Even before suffering another heart attack yesterday (his second in 11 days and third in a year), Gallagher said last week that he's retiring from live performance after 32 years. Sounds like the right move for his health. And a 32-year career is nothing to sneeze at. Unless some little bits of watermelon debris get trapped in your nostrils; then sneezing should be expected.
Oh fame, you are fickle temptress! While the Bill Hickses of the world receive your clammy embrace only after death, you mount yourself on a Dane Cook like a teenager after her first taste of Peach Schnapps! But there are no guarantees in this life. And there are no sure paths to becoming famous. Hundreds of top-notch stand-ups and sketch/improv performers are toiling away in obscurity at this very second (okay, maybe not this very second, but you get the gist).
So, how the hell do you become the next comedy sensation?
While most of our most renowned comedy performers have come up either through stand-up or sketch/improv (the two [...]
This is a pretty neat profile of a post-Moneyball Jonah Hill and his ongoing transition from "the feral, frantic embodiment of teenage id" he played in Superbad. After taking on a big dramatic role and following it with the comedic The Sitter, people are watching closely to see how he'll define himself next. Hearteningly for comedy fans, Hill doesn't feel he needs to stick with drama "just because you think the other stuff I do is less prestigious." I say, if his taste in movie roles is anything like his taste in shrimp cocktail, he's got nothing to worry about. (If it's still unclear, the point of that [...]
Fresh off SNL, Jason Segel continues effortlessly riding the gale-force winds of The Muppets promotion by taking us through his past roles. He even reveals the true goals behind Judd Apatow's movie making career:
[Undeclared] was really good, and they canceled it the same way they'd canceled Freaks and Geeks, so that was the moment when Judd was like, "All right, watch this: I'm single-handedly going to make all these people movie stars. You think you're so smart, network? Watch what I'm about to do." And from that show being canceled, Judd went on a Count of Monte Cristo-style revenge mission to make every one of us famous. [...]
