IN THE MAGAZINE

ASSSSCAT'S TEMPORARY, ONE-NIGHT ONLY, FUNNY STORIES - PART 3

The Vice Interview

INTERVIEWED BY VICE STAFF,
PHOTOGRAPHED BY DOUGLAS THOMPSON

JACK MCBRAYER

Jack McBrayer is the best. He’s plays Kenneth the page on 30 Rock and has been in a lot of good movies where every time he pops up, you say to yourself, “Oh, THAT guy. I love that guy!”

Vice: Do you worry about everything falling apart when you’re onstage?

Jack McBrayer: No. I’ve been doing it so long and I’ve failed so many times that I just stopped being afraid of failing or messing up.

And once you’ve got a lot of experience, is there even such a thing as messing up in improv?

Yeah, you’re told that in your early classes—there’s no such thing as a wrong choice. You’re just guided more to be helpful to your other players. I liken improv to cartoons. Anything can happen. It can be surreal, or mundane, or abstract… it can be anything. You need to accept it and enjoy it.

Were you already pretty experienced as an actor when you started doing improv?

The only things I’d done before starting  improv were plays in high school. I graduated college and moved to Chicago, and that’s where I followed the performances of Second City. So it was seeing live improv that inspired me to take classes. The people that I saw then included Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Scott Adsit… these are the people who inspired me to do all this and now I’m honored to do it with them. That’s kind of a cool thing for me.

Did you do the Del Close method of learning improv?

I was fortunate to have Del Close before he passed. But it took me a while to realize that you should just glean what you can from each of your teachers, because each one is going to have a slightly different take on it. It was good for me realize that it was OK to not subscribe to every single word that was thrown at me—that it was OK to make it my own.

Do you like to play high- or low-status characters? Do you have a default sort of character you go to?

Pretty much. [laughs] It’s not like it’s really even a conscious choice. Usually I go for a lower-status character, oftentimes a victim of emotional and sometimes physical abuse.

Tell me what being a low-status character means to you.

A low-status character has less power than other people in a scene.

So it’s more of a foil?

I guess… I don’t know all these fancy words! [laughs]

Is it more of a support or a sidekick kind of a thing?

Oh yes, yes. What I’ve found about a lot of low-status characters is they’re good for just about any scene because there are always other characters that need to have some level of control or power. No matter what you’re playing, whether it’s high school students or people in an office or a husband-and-wife kind of thing. But it’s not like the low status character is the only thing I do. I’m very, very gifted, sir. I’m very gifted.

A true diamond in the rough. One thing I noticed that was special about you during an Asssscat performance I saw was that, while most of the other guys onstage were going for goofy, snide, or aggressive (all of which are great too), you were always kind of sweet.

Yeah.

Everyone was aggressive except for you.

Right—that’s pretty much the story of my life! But one thing I do believe in is that you don’t have to be cool to be funny. I’m not such a big fan of prank shows or extreme things. I like for everybody to be in on the joke. If that means that I’m going to be the butt of it, that’s all fine and good. As long as I know it’s not coming from a truly angry place. [laughs] I don’t necessarily like cruelty-based humor. But since I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy the people I work with, it allows them to say anything to me and me to say anything to them.

Is there ever antagonism between performers in improv?

Every now and then you’ll be playing with someone who is truly competitive or aggressive, who just doesn’t share the same joy of it as you. Then it gets a little ugly. There have been a couple of times where I’ve been doing a scene with someone who really and truly thinks it’s a pissing contest. When that happens, I’ll just be like, “No, no thanks,” and walk out of the scene. I’ll just exit and leave them standing onstage.

You’re not going to play that game!

I’m like, “Thank you, no!”



I was wondering if that ever happens. It’s so quick and intense that people must sometimes snipe at each other.

I’m not saying it never happens, but it’s so infrequent. There are only a couple of people in the community who I’m wary of.

Do you know where your material comes from when you’re doing improv? I mean, do you see something in your life and think that you might store it and bring it up in a scene, or is everything totally in the moment?

Occasionally something happens where I’m like, “Oh, you are kidding me.” You might see a crazy person on the subway or have a weird encounter in a deli and be able to incorporate some of that into a scene. But for the most part, since it is with other players and they’re all going to bring different things to the table, you can’t really bank on a whole lot of stuff because in an instant it can completely change course. There’s only so much forethought you can put into it.

I guess there needs to be a lot of trust between the players for it to go well. There’s such great chemistry between everyone in Asssscat.

At this point in a bunch of our careers, this is more of a social thing for us. Yes, it also keeps us from getting rusty, but it’s kind of the equivalent of a bunch of us meeting up at a bar and drinking. We just happen to do it front of an audience.

Are you guys always on when you’re just hanging out? Is it always bits, riffs, and laughs?

Not always. But it makes it easier when you’re able to just do stupid jokes. It’s like being a kid, where you can laugh at stupid puns. You’re not trying to impress anybody. So it’s debilitating to us as humans that we’re comedians.

I’m sure you’ve heard how a lot of people believe that comedians are comedians because they’re somehow damaged inside—that being funny comes from a dark, dark place.

Everybody’s got baggage and demons and is damaged in some way. I think it’s just how you balance out bits versus deep communication. In Chicago, there was such a delineation between improvisers and stand-ups that it was almost like one was inferior to the other. Of course as improvisers, we thought stand-ups were inferior.

It’s like the Jets and the Sharks.

I know, right? But once I came to New York, I saw much more of a blend of comedians. That opened me up to seeing what comedians were made of and what kind of people comedians are. So I’ve definitely heard that all comedians are damaged, but you know what? So are all bankers and bakers.

Does it ever bum you out when you’re part of a really good improv scene but there’s no record of it?

It makes it so special when an improv bit kills and goes so well. It’s a very intimate, you-had-to-be-there moment for the players and the audience. That might be one reason why improv doesn’t translate to television very well. It’s a really intimate sort of art. So in that sense, it’s fine that it doesn’t get recorded.

With that said, when I was working at Second City, that’s exactly how we would develop sketches. We’d improvise stuff in front of an audience and the stuff that worked, we would script. The stuff that didn’t, we would just chalk it up to another day in the coal mine.


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