A lot of times you’ll see stand up comics in roles you wouldn’t suspect a comic to be in. This is for both TV and movies. Robin Williams has a bunch of these (Good Will Hunting, Awakenings)…as well as George Carlin as “the conductor” in Thomas the Engine (or whatever the show is)
Then there are the obvious stand up comics is comedy roles - Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Jerry Seinfeld
What actors/actresses have you been stunned to find out were actually stand up comics?
I know some of the smaller roles on Breaking Bad are done by stand up comics (Saul’s two guys and Jesse’s two drug dealer friends)
But two examples that I had no idea that they were comics were:
Kevin Pollack - from A Few Good Men
Mary Lynn Rajskub - Chloe from 24
I remember Richard Belzer (Det. Munch from Homicide and Law & Order: SVU from a stand-up show on Showtime in the late-70s/early-80s. His IMDb bio says he was the warm-up comedian for the first season of Saturday Night Live and appeared on a couple early episodes.
There was a thread a while ago about movies in which one character imitates another. A Few Good Men is mentioned because of the scene where Tom Cruise briefly quotes and imitates an earlier scene with Jack Nicholson. On youtube there is footage of Kevin Pollack’s act where he acts out a scene from the original Star Trek as it might have been done with famous actors in the roles. It includes Jack Nicholson. A Few Good Men; three Nicholsons for the price of one.
Greg Behrendt, who was a writer for Sex & the City and coined the phrase “He’s just not that into you” which became a best selling book and launched him to his own daytime talk show for a spell.
I was surprised to find out he’s mostly a stand-up comic and a pretty well respected one at that.
Also, I think a lot of people of more recent generations would be shocked to learn that Woody Allen started out as a stand-up comic, as did Bob Newhart. Both had great success with their comedy careers before making it big in film/tv.
Aren’t a lot of the cast of The Big Bang Theory comedians ?
In the U.K, . a series of Agatha Christies, Miss Marples mysteries (Though titled Marple , I believe) are comedians(Often highly disguised) who play their roles straight.
As a matter of curiousity, if anyone knows why this happened please let me know as its been driving me mad .
My own theory is is that they all use the same casting agency who got the contract to supply actors.
I remember he had some Comedy Central specials, which I enjoyed, and then he disappeared for a while and next thing I know there’s this chick book by a Greg Behrendt and his wife and it reminded me of the comedian so I looked it up and Holy Crap! that comedian wrote that chick book.
I remember being shocked when I found out Jay Mohr was a standup comedian. All I had ever seen him in was bit non-comedic roles, and had completely missed his couple of years on SNL.
A highlight of Belzer’s standup routines in the Seventies was his Mick Jagger impression. Every now and then, when he’s on a talk show, the host will convince him to do a bit of the Jagger routine.
He was the first person I ever heard describe Jagger as “a rooster on coke.” Belzer couldn’t sing like Jagger, but he had the moves down PERFECTLY.
Joe Rogan who is a host for Fear Factor (best reality show on tv) and does color commentary for Ultimate Fighting Championship (mixed martial arts) does standup.
Whoopi Goldberg got her start in stand-up, and even had a one-woman Broadway show. Steven Spielberg fought to get her cast as the lead in The Color Purple. And the rest is history.
Joss Whedon is known for hiring comics for his TV shows and movies–he figures that he’s going to ask them to do something funny someday, and if they’ve been a comic, he knows they can do it. Serious actors can’t necessarily do comedy. The one I know of is Michael Hitchcock, who played the scientist in Serenity who was experimenting on River Tam’s brain.
