When I graduated, I was director of my school's sketch comedy group, and I knew that I wanted to be writing and performing my own sketch comedy. It kind of made me want to do my own one-person sketch group.
I moved to New York and went to a performing arts college, but it wasn't until UCB that I started performing on the regular, figuring out how I'm funny, why I'm funny, and how to play with an audience.
I used to tell people I was a comic and they'd be fascinated. Now all you get is: 'Oh yeah, my cousin Steve's a comic.'
My first improv was Second City in Chicago. Before that, I worked at - with a partner, doing comedy sketches.
I want to bring UCB to England. We don't have anything like it.
I started selling out comedy clubs before I got to town with no advertising. I was selling out theaters just on the rumor that I was going to be there.
'Saturday Night Live' was like a university for funny.
I joined the after-school club, School of Comedy, which progressed wildly, and in quite a Hollywood way. It sounds like 'School of Rock', right up to trying to raise money to pay for a venue in Edinburgh.
In the old days, if you topped the bill one evening, you'd do 22 minutes maximum, and if you overstepped and did 27 one night, you'd get a knock on the door telling you it wasn't acceptable.
Second City Las Vegas is very different from Second City in Chicago on the main stage, where they do improv sets. That's how they kind of hone material, kind of work up to new material.
When you're a comic doing a special, it's like you're directing your first movie.
At The Comedy Store, night after night, the crowds are fuller. It used to be Tuesday at 9 you'd have to start with six people. Now you come in on Tuesdays and it's 100-plus people and you're like, 'Really? On a Tuesday?'
In terms of comedy, I never did five-minute sets or clubs or anything. I just started doing shows. Coming from that theater background, it never crossed my mind that I should start doing five-minute sets.
It's our hope MySpace Comedy will serve as a launch pad for up-and-coming comedians and as an attraction for the biggest names in the industry.
I did all this standup comedy in college, and from that point on, I tried to develop myself and get my name back out there.
I've played at the Comedy Studio. I never did as an undergrad, but I have in recent years, whenever I've gone back to anything at Harvard, I've tried to go there and do some sets.
I thought of Second City as just the greatest therapeutic job anybody could ever dream of having.
I still have a desire to do some sketch comedy. My dream is to be on 'SNL,' to host 'SNL.'
I see myself as a comic but the acting helps sell tickets for gigs.
I started once a week in North Carolina at a pub called Charlie Goodnight and met a lot of comics there. Then I moved to L.A., and if you're not known, it's hard to get stage time. So you start out doing what they call 'bringers' - you have to bring five people if you wanna get on stage. It was a lot of hustle, a learning curve.
If it weren't for The Groundlings, I would never be on Saturday Night Live.
I wanted to be a comedian, and this is what I'm doing. If I can keep this going, I'm happy.
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.
The Second City
I can't tell you how many bizarre shows at UCB I was a part of.
