I grew up in an immigrant household with an Italian father who came to the U.S. when he was 15.
— Sebastian Maniscalco
People come to a show, then they go back to their neighborhood, and it has become like word-of-mouth. Everybody loves to turn somebody on to something. It kind of just snowballed.
That's how my family bonded - eating and telling stories.
You go into Wal-Mart, and you see stuff you typically wouldn't see anywhere else.
I go to Vegas now, and I'm in the casino, and I'm gambling, and there's a guy in a wet bathing suit gambling right next to me.
When I was growing up, we dressed up for church.
I'm like, 'Wow, I guess a lot of people didn't have this type of upbringing'... that old world technique of, you know, nothing's given to you, you've gotta work for everything you've done... It's just different from what I'm seeing today.
Sometimes it's cool to have banter with the audience. Occasionally, somebody will say something, and I'll say something right back, and everybody laughs, and it's funny.
We grew up in a middle-class family in Chicago. Even when we went on vacation as a family, it wasn't a really fun time, because my father didn't want to spend any money when we got there.
Although my values and my morals are old-school, you have to kind of key into the landscape of social media and how the world is progressing. I'd be a fool to sit there and go, 'Yeah, let's use the telephone to telemarket myself'... Social media is something that I definitely have to tap into, to another demographic.
It took me a good eight to ten years to really formulate what I was doing onstage and start to get really personal with comedy. I always really had timing naturally, it was just about trying to figure out how that timing was going to work onstage.
I developed a knack for storytelling early on around the kitchen table with my family. I just happen to be a funny guy.
I'm a very observational type of comedian that points out everyday absurdities.
Everybody seems to be wasting their time online. There is such a narcissistic attitude. It's such a strange world.
My idea of fun would be to review the customers. I could give some customers one star, so that restaurateurs would know when they walked in not to serve them.
I've never seen a weirder group of people than at the post office. It looks like people are crawling out from under rocks to go to the post office.
I once did a flip-flop joke in San Diego, and I got booed... but it's all in good fun.
I do reflect on it sometimes, going, 'Wow, if I knew what I knew now I would be such a better server.'
I like Las Vegas because it kind of gives me a chance to gauge my material in front of a very diverse group of people. There are a lot of different people in the audience, and you can kind of get a barometer for how your material plays throughout the country.
I started working full time as a comedian in 2005, shortly after we did the Vince Vaughn 'Wild West Comedy Show.' I worked at the Four Seasons hotel from 1998 to 2005, so about seven years, just trying to put some food on the table and pay the rent while I went out to the open mics and got my feet wet with stand-up comedy.
The business of being told to earn a dollar, that no one is going to give you anything - that was kind of my mantra throughout my childhood, and now it's in my adult life. I find that people really tend to relate to the immigrant father, whether he be Italian, Greek, Spanish or whatever.
I don't like long jokes. I like stories rather than setup punchlines.
If I can relate to the joke, it's going to be funny.
Growing up in an Italian family, we used our body to convey a message.
My mother saw the magazine, and she was like, 'You made it.' I've been on Showtime and Comedy Central, but none of that matters - all that matter is that she sees me in 'People!'
Food is kind of the conduit that brings people together.
I don't like a lot of clutter.
One of my biggest pet peeves is when a guy's wearing flip-flop sandals, which I don't understand. Men's feet are disgusting to begin with, but now they're on display when I try to go out for a nice steak at a restaurant, and I have to sit there and look at some guy's hoof? I don't get it. I don't understand it.
I was always taught how to dress for the occasion.
The more comfortable I got onstage, the more comfortable I got expressing myself in a physical manner. And it almost shocked people - 'Oh, is there something happening?'
Every heckler is unique because they say something, and you react to what they say or what they're wearing or who they're with, so every response to a heckle is unique.
I give a facial expression in a moment of silence for audiences to react to what I just said and kind of let that marinate with the audience for a little bit. I enjoy the physical part of the comedy as much as the verbal content. People tend to gravitate to not only what they're hearing but also what they're seeing.
I remember when I was young, I was watching TV, and my father came into the room, agitated, and told me to start a business. I was eight years old.
I used to devour a lot of stand-up comedy in my cousin's basement. He had cable and I didn't, so I went there and saw all the comedians.
I'll never stop doing stand-up. There's nothing better than getting in front of 2,500 people and making an entire room laugh.
