Ryan Stiles: The Introverted Extrovert

Brad Interview--Part 2:

What do you recommend to someone that goes to one of your shows and wants to get pulled on stage?
There's no guarantee to be pulled up on stage. We look into the crowd for people that don't look like they're carrying weapons or are drunk.
When you travel to a casino, will you play the Drew Carry slot machine?
I certainly hope so. I'm looking forward to that. I remember a year and a half ago he was very excited that this machine was going to be coming into business. I'm sure that he has one at his house. Maybe I should go over there since he doesn't live very far from me.
What other projects are you currently involved in?
This is the main one. This has been taking up a lot of time and we're making a really good living doing it. I'm always looking for more work and we may have the Green Screen show being picked up by Comedy Central next season.
When you travel from city to city, what is it that you do during the daytime?
We don't have a lot of time. There's more than one plane trip sometimes, getting to the hotel, and then the sound check. We only have one or two hours of downtime when we get to the hotel. Usually we're trying to get food from room service or take a nap. There's nothing glamorous about being on the road.
Are there any projects that you're contemplating?
I'm not contemplating anything at the moment. I think that no one in this business thinks that what they're doing at the moment's going to last forever. You do what you're doing now and when that stops making money you move on to whatever the next project is. For most people, it's really hard to create your own work in show business unless you're like John Travolta or Mel Gibson. We're not at the level where we can say, "I'm going to write, produce, and film my own movie."
Is teaching Improv something you've given thought to?
I used to teach when I was in Theater Sports. It was a self-run group and the people with the most experience taught the people that were just coming in.
Are there Brad Sherwood rumors that you'd like to start or dispel?
It's hard to spread really good and gossipy fodder about someone that's forty and lives with a girlfriend and her dog, spending most of their time at home and not on the road. I don't have a very glamorous life where I go out, party, and get myself in trouble.
Do you enjoy being an adult?
I enjoy being an adult. You have to be one. I'm making money to do things like pay my mortgage like an adult, but I make my mortgage money by going up on stage with Colin and acting silly. I'm an adult being paid to act like a child. It's the best of both worlds.
What exciting content will you be adding to your site in the future?
My personal website needs a major over hall. The problem is that my web master is a very good friend of mine. I'm paying him to do it, but I'm not a taskmaster. I'm letting him do it when he gets around to it. We have a really good site called Colinandbrad.com that lists all of our tour dates, has reviews of our shows, and photos. That was done by some fans. Colin's site is better than mine.
Have you got something you'd like to bring to the attention of our readers?
I implore people to come see the show because seeing Improv live is a fun experience. As fun as it is to watch it on TV, live you're seeing comedy and a magic act at the same time because it's being made out of thin air.
Does that mean, then, that you won't be recording any of your specials with Colin?
Probably not. We did a live one in Vegas one year that Showtime aired. That had some really great stuff in it, but it's really hard to capture the spontaneity and everything that's happening on stage with cameras. It's like going to see a band live and seeing a recording of that band live. It doesn't compare.
What is the current status of Whose Line?
It's in reruns. They edited some new episodes from archived footage, but we are not taping Whose Line anymore.
Does that mean it's gone forever?
I wouldn't say that. There's always a chance that someone might want to bring it back and it doesn't necessarily have to be ABC. It's a great show with a working, successful format. ABC didn't foster it the way it needed to be. They put it in a dead time slot against Friends and Survivor, but the minute they put it on ABC Family it became the top rated show on that network.
Do you know if there will ever be a Whose Line DVD?
I've noticed that, aside from that show Alias, ABC has not really marketed a lot of their television shows like all of the other networks. Like FOX, they put out DVDs of commercials they've aired. That network puts out everything.
If it were to come out on DVD, would you provide audio commentary?
That would be a great idea. It would probably be us trash talking each other while watching it together, going, "You look fat. Shut up!" It would be a whole other Improv.
Have you got a message you'd like to leave our readers with?
The most important point to get across is that seeing Improv live is a completely different experience. If you like Whose Line, you'll love the live show.

Visit href="http://www.colinandbrad.com/">Colinandbrad.com to see when Colin and Brad will be stopping by your town and to read Brad's answers to the silly questions the people send to him.

Link: http://onetrickpony.ws/brad_sherwood

Colin Interview
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ian Rice: A good number of people know you from Whose Line is it Anyway? How has being on the show impacted your success?

Colin Mochrie: Basically it’s all my success. Without Whose Line? I certainly wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do the live touring I’m involved with now. And it’s given me other opportunities elsewhere. So, I’m always grateful, first of all, for the British Whose Line? that sort of got me started and then when Drew (Carey) brought it over to America things really started to take off there.

IR: You appeared on both the British and American version of Whose Line? Which version was better for you as a performer?

CM: They were both actually pretty much the same. I mean, it was the same producers for both so the actual show was set up the same way. The only difference was in what the final product ended up being. In Britain, there was no censorship whatsoever and in America we actually had a censor in the booth. Which, especially in the first year, was a tough readjustment for everyone. They would actually call down in the middle of scenes and say, “No, you can’t do that.” So, it was sort of…we were trying to find a line that we could straddle. We certainly didn’t want to get dirty, because if we did the scene would never be shown on television. But, also we weren’t quite sure where that line was. Some of the things they took exception to where things that I…(laughs) I didn’t agree with. (laughs)

IR: Did you find that some of your best things from the taping were left on the cutting room floor?

CM:Oh, no no…I’m pretty good. (laughs) I’ve learned how to get around it. I mean, there were some things where I thought, “My God, how could they?” You know, they would bleep the word “laid” or something. (laughs) And it would always, to my mind, make the audience think of something ten times worse that what was actually said.

IR: I read on the AP Newswire that the version of Whose Line? that’s been on ABC has been cancelled.

CM: Yeah.

IR: Given the success of the show, what do you attribute the cancellation to?

CM: (Takes a deep breath) Oh, there are so many things. I wonder if I can talk about them without getting into trouble. (laughs) I don’t think that ABC handled the show very well. When we first debuted in the summer (of 1998), we had great ratings. The show generated a lot of word of mouth and we were also sort of riding the success of the British version because it had been shown on Comedy Central for so many years and it had built a loyal cult audience.

IR: Right.

CM: But the show was so cheap for them to produce. That’s why they ended up putting us up against Friends and Survivor, two of the hottest shows of the last twenty years. (laughs) But because our ratings, even though our ratings weren’t very good, because the show was so cheap we still made money for the network. So, because of that I think they felt they didn’t have to publicize us. So, we never got any publicity. And then they started switching our time slot around. And then there was a political thing where the people who really championed the show sort of left and then new people came in and wanted to put their stamp on it. It just because sort of a mess. I don’t think ABC actually ever realized how popular the show was. In fact, I know that they didn’t. There was one year where…Warner Brothers (who produced the show) is owned by Disney. The California adventure park (Disneyland) attendance was down, so they decided that they would combine two events. They would have a sort of Grand Opening of the park and also a celebration of ABC Primetime. So all of the ABC stars went down and we were in the parade and part of the festivities was that we did a show, the Whose Line? guys, at one of the theaters there. There was a line up…people started lining up fours hours before the show started. And Michael Izner, the head of the thing (Disney), came up to me and said, “Oh, I didn’t know your show was so popular.” (laughs) And I thought, “Well, you of all people should know. It’s your network!” But they just really truly didn’t take advantage of it. One of the great things about Whose Line? was, I think, that we had the widest demographic of any show ever. I mean, kids from six and up would watch it, grandparents would watch it. When we go to live shows, I’m always amazed how different our audience members are. They go from anywhere from five year olds to eighty year olds. And they all seem to enjoy it. So I’m hoping (laughs) someday maybe they’ll put out the DVD and hopefully then they’ll see how popular the show actually was.

IR: Is there any shot of it coming back on ABC or is it pretty much a done deal at this point?

CM: I think it’s pretty much a done deal. We haven’t shot in two and a half years now. And no one’s actually ever told us that we’re cancelled. We just kind of assumed because we’re not doing it anymore. (laughs) But, yeah, it just wasn’t treated very well.

IR: You recently appeared on the WB's Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show premiered, which is kind of like Whose Line? but it adds animation to the final editing. How do you feel about the new direction and does the added animation affect your overall performance on the show?

CM: It’s…you know what? I haven’t actually seen a show yet. (laughs) So, I can’t comment on that part of it. When Drew first talked to us about it, it sounded pretty exciting and it was different and it was sort of a new step to take it on television. That being said, I found the tapings much harder to do than with Whose Line? because there was that added thing in the back of your mind where you would think to yourself, “I can’t just sit here and talk, I have to do something for the animators. They can’t get excited about two people just sitting in a kitchen.” You know, it was having to do the game, having to be funny and then this added thing of trying to, in a way, be a director and getting a visual sense of what the scene was about. I found it difficult. Towards the end of our tapings it got a little easier but the first couple were kind of rough.

IR: What initially drew you to improv and how do you keep things fresh after so many years of doing it?

CM: I was first drawn to it being a lazy person. (laughs) I thought, “Oh, you know, you don’t have to learn anything you just go up there and do it.” And I loved the danger aspect of it. I mean, it’s the closest I’ll get to skydiving. (laughs) Where I can go out in front of an audience who paid good money and have absolutely nothing to show them except what they give us. So I find it exciting and it’s always fresh because I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve always been working in improv with great people. Even before the Whose Line? people, I was with Theatersports and Second City in Toronto. And what was nice about Whose Line? was working with Ryan (Stiles), of course, who I’d known for like twenty-six years. We grew up together. But one of the frustrating things about Whose Line? was I never got a chance to work with anyone else. Which is why it’s great doing these live shows where Brad (Sherwood) and I are going out and working together. So that keeps it fresh because although I’ve known Brad for fifteen years, we haven’t worked together that much. So it’s nice to be working with someone who’s coming from a different angle.

IR: Speaking of the show you’re doing with Brad Sherwood, how does that experience differ from doing televised improvisational comedy?

CM: It’s a lot looser and there’s a different feeling. Whose Line? came very close to capturing what a live performance of improv is like, but there really is no substitute for the real thing. In our show, every scene starts with a suggestion from the audience and for about ninety percent of them we have audience members on stage with us. So it’s a little more interactive actually than Whose Line? was. And because we don’t have to worry about time, we can explore the scenes as much as we want and really milk it dry. (laughs) And we tend to do that! (laughs) So, I actually prefer doing the live shows.

IR: As a member of the audience, what can you expect from going to one of the “An Evening with Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood” shows?

CM: I think you expect not to learn anything. (laughs) You don’t walk away going, “Oh yes, I’ve learned something about the human condition.” (laughs) It’s just two hours of fun. It’s mostly games that are probably familiar to Whose Line? fans and then we have some games that Brad and I have invented and sort of adapted for the stage.

IR: Performing live improv shows requires you to rely heavily on audience participation. How do you deal with an audience that’s reluctant to participate?

CM: Luckily, we haven’t come across that too often. When we’re doing the live shows, basically our audience knows what the show is, so most of them are pretty excited and want to be involved right away. And the only thing that can actually throw you is whatever suggestions you get from the audience because they can be very strange. So, basically we’ve worked out a way of getting suggestions from the audience that sort of opens up their imagination and keeps it away from doing scenes about gynecologists and proctologists. (laughs)

IR: Aside from your vast body of improvisational work, you’ve also appeared in several television and film roles. What was your favorite project that was outside of the realm of improv?

CM: Oh God…(laughs) Let me think…my wife (Debra McGrath) and I have just done a pilot up in Canada for the network up there and I have to say right now that’s been my favorite just because I’m producing it, I wrote the scripts, my wife and I are in it, we cast all our friends and it ended up being really good. I’m very proud of it.

IR: That’s Getting Along Famously, right?

CM: Yeah. So, we’re pretty excited about that. Otherwise, I really enjoyed working on (Jim Carrey comedy vehicle) Man On the Moon, even though I ended up not actually being in it. But it was great to work with such a great director, Milos Forman. And I was actually quite proud of what I did, it was just unfortunate that nobody got to see it! (laughs)

IR: Were your scenes deleted? Is that what happened?

CM: Yes, my scene was deleted. I was hoping it might be on the DVD, but no. No it wasn’t! (laughs)

IR: One final question for you: what does the future hold for Colin Mochrie?

CM: I have no idea. I’m guessing more of the touring because we’re really enjoying that. It really is a lot of fun. I’d like to branch out into movies, it’s just finding producers and directors that want to hire me! (laughs) But I’ll just keep plugging along and see what happens.

Link: http://www.sbindependent.org/node/192

That's it for now. It took a while to make the questions bold on two of the interviews, while on the last one I had to un-double space it. Hopefully my hard work won't go to waste.

Oh no no no, I just found like two more! Let me post em...

Lightning-Fast Stiles Still Has Skill in Improv
By Guy macpherson
Publish Date: 9-Dec-2004

Ryan Stiles and Friends Unplugged
At the Vogue Theatre on Saturday, December 4

Ryan Stiles, once one of the best standup comics in Vancouver, retired from doing prepared material a long time ago. The TV star and Vancouver TheatreSports League alumnus has concentrated on improv since the mid '80s and is best known for his improvisational skills on Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Stiles once told a reporter that he got out of standup when everybody else started doing it. After Saturday's late show at the Vogue, where he teamed up with some of his old VTSL cohorts, I wouldn't be surprised if he gave up improv, too.

It's beginning to sound repetitive, but recently, the crowds for comedy-theatre shows in this town have all but ruined the fun. Unlike standup, where performers deliver a monologue and heckling is unwelcome, improv invites audience participation. What the comics don't appreciate, though, is rowdies who think they are the show. On Saturday, most reasonable suggestions from the laypeople were drowned out by folks who wanted every scene to involve masturbation, sphincters, and sex. Things got so bad that a frustrated Stiles ended up pointing at certain individuals for assistance. Not that it helped; the blowhards still screamed out their ideas of really funny premises or pleas of "Marry me, Ryan!"

Still, all was not lost. When you're watching a talent as bright as Stiles, not to mention some of the best of the still-local improvisers, there are going to be laughs.

Several of the games were old standbys that never fail to amuse, even if the actors aren't saying anything particularly inventive. The Freeze Game--where someone yells out "Freeze!" in the middle of a skit and assumes the position of one member in the scene--is always contrived and rarely provides any brilliant comedy. Ditto the game where two civilians move the actors about like puppets. The ineptness of the puppeteers always generates more hilarity than the story line.

Most promising was a game I hadn't seen in improv before this night: a takeoff on Jeopardy!, featuring Stiles as Alex Trebek. Either he or one of the four "contestants" would supply the categories and the questions to answers called out by audience members. Under the category of Body Positions, the answer was supine. The question, as provided on the spot by Ellie Harvie: "What is the answer to 'What kind of tree is that?' " Under Geometrical Shapes, the answer was hypotenuse. Roger Fredericks's question: "What do you use to hang a hypoten?"

Another highlight was an "interview" with Stiles as an expert on hip-hop aerobics. Behind him, Jay Ono provided "sign language" for the hearing-impaired. When Stiles and his interviewer touched on a phrase that proved difficult for Ono, they wasted no time in repeating it over and over. It was a great combination of verbal and physical comedy.

Cast member Scott Owen, who always impresses, is the closest thing to Stiles in Vancouver. Both comics are tall, with a naturally funny look and lightning-quick responses to the most challenging situations.

Stiles gave us a taste of his standup skills when he talked to the audience for 10 minutes at the top of the night. He probably won't retire from improv, even if he keeps attracting horrendous crowds like the one at Saturday's late show. But if he does, here's hoping he goes back to his roots. He's still got it.

Link: http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=6859

Shoot for the quip
No script, no rehearsal, nowhere to hide. But for some comics, nothing beats the fun of the improv
By Jim Carnes -- Bee Staff Writer

(call me crazy but aren't the other guys usually in that picture?)

Improvise: To compose, recite, play or sing extemporaneously; to make, invent or arrange offhand; to fabricate out of what is conveniently on hand.

That's what Webster says.
"Improv is the abyss." That's what comic Greg Proops says. "You don't know what you're going to say or do." Ryan Stiles says, "There's nothing better than making people laugh at you." Proops and Stiles are among the top improv comics in the country, and they'll headline "A Night of Improv" on Saturday at the Community Center Theater.

Improv is "something I would pay to do," Stiles said in a recent telephone interview. "It's that scary and that much fun to do."

Improvised comedy is done on the fly. It's of-the-moment. Here. Now. Then gone. Nothing is written down, and nothing rehearsed.

"You can't write improv," Stiles said.

"It wouldn't look funny on paper: 'Greg pretends to be amoose.' Sure."

Improv is perhaps the most current and ephemeral entertainment form. But improvised theater has a long, long, looooong history. Like all the way back to the 1550s, when traveling commedia dell'arte troupes wandered through Europe, presenting shows in public squares, making up the dialogue within the framework of a "scenario."

The commedia form lasted about 200 years before fading (although it still has its fans, including River Stage artistic director Frank Condon, who has incorporated commedia into several of his theater productions).

In the 1920s and '30s, improvisation started making a comeback. The real rebirth came in Chicago in the 1950s. A group of University of Chicago students began performing a different kind of comic "theater." In June 1953, the Playwright's Theatre Club opened at the university, and in May 1955, the Compass Players began.

In December 1959, the renowned Second City comedy club opened. This was the birth of modern improvisational comedy. Second City spawned related clubs in Los Angeles, Detroit and Toronto; the TV series "SCTV" (and indirectly "Saturday Night Live"); and such comic entertainers as John Belushi, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Betty Thomas, Bonnie Hunt and Mike Myers, among others.

Today, most Americans know about improv comedy from the television show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" which starred Drew Carey, along with Stiles, Proops and several others (including Colin Mochrie and Wayne Brady, both of whom have done improv concert shows in Sacramento).

Comedy falls into three broad categories. There is sketch comedy (comic theater in which scenes are written, or at least sketched out, and performed); stand-up comedy (usually a solo act that is written, polished and delivered); and improv (or "spot" comedy, which is made up on the spot and usually based on suggestions from the audience).

Many actors study improv as part of their theatrical training. Some stand-up comedians began in improv.

"I started with improv when I came to New York," said stand-up comic Jim Gaffigan, who will perform next Sunday at the Crest Theatre. "The inside voice in my act is motivated by improv, and a lot of the commercials I do, I improvise in." He said that being able to improvise gives any performer confidence.

Stiles, 47, started in stand-up, "but after I got into improv, I never went back," he said. "You're not going out and telling the same jokes night after night. When you go out to do stand-up, it's kind of a 'make-me laugh' attitude (from the audience).

When you come out to do improv, the audience is more accepting. They participate in it with you."

Stiles has a home in Bellingham, Wash., and "used to drive I-5 from L.A. through Sacramento to there all the time. I love it once you hit Redding," he said. "Basically there's nothing on the drive between (Los Angeles) and Sacramento except Pea Soup Andersen's."

Stiles opened an improv sketch club in Bellingham a couple of years ago. "It's fun to watch young performers grow," he said. "You get stuck in L.A. doing TV shows and working, but improv is playtime. When I was with Second City, it was the least amount of money I ever made - and the most fun."

Stiles was among the founders of the Los Angeles Second City troupe, which, he admitted, "didn't last long. People were getting picked up for TV shows all the time and leaving the cast."

A cast needs continuity, he said. The group that will perform here Saturday is a gang of four. In addition to Stiles and Proops, it includes Jeff Davis and Chip Esten.

"The guy I've worked with the least amount of time, I've been with 10 years," Stiles said. "We're becoming Tim Conway. We used to look at him and say, 'He's kind of old, but he's cool.' Well, that's us now."

Proops, 46, performs both stand-up and improv. He also provides the voice of Bob the Builder in the kids cartoon show and in 1989 was the first American cast member of the original British "Whose Line," which launched the American version (still seen in syndication, although it hasn't been in production for two years).

Of all his jobs, "Improv's funner," Proops said in a recent telephone interview from Minneapolis, where he was performing his stand-up act at the Acme comedy club. "It changes from night to night. That's what makes it exciting. It's more reactive, and you have to put yourself in the other cast members' hands. There's a suspension of ego, just letting things go."

Still, Proops said, "Stand-up is my baby. Telling my jokes is what I do."

Proops' career began "a hundred years ago," he said, "in college." He studied theater at San Francisco State University. "I've performed since I was a kid. It's what I always wanted to do, to perform.

"I wrote amusical in high school. In college, I did 'Equus,' 'The Homecoming' by (Harold) Pinter, Shakespeare in the Park. And I've done stand-up from 18 on. Once I did stand-up, I was hooked. The freedom to say what you wanted was way more gratifying."

Proops begins the "Night of Improv" shows with a brief stand-up performance. "I tell a few jokes, prep the audience on what we're going to do, tell them what not to do, and then we're off to the races."

Because their improv show relies on suggestions from the audience - a character, place or situation - and because they want to keep the show PG-rated, Stiles, Proops and the guys have a few ground rules.

"Nothing too suggestive," Stiles said. "We've heard 'gynecologist' enough that we just go 'next' on that one. And proctologist. Astronaut. And diarrhea."

"We try to get something new," Proops said. "If we hear a suggestion that we just heard the night before, we'll probably skip it - unless we can think of something really different.

"This is improv, after all. You don't want to repeat yourself."

Link: http://gregproops.com/forum/index.php?topic=2183.0;prev_next=next

ooo yeah i remember that one

http://www.comedystoreplayers.com/eve.html

^^Interview with Josie Lawrence and Jim Sweeney

Bluemoon, you rock! You know so much about the show!! WOW!!

Hey, I'm not the only one here that does....for one thing Points, Drifty, Chimory, NYRambler, Whoselinerocks, Coop, and everyone else are also experts.

i appreciate that....but you do know alot yourself

bluemoon wrote:

Righto, I found a lot of interviews last night. Some of them are Colin and Brad.
So first I'll do the easy stuff:

http://www.celebritygolf.com/celebrity-profile.asp?ID=48#

Click on the green box thing at the bottom of the page to listen to the interview. I believe you need Windows Media Player. (This is the interview where Ryan says he's had Degenerative Disk Disease for 18 years. )

He golfed for 18 years. But I don't think that he had the Degenerative Disk Disease that long.

he might have worked around it

True. But I hear he didn't have back problems till aroun 1997.

eh, who knows lol

LOL yeah. I would ask him but I am probably already considered a pervert to him.

yeah well...oh well what're ya gonna do

Have you ask him through Mr. Cigar

I might've listened wrong...I read somewhere that his back problems became more obvious when he had trouble walking up the steps of the stage (during the UK version). So Colin had to take over as weatherman during Weird Newscasters.

really, i hav'ent read that one

i should ask Mr. Cigar..i think i'll try that

Where is the next article on Ryan?

When someone finds another one. I haven't the time yet to search so...

(I just realized this lol)

lol yeah...i took it off of clicksmilies