I'm lucky enough to have two different platforms to perform on - I do stand-up comedy, and I have 'SNL.' That's where I make my most controversial statements because I can explain myself and I'm in control of the microphone, as opposed to Twitter, where it's in the hands of the reader.
If I'm doing a show on Sunday at 7 P.M., that wouldn't be the same show that I'd do at 11 P.M. on a Saturday - it's a different room at a different time of day with different sensibilities. That doesn't mean you have to compromise your art, but it is communication: you have to know how to talk to people.
I like comedy that's not political but social, dealing with issues of people talking to each other. No matter what your politics, we still have to live with each other. Politics is taking a side. I'm not running for office, you know?
I would love to do more TV and do movies for the experience, but my ultimate focus is stand-up. It's the number one thing that I love most because there is nothing like being with a live audience.
If I think something's funny, I try to mold it into a joke as soon as possible. Once I have a joke, I say it a million different ways on stage until I find a rhythm and it feels like it's as good as it can be.
When you're doing comedy constantly, you're organized: you know where everything is, you know how to get out of it, you know how to stretch it. But, like, doing 'SNL,' I stopped doing spots, and then I would finally do some sets - it take me so long to, kind of, get in the rhythm of it.
Black people have, like, this thing, and I have it, we all have it, we have this kind of embarrassment. Where we don't like white people to find out our little insecurities and out little quirks. We don't really like that that much. It's kind of, we're like, 'Don't let them know - that ours; that's for us.'
When you grow up in the city, New York is so big that you can kind of stay in your own little corner of the city and think that that's it because you don't need anything. You don't have to venture out; you don't have to touch the boroughs. You can kind of stay in your neighborhood, and there's everything there.
Improv classes were too expensive, so I just started going to open mics. And the day I did it, I did, like, three because I just loved it so much. It was so much fun. And it wasn't good, it was just fun to do. It felt like a release.
I can't speak for every American comic, but for me, a great show is its own reward. Comedy is too subjective for awards.
Live comedy is fantastic. It's when live comedy is transcribed and reported and critiqued outside of the venue without context that things become complicated.
Watching someone getting really angry can be very funny - if it doesn't affect you, you can laugh at it, and the sillier the thing he's angry about, the funnier it is.
Comedy's my outlet for my ridiculous emotions.
To deliver something deadpan is very difficult; I don't think people know how hard those jokes are.
Some things hit close to home with people, and it's going to be hard to tell someone who lost somebody on 9/11 that a 9/11 joke is funny.
I'm a huge Steven Martin fan.
I get to do what I love for money. It's weird to process that.
I kind of write in my own little world.
I remember liking the MTV awards when I was a kid.
When I was about nine, I went to school with a toothbrush in my mouth. I saw Method Man do it in a video.
