I miss the New York bagel but miss the New York bialy even more. It's a great compromise of bagel feeling with less dough stuffing.
— Nick Kroll
I usually need to read emails to actually wake up. I'll read these and Twitter, and my brain will start to get going about what a narcissistic monster I am. I read on Twitter who is talking about me. I'll also start making jokes for the day based on what I read on Twitter.
I don't like downtime, and I just am too insecure that I'll not work again if I don't start the ball rolling on the next round of things. Everything takes so long to make and come to fruition.
In, like, seventh or eighth grade every day after school, my friend Andrew and I would watch 'Wayne's World.' And I think it's a great example of a sketch effectively turned into a movie and a story that really works with a good journey. Not easily accomplished, but such a good journey.
The first movie that I ever said was my favorite movie - and I've said for the longest - is 'The Producers,' Mel Brooks' original 'Producers.' The two lead performances from Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are both unstoppable performances and then supported by amazing supporting characters throughout.
You have to have a first job to learn how to act, do interviews, pose for photo shoots, and negotiate how you'll say lines with writers. My first network show, 'Cavemen,' just happened to be one that was culturally reviled.
Without realizing it, I think I've wanted to do a sketch show since I was, like, 11 years old. Like everybody else in comedy, I grew up watching 'Saturday Night Live,' and I was doing characters with my friends.
I do a lot of eavesdropping. That's one of the things I miss about New York: just checking people out.
Comedy is so collaborative. You're going to come up with better jokes with people you like joking around with. It just makes sense.
I guess there should be somewhere on the Internet that feels like a source of sacred truth. But Wikipedia sure isn't it.
I can't play video games or games on my phone because I'll go into a deep vortex, and no one will hear from me for weeks.
I got my SAG card doing commercials.
I speak some Spanish. I would love to go make a movie in Spanish. I'd love to be in an Almodovar movie or an Inarritu.
'Cavemen' was obviously a big opportunity. I learned a lot about how to act and about the politics of being on a set every day. Like, who do you have to listen to and who you don't have to listen to.
I did, like, one or two plays in high school, but I don't think I realized I wanted to do comedy until I got to college, and I started doing improv and saw the Upright Citizens Brigade perform and did workshops with them.
We all suffer in our own way; like, life is miserable. And I'm not, 'Oh, I'm a stand-up who's sad,' but the reality is that just about everyone is quietly unhappy. I don't think that pertains to comedians specifically. I think most people look at themselves in the mirror and are not happy with what they see.
My friends and family always thought I was pretty funny, but I don't know if they thought I was get-my-own-show funny.
Kashi looks like twigs, so it makes me feel like I'm healthy. This cereal has been with me since childhood. Once a year in my family, we had a junk food day. I could eat Cocoa Crisps and Fruit Loops. Now I'm back eating Kashi. As much as I hate to admit it, my mother has won.
The more variance I have in my days, the more exciting each thing is and the more I enjoy doing it.
I'm a good uncle, but I'm not a great caretaker. I feel oftentimes pretty selfish within the relationships I have with my siblings and, historically, with what I give back versus what I've taken over the years.
I was never a western guy, but I happened upon 'Tombstone' one day on TV and was really sort of taken with it. It's one of those movies that, if it's on TV, I can't turn it off. I just have to watch the whole thing.
Fantasy football has changed how I watch football because now every game is interesting start to finish. Even when its the Browns and Lions.
I have so many funny friends that I hang out and do bits with, and the fact that we can hire each other is amazing. I asked all of them to help make 'Kroll Show' the best that it can be. I'm selfishly trying to use their funny genius for my own benefit.
When I first got to New York, Comedy Central was the only place to go if you weren't on HBO or network. And then FX, Adult Swim, and other sort of ventures came up, and all of a sudden there were other places to go, and I think Comedy Central is making a concerted effort to become a place where smart, funny weirdoes can come and do their stuff.
Usually, one of the first things I think about when I'm developing a character is what they're wearing. I mean, it sounds very cheesy and very actor-y, but it really does help me figure it out.
Comedy can't be done in a vacuum, and you can't do it on your own. So if you have a community of people, it's a great symbiotic relationship.
When you start out, it sometimes feels like you're fighting audiences every night just to prove that you're funny.
I didn't have any terrible survival jobs. The main job I had before I was able to transition over to acting full-time was working at an after-school program at a middle school teaching improv and standup. So even when I had a regular job, I was still lucky enough to be doing the stuff I loved in some way.
When you start as an actor, you can only hope you'll be able to act at all - let alone on a show that lasts seven seasons.
Meeting someone you admire, and then that person's like, 'I'm a fan of your work' - it's a really neat feeling.
I guess my first big break was getting the hit show 'Cavemen' on ABC. People made fun of it, but it was a huge opportunity for me and moved me out to L.A., where I learned a ton about acting and how much I didn't want to be in makeup for four hours a day.
If you talk to most ambitious people, people who are high achievers, they're rarely at peace with what they're doing because they need an engine to keep moving.
Wikipedia is a strange thing. Whoever gets there first, you know, they decide. Like the picture: You can't choose it! You can't be like, 'You know, I hate that picture of me doing stand-up from 2005 - that doesn't exemplify who I am.' You take it down, and someone puts it back up.
For me, I was literally trying to stay afloat. I never actually thought I would get my own sketch show. So the idea that one day I would have my own show is pretty wild. But once I got it, I thought, 'Yeah, this is exactly what I always wanted to do.'
I wish I was a cool guy and could drink coffee black, but I put almond milk and raw cane sugar in it.
I think, in storytelling, people want to see triumph, and so it's usually nice to start with failure and see someone somehow rise above it. People like to see people try. And they like to see people fail for comedy, and they like to see people succeed for the drama and emotion.
Even though 'Kroll' was a crazy sketch show with big characters, one of the things I'm proud of about the show is that the characters were always kind of coming from an emotionally honest place for whoever I thought that character was.
I find Spike Jones' movies to be really very inventive and funny, but they're really sad and touching and really key into the different facets of the human experience.
The height of my athletic achievement was in 8th grade when I was the point guard for my Jewish day school basketball team. We played in a public school league and, amazingly, went undefeated. I say 'amazingly' because our power forward was 5 ft. 6 in.
Part of making art is learning how you make it best. I'm not great at sitting down at a desk and writing for three hours. I write best verbally, talking through an idea with people, so I do my best work when I collaborate.
I think a lot of podcasts have a lot of amazing character work. Seth Morris does this amazing character, Boch Duco, which I think is one of the funniest, most well-realized characters that I've ever seen or heard.
I'm proud of the work that we did, and my hope is that everyone who worked on 'Kroll Show,' it will be a credit that people will be like, 'Oh, you worked on that show? The word on that show was that it was good.'
I had a world theme at my Bar Mitzvah: each table was a different country. I had a miserable time. There was one picture of me, and I'm wearing a double-breasted suit. There were all these people having fun, and I'm just standing there. I look like a corporate lawyer who just found out he's not making partner.
An autograph is actually refreshing because everyone has cameras now and wants a selfie. That's why I carry signed headshots with me, to give out.
Doing radio commercials was how I was really able to leave my day job.
Between podcasts and places like Funny or Die or CollegeHumor, there are so many venues to get the word out. It makes it difficult in that there's a never-ending desire for content, so you have to constantly be turning stuff out, but that makes you better and more prolific in general.
I started doing improv in college, and I met Mike Birbiglia and John Mulaney and a bunch of other very funny, talented people who I'm still friends with and work with.
When I was a kid, I would do Andrew Dice Clay jokes for my siblings. Like, we'd be on vacation, and I'd just recite Andrew Dice Clay jokes. They seemed to think that was pretty funny. Then it evolved into 'Wayne's World.'
I won't share everything, both in my act or in interviews. Some of the people who become the most famous are the most self-revelatory, and I'm like, 'No, it's just not worth it to me.'
Oftentimes the shows that don't work help you get it right.
