All language subtitles for Masterclass Steve Martin Teaches Comedy - 13. Growing as a Performer

perseverance over time uh really

mattered to me, really counted. And I

think it mattered to other people too,

to other performers. They say, "I'm

still here. I don't know why uh but I'm

still here. So why should I waste uh my

energy worrying worrying worrying that

things are going to go away? Um

and it's something you should worry

about when you're starting out and you

have a little success with this like how

do you maintain it? You know when I

first and I think all comedians go

through this maybe a little different

now but

after performing for I don't know eight

nine years I get on the Tonight Show.

So, what do you do when you get on the

Tonight Show? You do your best material.

Hey, I kind of killed him on the Tonight

Show. That's fantastic. Now, they ask

you back. What do you do? Your second

best material and then your third best

and then you're out of material. But

that's when I started uh developing new

material like I went on once with a

comedy act for dogs. I did that and I I

I did a bit where I could uh tell tell

the audience I can make them laugh

simply by reading the phone book. And I

the bit was I got so desperate I started

doing you know ridiculous things to make

them laugh and slowly started to build

it up and I was much more conscious

about having material and uh even struct

restructuring old material or finding

ways to get new material. And it's

really just working it out, going out

the clubs and working it out. But, you

know, before you take that first TV

show, which of course you have to take,

first appearance, you have to take it,

but it'd be great to have something

else. Uh, backlog of more and more

material.

And I know the comedians today change

their material constantly. You know,

it's a I u in the vaudeville days, you

did six minutes, the same six minutes

for the rest of your life.

And now you do a comedy special and

you've got to write uh you know an hour

and a half a year. It seems impossible.

So you really have to have a catalog, a

backlog, a place to go when that thing

starts to dry up and even have access to

new material whether you employ your

friends or yourself uh and have a

system, a backup system uh to supply

yourself and and and

uh practice it.

I learned early on that rehearsal was

very very important. Now, let me talk

about what I'm talking about. Magic. You

had to do it a million times. It had to

be perfect. Had to be perfect. You did

it in front of a mirror.

And uh

and so when I started doing comedy,

there is no way to rehearse it because

you have to do it in front of an

audience. The best thing you can do is

uh like even today I will if I have a

new line or something I will go over it

in my head and go over it so I don't

stumble on it. You don't want to

stumble. Um

but there's no way to rehearse except

get in front of get in front of people.

So there really is no rehearsal

uh except experience which is a probably

the best way to do it. I I guess if

you're if if you're rehearsing a you

know juggling of course I could rehearse

that or flyini I could certainly

rehearse but you can't rehearse comedy

to nobody.

You've got to give yourself uh room to

be bad because you learn more from being

bad than you do from being great. I'

I've talked about it in my my

autobiography. It's like, you know,

anyone can be great. There's always a

night where you're just on it and you're

so good and the audience is there. It's

like a a little a miracle. Uh everybody

came together at the same time. But what

about the next night when you don't have

that hot audience? You've got to be good

and you've got to be consistent. So,

you've got to learn that consistency and

you it's just a slow development, a line

at a time, an idea at a time, uh a a

way you hold yourself, a moment, you go,

"Oh, that felt different." And that's

the way it's collected. It's not it can

be uh you know, thought up in one giant

leap, but the actual process of it is

going to take that kind of

experimentation and freedom. So try to

find places where you can be awful and I

know there's plenty of them. I think I

think from what I hear uh and the great

thing today is you can be kind of awful

and still get paid.

Remember

to watch your mistakes

because your mistakes may not really be

mistakes. They may be something

emerging. Say why why did I do that? Why

why did that happen? Or

and say maybe there's actually more

there rather than try to shut that down.

Maybe there's something more. um pl

writing music if you make a that's the

best example at most clearest if you

make a mistake you went what was that

note I didn't mean to play that note and

then suddenly you're you're off on

something

and uh I can even say my life changed

because of

watching mistakes

for example I was still you know a young

comedian in the early 70s you know kind

of on that cusp between getting work

being kind of funny but not really

having any success. And I was playing a

college and uh I was going to play in

sort of a makeshift it was a a theater

class classroom and it had a stage

and so the students would be you know in

the audience and I I would be on the

stage but I didn't check everything out

and so now I I finish I'm doing my act

and I realize there's no wings to the

stage. There's no place to go when I'm

done. I had my little box of things. I

had my banjo case and so I sort of go

over and I'm putting things away and the

audience didn't leave and I kept saying

that's it. And and they kept thinking I

was still going on in some way and I

started to think, oh, they're thinking

this is part of the act somehow.

And so I there was only one way out

which was through the audience. So I got

off the stage and I started talking and

ad libing. I don't remember what I said.

I'm just talking and saying little funny

things trying to act like I know what

I'm doing. Then I went out into the

hallway trying to end the show and the

audience followed me out into the

hallway. So I I kept talking to them,

talking, making jokes. Then we went

outside and it was a beautiful warm, you

know, uh, Tennessee night and there was

an empty swimming pool there and so I

said, "Uh, everybody get in the pool."

So they all got in the pool. It was

empty so they just kind of stood there

and then I swam over the top of them,

you know, finally got out. We ended. And

I went home that night and I said, "I

think I just changed my life right now

because I found something that I did not

expect to happen and went with it, I

guess,

and and started thinking about comedy of

my comedy in a new way. It wasn't going

to be just confined to the start and the

end and it was going to spread out and

it was going to become more

at least at this time radical.

Another big change in my career. I was

an opening act going around and doing

okay, you know, as an opening act, but I

was getting no traction. If I'd get a

review, if if the review came out, it

was always about the headliner. And I

realized no matter how good I am, no

matter how I went over, I'm not the

headliner. So, I was playing places,

opening act, see 500 people. I said, I'm

only going to headline. And my next

shows were for 60 people,

but I was the headliner. And the

headliner sticks in people's heads.

Somehow it has some importance to them

that's maybe not even valid. But as soon

as I started headlining, that's when I

started getting attention and starting

getting the reviews I needed.

You'll find

as you become incrementally

confident

that that confidence produces more

confidence. It produces more material,

gives you the littlest bit of courage

uh to go to the next stage. confidence

I'd say took me

25 years to get

uh

sometimes it would come in little

increments but the way to get conf

confidence is to perform or write

consistently

and you you'll slowly build a little

base and you'll say if somebody came

says oh we got a show for you at the uh

at the laahasa's up and you say, "I've

done that before. I can do that. I've

done it. I got 20 minutes or 25 minutes.

I've done it." And in the the more

bizarre circumstances you get in, uh,

the more you're acquiring your own

confidence. I once performed when I was

starting out at a drive-in movie theater

in a at a resort in California and it

was uh during the day 300 p.m.

and the cars came in

and uh put a speaker in their in their

car and I was on the stage and

if they thought something was funny they

honked.

So the stranger circumstances you get

in, you're you're just building up this

repertoire, this arsenal of experience

that there's no substitution for,

especially in these fields. It's not

theoretical.

It's practical. Even though there's

nothing more anxiety producing than

performing on stage, but you know, you

can fool yourself too in a good way.

When I first started developing my act,

I thought, I'm going to fake confidence.

And so when I got on stage,

I never let the audience know I was

bombing. I never I just acted, oh, you

this is fantastic. And it was kind it it

developed a a personality for me on

stage, but it also kept the audience

doesn't wants they want to know they're

in good hands. Be very confident. Fake

it.

And uh let them think they're the

problem, not you.