Interviews · 21 October 2022
Colin Mochrie The full interview
Colin Mochrie interviewed by Kevin Durham, 21 October 2022. 12m 33s on tape.
In this Colin Mochrie interview he talks about having to pull people out of McDonalds, why he chose improv, choking with Ryan and censorship. Table of contents 00:00 - Pulling people out of McDonalds 00:55 - Why Improv? 02:29 - Three auditions 04:16 - Choking with Ryan * 05:04 - UK or US Whose Line Is It Anyway show? ** 08:06 - US Censorship 10:05 - How to do improv Colin Mochrie was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, the oldest of three children. His father was an airline maintenance executive. Colin Mochrie was shy as a child, stating that neighbours would have commented that he "watched way too much television. In 1964, when Colin Mochrie was seven years old, his family immigrated to Canada. They first settled in a neighbourhood just outside Montreal, Quebec, and five years later moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. Colin Mochrieattended Killarney Secondary School, where he was a self-proclaimed loner who wanted to become a marine biologist. Colin Mochrie was persuaded by a friend to try out for a play titled The Death and Life of Sneaky Fitch in which Colin Mochrie played the role of the undertaker. He was hooked when he got his first laugh, which inspired him to pursue a career in entertainment. After graduating from high school as valedictorian, Mochrie attended the Studio 58 theatre school at Langara College for four years, where he discovered the art of improvisational comedy.
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 people out of McDonald's in order to to fill up your gigs. Is Is that true? Uh yeah, because you have to remember when I started improv, it was new. A lot of people didn't know what it was. So, um when Keith Johnstone, this uh British guy who in Calgary started this thing called theater sports, which started to take over um the world, it was still a a fairly new process. So, we had to bring people in. We actually did go into the McDonald's next door and say, "Hey, you've got to see this show where uh well, there isn't actually a show. We make it up as we go along." You can understand from the pitch why it'd be difficult to get people to see Yeah, sure. But then within a year, it was the the hot ticket.
0:44 It was the big cult show uh and it's still going on strong in Vancouver right now as it is everywhere around the world. Well, well, and and what was it about improv that um drew you in and why didn't you go down like a more um standard stand-up route? I have nothing but deepest respect for stand-up. Uh to me, that is the scariest uh comedic art form. Uh you're going in with uh your material saying to a group of people, "I'm about to tell you what I think is really funny. I really hope you're with me." And the audience kind of sits back and goes, "Okay, prove it to us." Uh with improv, um they know we have nothing. Uh they give us information. So, there's a vested interest that we do well with what they've given us.
1:31 So, we have a little more leeway to suck. Also, when we die, we're going down with people. Uh stand-up, you die alone. Huh. Uh you mean you mean you you go down as a team if you die. Is that that's Yeah, okay. It's interesting cuz I I would think I would think going out there with no material would be a lot scarier than no than than you having like this this kind of learned script, having learned a a script in a in a routine. That to me that is a lot scarier, going out with nothing and having to to riff over what the audience is going to give you. Yeah, it it it really in some ways it makes no sense at all. Except, you know, like right now we're improvising.
2:16 It's what we do in our life. So there is a comfort level with okay, I I can be fairly interesting in a one-on-one conversation. I just have to open up the scope a little bit. Now obviously most people will know you from the show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Now again, this is something completely new that I didn't know, but you had three auditions and the first two they didn't go ahead with you. They didn't choose you. Yeah. Uh Uh yeah. Well, the first time um Where was I? Oh, in Toronto. I was at Second City. And they were doing sort of a cross North America audition tour finding improvisers. Uh they came to our show. They loved the show. So they auditioned the entire cast um the next morning at uh I I believe it was 8:00 in the morning cuz they had um
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3:04 a flight. 8:00 it's not um prime time for comedy at the best of times, but in an audition uh it's a little weird. Also, we were auditioning as a cast. So we were doing that thing you're supposed to do in improv where you're supporting each other and working as an ensemble. So nobody stood out because we were just making the scene work and the scene's So so you were you were it was more about you were supporting the other people who who were there rather than try to make yourself stand out. Is Is that fair to say? That's what you're that's the theory behind it. That's what you're supposed to do. and actually I only had two auditions. This next audition I was uh down in Los Angeles.
3:50 Uh my wife had written uh, a TV show, and was uh, working on that. They came through again. I auditioned. This time I didn't know anybody. So, this time it was, "Hey, screw you. Look at me." So, there's an important lesson for the kids out there. Don't work well with people. Look after Yeah, I've learned that the hard way fairly recently. I don't know exactly, uh, exactly what you mean. But, was there ever a time when you choked with Ryan, or was it always, you know, when you guys were doing this show, it was always flowing, it was always clicking? Um, on Whose Line it always clicked. There have been shows we've done. Um, there was one show that uh, it We're doing it in Los Angeles. It was Ryan and I and Brad Sherwood. Um, so, we'd all worked together uh, for a long
4:35 time. You know, we're all fairly good improvisers. We did a show. It was so horrific. I can't even tell you what went wrong. A part of it was the entire audience were other improvisers who were waiting to go on. And this was before Whose Line. So, we we didn't have any, uh, cachet of any any sort. Um, all I remember is we struggled through it. We left the theater, each of us got into our car, and drove away without talking to each other, and we didn't talk to each other for 2 weeks. After the UK version of Whose Line, there was the US version of of Whose Line, is it anyway. Did you have any preference, uh, you know, looking back now, do you have any preference about which one, uh, was was better? it's, uh, I can't because I mean, it was the same,
5:21 uh, production crew. Um, mostly the same cast. so, the setup was always the same. Um, you know, in Britain, we had more leeway with uh, you know, in North America, they were very quick with the censorship. Mhm. Uh, where in in Britain, it was nothing. We could do pretty much anything, and we were fine. And as a result, I I I think we we were quite respectful of that. I mean, there were sometimes there was swearing or inappropriate but never anything like really over the line. so when we went to uh North America, there was this sort of period where we were trying to figure out exactly where the line was because there were some things that were totally inoffensive.
6:15 Um I think they bleeped uh saying the word hand uh because of there was sort of a uh masturbation uh reference. But they figured if well, if we get rid of the word hand, then it'll be Um anything to do with with sex they were really uh on the lookout for. There was one um there was one scene where um it was a supposed to be in love with Greg. So at one point, I I kissed him. Um and this was in the first season of the North American one, and the censor was in the booth the entire time because, you know, there was no script for them to oversee, so they had to actually be there.
6:58 So suddenly, there was this voice coming out of nowhere going, "Uh excuse me, can you make something else up?" No. What? So your kiss was edited out? Yeah. Uh and in the previous scene, I killed three women and threw them out a As you do. Absolutely fine. now the the thing about that was uh Drew Carey, who was the host at that point, has a real thing about censorship. So for the next 10 minutes, the show was unusable cuz he would introduce every game using some word that wasn't allowed on television. So after that, they sort of decided um the censor would uh you know, make notes during the show, then after the show, she and the producer would go over um um mistakes that we did and sort of figure it out.
7:47 Uh one of the best lines I've ever heard in show business was after one show, our producer walked up to me and went, "Colin, Colin, we lost a [ __ ] but we got two penises." I love it. Why why do you think America is so hardcore on their censorship? I have no idea. I think you know, I a lot of it has to do with the religious uh minority who uh seem to have a lot of power in America. You know, there's parent groups who watch all the TV shows and will post, "Don't watch this one because there's sexual content it's just uh in many ways it's a very immature uh And um you know, when you look across the world, it's there's much more relaxed attitude towards, you know, sex but in America that it's still naughty.
8:41 I think it's getting better. there's just that thing where these people will not let grown-ups make their own choice. You know, I'm not going to watch, you know, hardcore porn because it really doesn't do anything for me. I do prefer a story. So uh you know, I I believe people should have a choice. If this is disgusting to you, turn it off. Watch something else. No big deal. Um it's that thing of, well, this is how I feel so everyone should feel this way. Mhm. And it's weird what gets through cuz I was watching um an episode of of Veep the other day and Julia Louis-Dreyfus said she was talking about the Queen. Yeah, she was like, "Yeah, the Queen. Yeah, what a [ __ ] cunt." I was like I was watching this with my partner and we were like, "Woah!" But we were
9:28 wetting ourselves with laughter. I just Yeah, I I I never really heard the the Queen being called a [ __ ] [ __ ] Never heard that. No, it's and that's what's great about a cable. That's a you know an HBO show which certainly I don't situations, I don't language and it's you know great. Um and it's I think the reason uh lot of network shows in America, there's they're losing viewers because there is that thing where they're not treating their viewers like adults as opposed to all the cable I think a lot of people when they when they watch people like you and Ryan just really storming it and and the smashing it coming out really funny stuff in improv. I think one of the thoughts they have is like how the hell do you do it?
10:13 You know, how do you think so quickly and on and on your feet? Is there any answer you have to that question? It's um Well, it it's odd. I mean a lot of times people don't believe that we're actually making it up. I've you know people have said you know we saw the we watched the Whose Line we could see you reading the cue cards. like really? Uh my thing always 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.
10:57 Two basic rules are listening and accepting people's offers. And um you know, when we're teaching uh that is for new improvisers the the hardest thing in the world for them to do is to say yes to something. I I they immediately put up roadblocks. So, the thing with uh Ryan and I relaxed enough with each other to actually go out with absolutely nothing and trust that it's somehow going to work out. And it's basically just us riffing with each other, listening, accepting, and then building and taking it into whatever direction we decided it Um it sounds kind of simple.
11:42 Yeah, it does Yeah, it does when you say it like that, it does. I kind of wish it was a difficult though. Yeah, we cheat. Um no, it's just 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, 2 hours, you're going to have a show. But uh and it takes kind of a long time to have that trust in yourself and with the people you're working with. But once you do it, it's it's great. It's almost it's just like being an idiot. You're going out Stick idiot. You're just going out with really no basis for this feeling that it's all going to work out. So you you just you're just committed to it and it it works out more times than not.
12:27 You just explained my whole life right there in that in that one sentence. That's yeah. I have to I'm going to say it like that.
