Hi guys, Renee Pezzotta,
Acting My Age. Welcome back, and if you're
new to the channel, be sure to hit subscribe.
Come back every Wednesday for new videos.
This week, I had the pleasure of sitting down
with comedian, writer, actor Rick Overton.
Here's a quick montage of stuff you've probably
seen him in.
Hey, who else could go
for some flapjacks right now?
This way.
Nuh-nuh-nuh, I don't think
so.
Alright then, this way.
Ahh-nuh. This way.
This way?
That's what I said.
This way.
Excuse me Sunny ...
I can't believe your screwing
Walter Blunt.
Point of fact, we did not
engage in intercourse.
Oh you shut up. I don't
like you, I don't like your show and I don't...
What did it cost to paint
this thing you think, back then?
Twelve Dollars.
Yeah, twelve dollars,
something like that. I was thinking right
around fifteen, twelve fifteen.
I think it was a slave state,
so it might have been free.
Oh ...
Johnny liked your boy.
Now this thing with the bus ...
Today, I am with the
funny-funny-funny, Rick Overton, who is a
writer, a comedian and actor.
Did you start
off as a comedian?
I wanted to be a comedian from when I was a kid.
My father loved Jonathan Winters, he
was a jazz musician and he liked improv
and Jonathan was improv.
I'm afraid of Italians
because you know you can get a bad pizza and die (laughter)
And so he got me into
Jonathan Winters and then you know that's
how Robin Williams and I became friends, it
was because of Jonathan. Our mutual respect
and love for that guy. I would do funny schticks
in class and I started to figure out this
is pretty much close to what I want to make
my life look like now. Some of my favorite
things I have seen are just someone riffing
on camera, as a character and I got it in
my head to do it. When I was watching Peter
Sellers as Dr.Strangelove.
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
I watched my dad just
disintegrate, watching Sellers on T.V, doing
Strangelove. I'm like, uh-huh, yeah I wanna
get dad to do that.
That's how I can get
dad's loving attention.
To a certain degree, his
approval would somehow, in the subconscious
filing system, fall under a similar heading.
Though he did give me love and affection.
Approval is a separate
thing.
You get him to approve
and he's in the arts and he approves. That's
a level of validation for a kid, you know. Or a grownup for for crying out loud.
You come from a family
that also was very artistic.
My father arranged for
Thelonious Monk, taught at Juilliard, helped
the Bebop scene get going and my mom was one
of the Quardets, the lollipop, mister sandman.
Oh wow, yeah.
And they'd been on gig.
So, when I was kid I would see comedians a
lot and I would see improv a lot, which got
stuck in my head and that's really, I'd say,
at the end of my life I'd like to think that's
one of the things I got done. Lots of improv
on camera.
That's great. As you've
matured through your life-
Says who!!
Yeah right I know, I
haven't aged at all, I know this for a fact,
but has anything changed for you, as far as
like the process, first of all you, do you
still have to audition for things?
Oh sure.
And when you walk in
are you still carrying some of that actor
baggage that a lot of us have.
I'll put it this way.
I try to ... in the interim from when I first
started doing this to right, I right to take
that energy at this age and actually put it
in the tank and gas up with it. So I can 'vroom',
I can drive into the scene. You can take the
things that were your enemies as a youngster
and realize some of them were actually pals.
That you didn't understand the dynamic.
That's a great way to
look at it. I have seen actors who actually
get more scared as they get older and maybe
its just not having the opportunity to be
on set and to actually work those muscles
and get over that.
Yeah, I have never done
a carrier landing, but liken it to that. Your
first Ten are gonna be ... exchange your flight
suit after that.
Right.
And then about the hundredth
time you're like yeah this one is probably
gonna suck gotta come
around, okay and 'boom' and there I am with
a strap, bruised and all that stuff, which
you always get, you always get it. You're
numb to it. Now the trick is not to numb to
the art part, when you are getting accustomed
to a pattern or a riff and you'll see song
writers go through this, a song writer just
starts ... everything starts to sound like
the same three chords with different words,
a little bit around it, same tone, says it
works and they don't want that. It ain't broke
and they don't fix it or realize that working
too long is the broke part.
So, always growing and
changing, taking a chance is like as important
as knowing what you know. I say they stay
side by side in value, in your career because
you look at someone who just does one thing
forever and there is value to that, and we
see Steven Root, who does something completely
different every time.
there are several actors of course Streep, completely
different every time. I think if you're not
a star, you better keep working on something
new.
And even if you are, work
on something new, 'cause you can stop being
a star 'cause you did the same thing so much.
Totally.
Doing something new, I
think, keeps the pilot light lit on art. As
you're making income around whatever machinery
you've built.
And I think improv is
the best venue for that.
It's the shortcut.  There is no shorter route. It can't
stop happening. Just build the muscle, it
becomes just an impulse.
Absolutely.
'cause improv, they
say it's the hardest thing to do, if you purely
left brained and you don't know where your
gut fits in your life. Then you gonna be hard
timed, using memory for
that, they gonna crush you up there. You gonna
be a throw rug, you won't make it. You can't
use that, you have to trust that your gut
is smarter that either half of your brain,
is feeding to a recording device on the top
of your body.
But the receiver port
is down here, the main USB hub is right down
here and it saves you in traffic, it saves
you in trouble, it's never wrong. It's only
wrong when we didn't listen.
Was there ever a time
in your career, that you were like, "I'm done,
I can't do this anymore"?
Uh....... Nuh-uh. Not really.
That doesn't surprise
me from you.
Nah ... ah well, one-nighter,
you know, bullshit business. And then you
know, three AM in the morning, "Baby, let
me in. I'm sorry, I'm an asshole. I promise,
just let me in, it's raining, let me in”.
They keep pulling me back in. Yeah this is
what I do and this is where they do it and
this is where everything's plugged in and
gotta be near where it's plugged in or make
your own thing and plug it in. That's a another
way to go these days.
Right.
If you are willing to
not be immediately monetized you can't come
in to any this now guys, with some 1990s model
of how it's gonna get all picked up and 'schlobs'
or any of that. Those days are done. You are
partly on your own. The entire time, you have
to be, to some degree autonomous artistically
as far as how you can control a product. You
can't leave it up to them anymore. That's
on of the shortcuts, the other shortcut is
get into improv, get into improv and get into
a group because what if one of the other members
of your troupe gets picked up for a sitcom
and they love everybody in their group. How
many times have you seen, multiple groundling
clusters on a show. They pull their peeps
out for SNL or for the show, you now, for
Parks and Rec. It's always seemed to work
well because your very smart to bring the
people you already have magic with.
Absolutely.
You're guaranteeing some
success for the show.
Mm-hmm
There has been a lot of examples of that,
I mean Melissa McCarthy does it really well.
Yes
With Nobodies, I mean
it unfortunately got canceled. You know, between
'I'm dying up here' and that show getting canceled,
I wonder who's making these decisions.
I was Very sad to hear about
that. It's not easy doing period.
That was so good. Yeah,
he was talking about 'I'm dying up here' on
Showtime. That was great. You know what I'm
gonna ask you.
How was it, acting with  Melissa Leo?
Very exciting. Did you
see season 2 episode 8?
I saw everything.
Oh yeah, so that was ... we
had some fun scenes but that's the scene ...
I think it's time to call it a night.
Nuh-nuh-no. Not an answer
is still an answer Mitch.
I won't dignify that ugly
question with an answer.
It was her fifteenth birthday,
I was late, you were here, you smoked a joint-
Where is this coming from?
Answer the Goddamn question.
Hey, I watched that kid
grow up in this club, wandering the halls
with comics as babysitters. You left her alone,
with comics and strangers hundreds of times-
Not about my sins ...
What would make you ask
me such a vile question?
Amanda ...
And then it turns into
this great blow out fight. Oh thank you guys,
every actor wants a scene like that, I think
Meisel probable keeps the torch lit for some
kind of future for other shows to go look
we can show ... because usually they're terrified
of a show about entertainment because people
don't want to see that, they say. They can't
relate to it, but I thought going for dreams
is kinda universal.
Sure it is, sure it
is.
You don't have to be in
the exact line of work to get what they're
going for.
Right and I mean nowadays,
you've mentioned this before, it's so easy
for someone in Montana to grab a camera rig
and put themselves on tape for a show and
end up getting a part in something, you know.
Yes
Do it yourself, just
create!!
You're right.
Just create!!
Just create. Listen to
Renee, just create and let it find what it's
supposed to be, 'cause it's smarter than you,
it knows more than you, creativity knows more
than you, it borrowed you for a moment, be
grateful it did, see what it threw you. We
may not be qualified to judge everything it
gives us all the time, and only later we see
when someone flipped out over the thing I
was just so-so about, oh now I love it too,
'cause that guy loved it. Sometimes we have
to see from the side how our life [inaudible
the linear forward path of our life,
in profile, you know.
Totally. Well listen,
what do you got coming up next?
Well, I got drunk history
coming up. I don't know when, 'cause they
don't tell you what order, 'cause it doesn't
have to go in any order.
That's true.
Generally, if someone's
a ... famous on a holiday you've got them
landed, but everything else is just wherever
it goes.
Yeah.
So it's coming up, and
I can't tell you more about it 'cause of the
same thing, and I was just on Adam ruins everything,
the Thanksgiving second amendment episode,
very important to us. He does very smart stuff.
Sure does.
And I've got couple things
I'm not allowed to do anything about.
Okay. NDA time. Can't
wait to see it, can't wait to see what's coming
up. Your fabulous, your a delight to have
on my show. Thank you so much for doing it.
I know that they are going to love it. Anything
else you wanna add in?
Improv, study improv and here's why... At the end of your career, you'll
either be known for how well you repeated
or how well you invented.
I love that.
If you liked the video
you just saw. Give it a thumbs up. Be sure
to click subscribe and come back every Wednesday
for a new video.
I'm Renee Pezzotta, Acting My Age.
