I have two last pieces of advice. First, being pre-approved for a credit card does not mean you have to apply for it. And lastly, the best career advice I can give you is to get your own TV show. It pays well, the hours are good, and you are famous. And eventually some very nice people will give you a doctorate in fine arts for doing jack squat.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Or, as it's known to Native Americans - Sarcastic You're Welcomesgiving.
I don't think anybody can with a straight face say that the Russians did not set out to influence our election, and they did so.
I don't know a lot about politics. I like talking about human behavior. Politicians are funny to me because they often say one thing and behave a different way.
Trump will not respond to reasoned argument. He will not be held accountable for the things he said. All you can do is point and laugh. Because the devil cannot abide mockery.
People would say, "Oh, you say you just do jokes." I don't just do jokes. I do jokes. Jokes are important. They saved my life when I was younger. Hopefully we're making things nicer at the end of the day for people. That's the entire goal, and that's the touchstone and the North Star for the tone.
I'm proud of my ability to understand what somebody else is trying to do and help them achieve it, because part of the aesthetic of improvisation is service. You never say no. Serve the servant, follow the follower. And that's very valuable in your life, as well as very valuable in your actor's work. I'm damn proud of my ability to help other people achieve their ideas.
The interesting thing about fake news and fake media is that it's a heresy against reality. Again, as a Catholic, I was taught that the greatest sin was heresy. Because not only are you a sinner, you are proselytizing and inviting other people into your sinful state through your heresy. You're a recruiter for your own fallen state. Donald Trump is a heretic against reality. Basically, he's lying for sport. He's inviting people into his heresy that there is no objective reality.
You have to do your First Penance before your First Holy Communion. You're really young. What do you know? You've got nothing to confess. All I knew was that I was an evil human whose sins caused the death of our Lord.
Improvisation in general is good, and improvising material into themes, turning the material into something codified and repeatable, taught me scenic structure and dramatic gambits that work and things that are appealing both as a performer and an audience member, like you know, what does "want" really mean in a scene, and how do you achieve your want, and how is that expressed, and how do you achieve closure? Those are all things that I learned performing at the cabaret after just doing the same scenes over and over and over again over the years, with my own ability to change.
You've gotta understand what Putin's strategy is. He really doesn't like democracy. He thinks it's an inconvenient, messy process. And he doesn't like us, and he wants to destabilize our country; sow doubt about our democracy.
I began my day as I often begin my days, by checking Donald Trump's Twitter feed to see how far the crazy has spread. And today, I really think he's off his meds, because today he went from crazy to cruel.
Usually when Donald Trump wants to keep someone out of military service, he just fakes a doctor's note saying he has a foot injury. It worked fine for him during Vietnam.
I actually do not think that's how what's happening to our government is going to be stopped. I think people who are willing to be civically engaged and believe in the promises and the progress of the last fifty years that will save this country.
A lot of people have said, "Oh, I, boy, I wish Hillary Clinton would just go away."
There was sort of a negative association with the military. Maybe growing up in the South or being in a family with members of the military, I didn't have that negative connotation, but I did have this 'separate' connotation. I was ashamed to realize I had it and did not realize I had it until I was [in Iraq]. I was so impressed by the people I met over there and there was just a sense of connection and gratitude towards those people.
There is a residual sense for me, having grown up in the early '70s, that I did not know I had, which was a sense that the military are different than I. Because there was such a divide between the military world - and there still is, because there's no draft - and the civilian world is one of the rotten harvests of the Vietnam War, was this sort of bifurcation of America in that way.
Donald Trump is a strong president. We got to stand behind this guy is what I think.
What I rediscovered was the therapeutic nature of singing lessons. They're like doing yoga but for [the] inside of your body. You open up and use muscles that you don't think of as malleable.
I tell a lot of young performers, 'Go get in trouble. Go commit yourself to something you're not sure you can do.' And I followed my own advice.
I'm just very interested in what my guests have to say. You have to be vigilant to stay ignorant.
If I'm doing a talk show or an interview, or pretty much anything where I can't control the context, I'm loath to do the character.
I'm fascinated that people drawn to cults want to know what to do. And people want to know what to think. And people want to know how to feel. Not just what to feel but how to feel.
We [comics] create our own reality on the show. I'm in a cocoon of the character's creation. Even within that reality, he's in a cocoon. While I'm an improviser and enjoy discovery, the show follows a script. I have a pretty good idea what's going to happen. It's a very crafted, controlled environment.
I'm not a standup. I didn't start off as a writer, I learned to write through improvisation, and so that's the part of the show that can most surprise me. The written part of the show, I know I can get wrong. You can't really get the interview "wrong."
