I am. I don't think that ever goes away, that sensibility - especially coming from the Upright Citizens Brigade. That's just who I am.