Acting is just about the script and the director giving you notes. In improv, it’s more about trusting that the group will carry you.
All improv turns into anger. All comedy improv basically turns into anger, because that’s all people know how to do when they’re improvising. If you notice shows that are improvising are generally people yelling at each other.
We agree that there is a problem in the sketch and improv community where, in general, there should be more interest from a more diverse sampling of our society. That is precisely why we do have diversity scholarships and why we’ve put together a diversity program to try to figure this problem out.
That’s really what ‘Jokers’ is – an improv show.
I came to New York and started doing stand-up and improv, and started auditioning for commercials and voiceovers and stuff. My first job was on a pilot of that prank show called ‘Boiling Points’ on MTV.
I’d like to be an actress when I’m older. I sometimes do improv. I used to do it with my dad.
I did improv for about 10 years professionally, and before that, I had done it in high school as part of an improv team. It was definitely a big part of my upbringing.
I was once doing an improv show and it was my turn to jump on stage and I fell on my face. It’s a really terrible way to start a show.
What I don’t like is when I see stuff that I know has had a lot of improv done or is playing around where there’s no purpose to the scene other than to just be funny. What you don’t want is funny scene, funny scene, funny scene, and now here’s the epiphany scene and then the movie’s over.
With improv or a full length play – you know how you go to a theater, and after 10 minutes you say, ‘Oh, I don’t like this thing,’ but you don’t want to get up and leave? At a sketch show, it’s always something new every few minutes.
I got involved in improv comedy. It settled me down when I was getting wild. I was sort of an evil teenager smashing up my cars and drinking and driving, let’s just say, a lot.
I’m not a stand-up comedian. I’m not an improv person or anything, but I’ve always been a fan of that stuff.
Looking back, when my cousins and I were kids, we’d put together these little skits – these 10-minute improv scenes. I didn’t really understand what I was doing – that I was writing these mini-sketches and acting – but we were all totally into it.
Doing improv really got me started in my whole career.
Almost every college playwright or sketch or improv comedian was sort of aware of Christopher Durang – even kids in high school. His short plays were so accessible to younger people and I think that was inspirational to me.
In 2002, I was taking an improv class because, as a white male with glasses who was born between 1978 and 1994, it’s legally required that I take at least one improv class in my life.
I have Janicza solely to thank for my growth as an actor because she saw in me something that other people just weren’t seeing, and she knew that I could go beyond the normal, funny ‘make-em-ups’ that I was doing on an improv stage.
I’m not a huge fan of improv theater or improv sports or whatever, because it still just looks like a tool. It looks like a technique to me.
I am obsessed with improv.
So much of improv can be really long, and that’s kind of what makes it funny.
We come from a live background of sketch improv and standup.
When I’m performing music, it’s like I’m doing a big improv.
What happens in improv is you create your own storyline.
When I worked with Robin Williams, now there is improv! He is just as funny as you think he is. We did at least five or six takes of every scene, improvising every scene differently. He was a riot.
When we used to do improv, you’d have to learn how to listen and contribute and not talk over each other and learn timing, and you fall into roles where that permeates in your regular life as well.
In cartoons and in improv, anything can happen. You can be any character you want. The rules of real life don’t always apply.
Doing improv regularly forces you to be better almost without trying.
If there are kids in the crowd, I try to be more animated for them. It does change a little bit each show. There’s a lot of improv.
In bluegrass, there’s a lot of joke-telling and a lot of banter between bandmates. It’s like improv or watching the ‘Carol Burnett Show.’
I never did improv professionally, but that was certainly in my training as an actor. I like it.
I was never in an improv group. But when I went to school, we would do it all day long with friends, not knowing what it was called.
There’s sketch, improv, writing, acting, music, and badminton. Those are the seven forms of comedy. But I do like the idea of being an auteur in the sense of writing and being in your own stuff.
Improv is a disposable art form, but it’s kind of freeing in that way, too, because things can fail, and the audience is a little more forgiving.
When I finished grad school, I moved to Chicago proper, and I was at all the different improv schools, taking classes or interning.
Improv kind of goes hand in hand with what I do. I was on ‘Reno 911!’ for six years, and that was a completely improvised show.
When I decided I wanted to be an actor in high school, I really went into improv. I took classes at The Groundlings. I studied acting. Did sketch comedy in L.A.
Some people think success is overnight. I suppose, considering I came from Australia, it has been pretty quick. But I have a background in stand-up and improv, so I’ve really had to prove myself.
I absolutely loved improv! I felt very much at home being onstage. It freed me to be all sorts of people other than myself. It was an escape from myself, if you will. I still love that creative freedom of improv and making people laugh.
In orthodox film-making, you never shoot sequentially – but with improv, obviously every move you make has a knock-on effect; it is a cumulative process. I have improvised, on the non-scripted ‘Timecode.’ It can become entirely indulgent: actors smashing crockery and competing verbally.
Sometimes improv doesn’t work on TV because the audience had heard the thing that was shouted and they’re very much alive, the audience in the room – they’re alive in that moment. Whereas the audience sat at home on the sofa, it feels like it’s part of a party that they haven’t been invited to.
Well, actually, the Second City thing came about because I was taking a few improv classes there. I thought that the improv classes would help with my wrestling career, which it has.
I love improv so much. Listening. I think that’s the key. When you improvise, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to create, and to be generating information, and trying to be funny, but if you just listen to what’s being said to you, and then react honestly, you generally get better results.
Sometimes with films you have a freedom to be able to, Okay, we got that take so let’s try another one where suddenly I’ll say this, or you’ll get to improv. You can’t do that with stage. We have to make it new every time, and also within the structured settings.
I did an improv that was one of the most exhilarating ten minutes of my entire life. I mean, when you’re doing it, you forget yourself.
I did sketch comedy, but I never did improv. So I’ve just tried to learn as I go.
I’m not an improv guy.
After going to theater school, and then subsequently dropping out, I would say that when I first went to Chicago and learned long-form improv, that was a far better acting workshop than any acting school I’ve been to.
I love doing improv, and I swear by it, and I encourage people to take classes, and blah blah blah. But it’s always been interesting how it doesn’t necessarily translate to television.
I graduated from Improv Olympic. I used to do standup comedy.
I’ve been doing improv since high school, and I’ve been getting paid for it since I was 20.
My natural inclination to be improv rather than an educated character serves me well.
I think doing The Improv is a little more ominous than doing a college campus because it was so different than anything I’d done.
When I direct – everything I’ve directed has had improv in it, because I think there’s something special in a performance the first time it’s said out loud that’s hard to recreate.
I started in improv and went into different kinds of things.
I started doing improv my sophomore year.
I did theater summer camps when I was a kid, and I enjoyed them, but they never felt quite right. But then there would always be a tiny improv workshop towards the end of camp, and I would always feel like I liked it so much better.
