Bruce Vilanch Quotes

For about three years I was performing at one bar in East Los Angeles that was like a mean dive bar. You're in there performing for drunks or bikers, not the most flattering people. I think it helped build my confidence, because you have to get their attention, then make them laugh.

I love doing it [hosting the Oscars] because I love the danger of it and you have to come through and think on your feet. That's why that show, no matter who hosts it, it really should be a fast-thinking comedian who is really quick on their feet that can handle situations that happen, or somebody with that kind of mentality that can capitalize on something.

When someone says to me, do you do stand-up I say absolutely not. I like to think of it as a theatrical performance. With me the show changes maybe five to ten percent every night. Of course, whatever I see in front of me and sometimes I get on a little run about it and it changes the show. And my delivery is such that people who have seen me many times say Gee, I never heard that before. Actually, they have, but I might have changed it around.

Rigidity is the enemy of acting. And I think that people who stay up all night focusing on every beat they're going to do the next day always end up getting screwed.

I chose to be in this job and things don't always go your way. But I'll keep going. As a manager you have to be optimistic and think things are going to get better.

I remember before I did my HBO special, Chris [Rock] screamed at me - in a loving way, but still. He was like, "You need to do 200 shows in a row and a month straight on the road before you even think about recording a special!" And I had literally booked two weeks on the road and then went right into the recording. It put me in a panic, but it also made me work harder and made me realize that everyone works differently, and that's okay.

Sometimes, if you're shooting a complicated scene, you have to stay in a position and wait for the technician to do his job, and then you have to be where you're supposed to be, right on the spot. You don't rehearse all that much on films. If I think of the amount of time I spend on set compared with the time spent shooting, it's ridiculously short.

The live show is different from the album. It's different every night depending on where I am and how many months have gone by since I last performed.

When my syndicated show got canceled, the next day I still knew how to write jokes. That was a huge revelation. Because at first you think, "I won't have any shelter! What am I gonna do? The sun is hot. Very thirsty."

I can remember a lot of nights performing in those early years where you felt that you hit some good moments, but a lot of the time you're thinking, "Oh, God, this isn't quite making it." So I think that is what makes you in the end refine your view of things a little bit.

Andy Samberg is the only person I've ever seen do an impression of me, and I didn't think it was that accurate. I'd like to see somebody else impersonate me, especially if they can do a good job.

I think it's one of those things about live performance - anything goes, anything can happen, and you have to just be ready and able to roll with the punches.

Comedy is actually very hard. It's hard to choose those moments and know when you can really push it, and know when you should be bringing it back and making it more subtle, and knowing as time goes on, as you do take after take and the crowd around you stops laughing. Whenever you do comedy, you realize you're up against - you're performing next to people who you would think are so unbelievably good at it, that that's a bit of a pressure. But at the same time, it's just fun. It's fun to be able to let out that side of you.

I think I'm better at live shows than I used to be because I'm way more comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses between songs.

I think every show I do, whether I am doing eight shows a week of a Broadway show... I think, "that's a show I'll never get back"... I go home at night and I think to myself, "that was my favorite".

I started treating my career as if it was a guarantee,if things get difficult and things don't work out, I'm not gonna think I have a Plan B, which is grad school, or Plan C, which is an office job. I'm just gonna have a Plan A, a Plan A 2.0, a Plan A 3.0, and that's what I'm going to do. Because entertainment and YouTube are always going to be my Plan A.

I always honestly dreamed of coming to Second City in Chicago, although I've never even been there to see a show. But I did a ton of sketch comedy at the Second City in LA, which (at the time, in a different location) wasn't really a theater, it was just a space where you took some classes.

Whether your focus is on preserving and strengthening family ties in a world of increasingly unstable relationships, gaining access to a decent job, growing and evolving as a person, or guiding a company through the stormy seas of a fiercely competitive global marketplace-whether your goals are material, emotional, or spiritual-the price of success is the same: thinking, learning. To be asleep at the wheel-to rely only on the known, familiar, and automatized-is to invite disaster.

The traditional metaphor for careers is a ladder, but I no longer think that metaphor holds. It just doesn’t make sense in a less hierarchical world... Build your skills, not your resume. Evaluate what you can do, not the title they’re going to give you. Do real work. Take a sales quota, a line role, an ops job. Don’t plan too much, and don’t expect a direct climb. If I had mapped out my career when I was sitting where you are, I would have missed my career.

If I had to pick one form of acting, it would be live theater. That's where I started; that's where I became a man, I think I'm still finishing up that job.

To me, all those jobs I did [roles] have been amazing experiences for one reason or another. I got paid and I learned something. I think that's what helped me carry on because I've never really given out that energy of, "oh, I've lost my chance" or missed it in some way.

I think theatre reminds us what we're doing as actors, because every night and every matinee day, you have an audience telling you what's working and what's not. And that's very good for us as actors to hone our skills.

I think every job that you do gives you the opportunity to learn something new. As hokey as that sounds, that's why I have a problem saying no to my friends. That's why I do so many random comedy shows.

There is no single approach that actors take to their craft. And the best thing you learn is that you have to really listen and respect each actor's own process and own method, and that takes a kind of delicate, non-imposing patience and openness, I think, to get the very best out of the people you work with.

I think actor is one of those jobs where you don't stop learning, even if you have a career longer than my little five years! You're meeting new people all the time, so you might as well just be a sponge and take everybody's input and style as a bit of a lesson.