Interviews · 4 January 2021
Colin Mochrie How to do improvised comedy
Colin Mochrie interviewed by Kevin Durham, 4 January 2021. 2m 44s on tape.
This is a Colin Mochrie interview where he shares his thought process behind his imrp In an interview, it was revealed that in 1999 Colin Mochrie worked on the Miloš Forman film Man on the Moon, but his scenes were deleted from the final movie. Colin Mochrie was a guest star in three episodes of The Drew Carey Show: "She's Gotta Have It" (1999), "Drew Live" (1999), and "Drew Live II" (2000). He also appeared on Nickelodeon's Figure It Out as a celebrity guest panelist; in one segment of the show, he was slimed. He had a one-liner in the "Bad Hare Day" episode of Goosebumps, and he made special guest appearances in several episodes of The Red Green Show.
What's on the tape
A transcript, made by machine from the audio and tidied up. It gets names and the odd word wrong, so treat it as a way to find the bit you want rather than as a quotation. Every timestamp jumps to that moment in the video.
0:01 Think most comedians really hate answering and it's about the that you go through um and uh I don't know I don't know if you've got like a an answer. For this one but I think a lot of people when they when they watch people like you and ryan just really storming it and and smashing. It coming out really funny stuff in I think one of the thoughts they have is like how the hell do you do it you know how do you think. So quickly and on your feet is there any answer you have to that question. It's um well it's odd I mean a lot of times people uh don't believe that we're actually making it up um I've you know I people. Have said you know uh we saw this we watched who was lying we could see you're reading the cue cards and it's like really uh my thing always.
0:47 Is uh transcribe one of those scenes and then look at it and try to do it as a sketch it won't work it really is one of those things. Where you had to be there at that moment with that audience with that suggestion. The thing about improv is you have to do everything. That you're not used to doing in real life the two basic rules are listening and accepting people's offers. And um you when we're teaching improv uh that is for new improvisers the the hardest thing in the world for them to do is to say yes to something. They immediately put up uh roadblocks. So the thing with uh ryan and I um we're. Relaxed enough with each other to actually go out with absolutely.
1:38 And trust that it's somehow going to work out and it's basically just us. Riffing with each other accepting and then building and taking it into whatever direction we decided it um it sounds kind of simple yeah yeah it does when you say it like that it does I kind of wish it was a difficult. Oh yeah we cheat um no it's just um and the hardest thing in the world is to actually walk out on stage with absolutely nothing. And trust that at the end of uh an hour two hours you're gonna have a show but uh and it takes kind of a long time. To have that trust in yourself and with the you're working with but once you do it it's um it's great it's almost it's just like being an idiot. You're going a big idiot you're just going out with really no basis for this feeling that it's all going to work out yeah so you just you're just committed.
2:34 To it and it it works out more times than not you just explained my whole life right there in that in that one sentence that's. Yeah after all my gravestone.
