![Find Misery Loves Comedy on Amazon](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODM0MjExMzkxNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzM1Mzc3NDE@._V1_SX300.jpg)
Misery Loves Comedy Page #7
but it's not like I had a talent
for it, you know what I mean?
Excuse me, I have tuberculosis.
Um, I don't think it's
contagious, Kevin Pollak,
who is not sitting here with me.
Kevin Pollak, Kevin Pollak.
I think it is.
No, it might be.
Contagious.
I might have to take the waters.
It took me three years
to get on stage
for the first time.
Because... and the reason why
I finally got on stage
was that there was a contest.
It's always a contest.
So the prize was, um,
a check for $200
and the opportunity to
perform at the DC Improv.
Then thing that I worried about
when I first started
doing stand-up
was whether or not
I was crazy enough
to be a comedian, you know,
because I didn't really
understand what
being a stand-up...
I mean, I was doing sets
in comedy clubs
for almost a year
before I realized,
there's guys who you haven't even
heard of who don't have a day job
who are just doing
comedy clubs, you know?
I didn't know that that was
I thought, "I'm going to the club
"and someone's gonna
see me like they saw him
and then I'm gonna be
in a TV show."
That's what I thought
was gonna happen.
And I said to the club manager,
I said, "I want to do this
again, when can I do it?"
And they handed me a mop
and they said,
"Well, there's
no spots available,
"but, uh, but if you, you know,
if you run food to tables
"and sell tickets and things
like that, then we'll,
you know, we'll keep you in mind
for fallouts and cancelations."
And so I kicked around the DC Improv
and eventually I was opening
and Jake Johannsen
and Mitch Hedberg,
these incredible comics
who taught me
everything about comedy.
It's about immersion,
it's about living...
Like, when I worked at the DC Improv,
I was there all the time.
I was there the nights I worked,
I was there the nights I didn't work.
I would...
I went to every show,
I saw comedians
who were nothing like me.
I... I saw Larry the Cable Guy
and Rodney Carrington.
People who you think you have
nothing in common with,
but really, comedians
have everything in common.
Cab driver, paralegal,
private chauffeur,
you know, stuff like that,
and I'm lost.
- I'm a lost soul, you know?
- In New York.
Yes, a lost soul.
Parents beside themselves.
"What are we gonna do?"
Yes.
Went to university.
I would overhear conversations
that were heartbreaking,
you know, terrible.
About you?
Yeah, about me, yeah.
"Oh!"
you know, "What are we gonna do," you know?
"What's he gonna do
with himself?"
They sent me to a psychiatrist, you know?
Sure.
And, um, so I take the subway
to Brooklyn to the psychiatrist
and, you know, what...
what are you... You can't
do anything for me. No.
So, um, then I...
then...
I don't know how or why
I thought of this,
but I decided to
take an acting class.
When I saw Bob Odenkirk and
David Cross for the first time,
I was like, "Oh, they're
doing what I could do.
"That's my sense of humor
and they're making a living
at it, maybe I could do this."
Because I...
Look, I grew up
as a terrible nerd
who was considered to be ugly
and undateable,
- so...
- Chapter one.
So to... so I used humor,
but when you are
ugly and undateable,
the thing that people say to you
when you're trying to be funny
is, "Stop trying to be funny.
You're not funny."
At 25, I saw other comedians
doing the stuff that
so I did it, and within a week
of performing comedy
for the first time,
I now was a comedian.
And I told people,
"I'm a comedian," and people went,
"Oh, that's why you act the way
you act. Oh, you're funny."
We do come from
so we should be kind of
weird looking.
I try and communicate
that to my children.
I'm like, "There's nothing
wrong with being weird."
Um, you know,
it's a very strange...
'Cause I wish someone
would have told me that.
'Cause I feel like
that's something culturally
that we kind of toss around
but really,
being different is good.
Um, so I guess, uh,
yeah, when I...
And I know this has been
talked about before
and it's a lot more
open in society,
I know Jonathan Winters
talked about it in the '60s,
um, but, uh,
being in a psych ward,
like, I...
That was just...
To talk about that, like,
that was, like, really, uh,
I felt very ashamed of that.
And then to now,
you know, in stand-up,
you say it the first time and it's
like your voice is kind of shaking,
- you know?
- Yeah.
And then, like,
10 times in, it's like,
"Oh, so you're in
the psych ward, as you do,"
and you get so much
And then finally, it's like,
you can talk about it with anybody. Yeah.
And that has been
a real gift to me, to...
that the art form allows us,
like, you can talk
about anything.
"I'd like to go on."
On a Saturday night.
On a Saturday night.
He said, "Who are you?"
I said, "I'm just...
I'm in the audience."
He said, "Have you ever
done comedy before?"
I said... I said, "No."
He said,
"No, you can't go on."
He said, "You have to audition," you know?
Yeah.
I don't think I got into it because
I was essentially narcissistic
or even that I was
looking for love.
Like, I feel like
I got into stand-up
because, you know,
I needed to be seen.
And I... and I thought that,
like, that stage,
I can do whatever I want,
whatever I want.
The only context is, you should get laughs.
Should.
That's even conditional depending
on how much you're being paid
and if you're not being paid at all,
you can do whatever you want.
You can yell, you can spit,
you can tell people
to f*** themselves.
It's great, you can do that
publicly, yell in front of...
But I think that, like, for me,
it was just a matter of, like, you know,
I felt that I had something to say
and I thought that comedy, for me,
when I watched it when I was a kid,
I was like, these guys
have a handle on things.
They can take life
and just turn a few phrases
and, like, they got a handle
on it and you learn things,
you see things in a different way
and they seem to be, you know,
in control of this horrendous
you know, hurricane of bullshit
that comes at us every day and I
think that's what appealed to me,
is like, how can I get a voice
and... and be seen,
kind of like, "I exist
and I have things to say."
It's easily
that I have ever done
in my life.
Was...
Going up to Bud, asking him to go on.
Thank God he said no.
You have to nourish a delusion,
uh, you know, to sort of
you know, make your way...
to keep pushing
in show business.
You really have to
nourish your delusion.
And what's frightening,
I think, sometimes,
is that, you know,
people don't know when to stop,
you know what I mean?
It's like...
Comedy intervention.
Translation
Translate and read this script in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Misery Loves Comedy" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Aug. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/misery_loves_comedy_13834>.
Discuss this script with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In