Lessons in comedy and life
It’s no secret that the Steve Martin of today is very different from the stand-up comedian who came to prominence in the 1970s, wearing a deliberately passé arrow through the head and strutting his stuff to “King Tut.” He’s a more measured ironist now, focused on his literary efforts, bluegrass music, Broadway shows and live performances. Outside of projects like his 2007 memoir, “Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life,” getting Martin, 71, to talk now about his days as “a wild and crazy guy” or movies like “The Jerk” is like asking him to make you one of his bad balloon animals: It ain’t gonna happen.
So it is perhaps a surprise that Martin is one of the latest celebrity participants in MasterClass, an instructional website where artists share insights about their craft. Despite a reluctance to revisit the past, Martin makes a sincere tutor (for a $90 course of 25 episodes).
“I definitely tried to make it about creativity and also about life,” Martin said in an interview Friday. “All my thoughts about comedy are metaphorical, applying to anything else.”
Martin spoke further about why he returned to this chapter of his career, what lessons it offers and the extent to which he keeps up with comedy today. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.
Q: What made you want to do a project like this now?
A: I’ve always had empathy with comedians and their struggle. I know it inside out, and the struggles remain the same. I’m always rooting for comedians, especially now that I’m older. Your competitive edge is off. You don’t have to worry about somebody being funnier. Because, as I say, there’s always someone funnier.
Q: Is it fair to say you shy away from invitations to talk about that era of your career — the retrospective thing does not come easily for you? A: Yeah. You can only talk about it so much. And then there’s diminishing interest in the old you, both from the public and yourself. About 20 years ago, Kevin Kline called me and said: “I’m teaching a course at Juilliard in comedy. Would you like to stop by and talk?” And I thought: There’s nothing you can teach about comedy. I don’t know what that would even be. But I went to the class, and they did some scenes, and I thought, Oh, there is a lot to teach. Through the years, I’ve gathered some knowledge that can be transferred. I actually feel more creative in the last 10 years than I have in that whole time. Q: One of your episodes is
about constructing a stage persona, an idealized version of who you want to be in performance. Is this what you thought you were doing at the time?
A: Certainly, it’s an evolution. It’s not a ray of light that strikes you. When I first started to think, “I’ve got to be a person up there — how do I be a person?” all I did was take jokes that said “A guy walks into a bar” and change it to “I walked into a bar.” That was a simple thing to think about. You make everything about yourself.
Q: Was there a point, at your peak, where audiences were coming just for the persona and not the material — that essentially anything you delivered in that guise worked?
A: I found it was actually almost the reverse of what you’re saying. Because once that persona was established, it was very hard to bring in new material. The thing that was expected was so precise. And I loved being precise onstage. I didn’t want to mess with it. But the only way out was to stop. But I had a great place to go — the movies.
Q: Did you help choose your vintage stand-up and movie clips in the lessons?
A: I only saw those after the fact. I always let other people choose the bits, because I don’t know what works today. I like the idea that someone who wasn’t even born in that era is picking them.
Q: Do you keep up with what’s happening in standup now?
A: Only a little bit. I recently watched Dave Chappelle’s (Netflix specials), really funny. And I didn’t know what to expect, because I had never seen him. I was really surprised because I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it was going to be more radical, in its style, and more flamboyant, in some way. But it was so straight-ahead and entertaining and engaging. I was really knocked out. I expected him to be scary, and he was friendly and charming. Then I watched Bill Burr’s Netflix (special). And really enjoyed that, too. I had never heard of him until I went, “What’s that?”