STANDUP STARTS
Eight comedians share their early experiences in the funny business
We asked eight comedians to tell us about their early standup experiences.
Some had beginner's luck, while others bombed so thoroughly that they have no memory of the experience. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
1 George Lopez
Still a teenager, Lopez, 62, went onstage for the first time at the Comedy Store in Westwood, Calif. It was June 4, 1979. He waited two hours for his three-minute slot. At first, it was tough going. “And then toward the end of the three minutes, I nailed a couple pretty good ones. So I think I did decent. I mean, it wasn't silent. For somebody that was scared of everything. I'm not sure why, not only did I go that first time, but kept going ... I'm so proud ... I went up there once. It changed my life from black-andwhite to colour.”
2 Patton Oswalt
Oswalt, 55, began at 19, on July 18, 1988, at a Washington comedy club. For material, he relied on instinct. “I just kind of wrote what I thought was a funny set and then went up and completely ate it ... What I realized years later was the importance of my first open mike wasn't to go up and get laughs. It was to go up and get over the fear and overthinking about going onstage.”
That first standup experience is a blank, Oswalt says now, he only remembers the audience was not overwhelmed. “... I look back at a thing that gave me no positive feedback (and) I couldn't stop thinking about it.”
3 Gabriel Iglesias
The first time Iglesias, 47, did standup he was 10 years old at a
school talent show and he wowed 'em. A decade later, Iglesias gave standup a real go on April 10, 1997, at a Best Western hotel bar in Long Beach, Calif.
He experienced a roller-coaster of emotions, ranging from total fear to euphoria when he made the audience laugh.
“I'm an attention whore ... I was always the chubby kid. I was always the one that didn't get picked in sports ... It's an incredible feeling of acceptance you crave and you want when you don't get it.”
4 Margaret Cho
Cho, 55, began standup in her early teens at the San Francisco School of the Arts. Her theatre teacher had students perform sketches and skits, and in time they graduated to the local public access TV station. She signed the kids up for open-mike nights, where Cho was teamed with Sam Rockwell. She performed solo at the comedy club above her parents' bookstore.
They were juvenile jokes and skits, but they gave her incentive: The club sold tomatoes to lob at unfunny comedians — she was never on the receiving end.
“(Standup) is an art form that will take a lifetime to really master; you're continually learning and growing as an artist ... (it's) something you never quite figure out. Every audience ... and every experience is different.”
5 Natasha Leggero
Before her first standup set, Leggero, 50, locked herself at home for two days, writing. The two years of comedy classes, half a Xanax and half a glass of wine paid off when she was engulfed in laughter at the Belly Room at The Comedy Store in West Hollywood in 2002.
“It was almost like the laughter was hitting me like waves. It truly was an out-of-body experience..”
The next time, she was hit with waves of negativity. “I kind of crawled offstage. I remember coming home and just kind of falling face-flat on my bed and realizing this is going to take a while. But because the first one was so great, I wanted to keep going.”
6 Chelsea Peretti
Peretti, 46, knew she was funny since the eighth grade. When she got an opportunity to do standup at the Parkside Lounge in New York City in the early 2000s, she took it — and bombed.
“I think I just was literally like, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't do well.” The experience made her more determined. “It's like a desire to ... figure out the game — and how to have a win.”
Her background in standup was useful when writing and directing her feature film, First Time Female Director. Originally, the script began further into the narrative, but Peretti understood some jokes only work when you know the backstory.
“... When you're first starting out, so much of it is figuring out who you are and how to communicate it quickly to people in a way that gets a laugh and gets them oriented right out of the gate.”
7 David Cross
Just before his 18th birthday, Cross, 60, graced the audiences of a suburban Atlanta Punchline with a set so “bizarrely amazing” that “if you scripted it and saw it in a movie, you'd be like, ` ... That's a bit over the top.'”
Cross wasn't nervous about the performance. “I came offstage and I thought, `Oh my God, I'm amazing. I'm a natural. I should probably try to get on The Tonight Show tomorrow. And then more expectedly and more realistically the next, I don't know, 15 sets I did I bombed. As I should've — that's what's meant to happen in the first place.”
8 Jim Gaffigan
Gaffigan, 57, was on his way to being your funny uncle when he first did standup in “1989 or 1990” at the Duplex in New York's West Village. He had a stable ad agency job and a fear of public speaking. Gaffigan decided to take an improv class.
“... There was something about that initial time onstage where I didn't know if I was going to be a comedian, but I knew I was going to continue doing this. It was like an itch had been scratched.” Then he bombed for the next six months.
“No matter if I'm in a really sad place or in a really high place, it moderates me. It's this balancing thing for my emotions and, simultaneously, it's this moment of empowerment.”