The only thing I've ever stolen are hours out of people's lives with meandering conversations.
I was really into ska.
It was a long time before I understood what the word 'specific' was. I remember being a kid and thinking it was 'pacific,' and being like, 'Can you be more pacific?' And I believed that for maybe five, six years until someone was like, 'It's 'specific.''
I guarantee you that Leonardo Prince is doing nothing but listening to the 'Tron: Legacy' soundtrack on loop. And he's probably seen 'Tron: Legacy' twice, or three times. And the other two times, he's taken people who he thinks are important to him, and judged by their reaction to see if he should still be friends with them or not.
If you live with a certain amount of dread for your own personal safety every day, that is anxiety.
Standup led me to acting because I liked standup, and I saw people on a stage, and the closest, nearest thing to me was doing plays. It was like, that's the same thing as standup - people are on a stage; they're being seen and saying things - so, because of my love of standup, I moved towards acting.
I was always just like, 'Standups are making it up.' A lot of people have that myth about standup. And so it wasn't until I was in college for theater school in Boston that I realized I can actually start going to open mics and figuring this out.
I think any good standup or actor is part philosopher, part psychologist and sociologist, because you're constantly recreating behaviors.
Here's the best place that people can find me: go to this website called Google, and then type my name into it. So much stuff.
I grew up on a very specific diet of certain weird movies. Of course, being black, there are more black movies in there. I'll get to bring some of those references into 'Mystery Science Theater 3000.'
I've always been a big fan of entertainment. Having cable gave me access to HBO, Showtime, and The Movie Channel. Constantly taking in all these films from different eras and different styles has really given me a good vocabulary in how to talk about movies.
I had a gentleman steal or 'misplace' - I guess I should say 'allegedly' - a lot of money from me. It didn't make any sense when it was happening, because I just didn't understand why I didn't have any money. I was a perfect mark because I had all of this shame and insecurity about money.
I don't mean to make a generalization, but I do at the same time, from what I know about people from the Midwest, it seems like their families would talk about money openly in front of them when they were kids. They'd say stuff like, 'We're broke! We're gonna lose the house!'
Every podcast network has a different culture as far as I can tell. How they run things at Nerdist is totally different than how they run things at Earwolf is totally different than All Things Comedy or Maximum Fun or Feral Audio. And it's different if it's independent.
I'm waiting for some studio to be like, 'Look, we need you to be totes buff.' 'I'm sorry, what'd you say?' 'Totes buff. We're gonna get you a trainer.' And I'm like, 'Oh, awesome! I've been waiting for this moment.' I would love to get in shape for a reason besides my own health and life.
Theater school is essentially like training. It's boot camp. It's like an academy to put you through all these different situations that sometimes are more extreme than what you'll come across in the field. But now you're emotionally prepared for it so that when it does happen, it's not a big surprise.
When the audience reacts all together, it's genius. The audience is its own being in a way. It's a weird, amorphous beast that is also somehow a golden emperor that is also somehow every adult you've ever come across in your life who doesn't approve of you - all in one place.
In this age of the Internet, if you are going to go see someone, you usually look them up first. It can be an advantage and disadvantage. Most of the time, people can Google you and see a couple clips and say, 'Oh I am going to go.' They can kind of co-sign off on you.
