I've had shows where, afterwards, people have commented or hoped I would talk more about something in politics or that I would make a joke about Mitch McConnell or something like that.
— Wyatt Cenac
What's nice about a lot of Wes Anderson's films is that there's a patience to it. I think that patience brings out a lot more funny things that you would miss otherwise if you just had to make quick cuts and keep the pace, whatever that pace is that bigger budget comedies have to have.
I feel like I've seen a lot of talented people, and some have gone on to great things, and some have gone on to successful careers and done alright but without great amounts of fame and recognition.
I wouldn't consider myself a traditional sitcom actor or someone you'd even think would be in a sitcom.
A lot of the things I do deal with my race, but my race is who I am. I'm an American kid who grew up listening to predominantly hip-hop. I will talk about hip-hop as the music I grew up listening to, and I think sometimes people like to put it as, 'Oh, well, he's talking about black things.' And, yeah, they are, but that's my American identity.
I think there's a lesson in everything.
I do love TV as a medium.
When I'm on the road, museums end up being a place I go to in different cities that is always interesting. Museums and independent record stores.
Chris Nolan can put Batman in full body armor, have him drive a car that looks likes a tank, and make him political, and everyone says, 'Oh, that's OK.' But try making him Filipino, and everyone gets mad.
I feel like you can't trust a cat. I feel like a cat's got an ulterior motive. The moment you show any weakness to a cat, the cat is gonna take over.
I feel like I've always thought of myself as a comedian.
When I was a kid, I loved really loud things. My grandmother and I went to the Fulton Mall, and I bought a three-piece suit that was paisley. Paisley over the whole suit. I was 6 and thought it was great. My mother took a photo of me in it, sent it to my grandmother, and burned the suit.
I think, a lot of times when you do a comedy show, people will turn out for a name they know. So, they get excited when they see Patton Oswalt is going to be on the show, but they kind of cross their arms until Patton Oswalt shows up.
I remember Tim Meadows gave me a radio. It was a radio he didn't want anymore. I gave it to my grandmother, and she had it 'til the day she died. To me, it was, 'I got a thing from Tim Meadows!' I think my grandmother was like, 'I got a thing from my grandson!'
If you have a car, you tune it up; you replace the parts. You try to keep it in good shape. This country has tires that are shot, a bunch of engine problems, and rather than saying, 'Okay, let's maybe put some new parts in here,' we just keep putting gas in and driving forward.
There are some artists that may actually be crazy, but there are some artists that just make different choices, and because they are different, we call them crazy.
I wrote this 12-page 'Luke Cage' comic book for Marvel once, and I got to create a villain. His name was Lone Shark, so there was this running thing of whether it was spelled L-O-A-N or L-O-N-E. I like the idea of 'I'm a lone shark,' and then people are like, 'You are here to collect a debt?'
I enjoy 'Life Aquatic.' I think that one, from a visual standpoint, is just such a fun, visual movie to look at, whether it's the shots of the ship cut down the middle, that set where you can see everyone in each of their rooms doing whatever and moving about - something like that, I could watch that on a loop for an hour.
I feel like you could watch 'Grand Budapest' without sound, and it would still be funny.
There are plenty of people I've seen and thought that person is funny, or that person is really talented, and they've got something, but maybe the buying public doesn't see the same thing I see, or the stars don't align in the right way for them.
I make jokes. That's what I do.
Every impression that I do is just a terrible variation on an awful Bill Cosby impression. You're doing an Australian accent, but it's just Australian Bill Cosby; or that's just British Bill Cosby; that's Pirate Bill Cosby.
Whenever I've done jobs, whether it's an acting job or writing job, there's an aspect of it that feels like you help build your piece of it, and then you watch as someone takes it, and they finish building it.
When you put comedy in the room it's supposed to be in, you start learning it's a process. Not everything is a home run. You have singles, and you ground a few out. But ultimately, it's the journey you have with that comedian, whether it's ten minutes or an hour.
When I worked on 'The Daily Show,' we had some puppets made of myself, John Oliver, and Jon Stewart. When I left the show, I stole the puppet. I took what was rightfully mine.
I did a movie a few years back, 'Medicine for Melancholy.' People will come up to me after a set and say, 'I really love that movie. When are you going to do another one?' Or 'I loved you on 'The Daily Show.' Why did you leave?' It's kind of the same as saying, 'I loved you in high school. You should have never left.'
I don't do enough movies that I can call it a career. It really is sort of like summer jobs or something like that. It's very much like holiday work as far as, okay, I do it, and I'm there for two weeks and hopefully am working really hard, and then it's done, and I kind of go back to what I was doing before.
The role of a comedian is to go in and make something funny. That might be a situation where I'm writing, a situation where I'm in control, like standup or something of my own that I'm making, or it might be something like being an actor in someone else's project.
I spent a lot of time in Brooklyn as a kid. I was born in New York, and my grandmother lived in Crown Heights, so there's a part of it that I feel this connection to.
After I left the 'Daily Show,' I was kind of sitting out for five years. I know what it's like to not be able to have that platform for my voice the way I want it.
I probably learned more about Marion Barry listening to Chris Rock than I did reading a headline.
I'm not trying to walk away from responsibility or anything like that, but I think there's a bunch of people on TV who get trust simply for being on TV.
Kanye is a student of art. He's an art-school-dropout type of kid that will talk about art till the cows come home.
I listen to a lot of Freddie Hubbard.
Steven Wright can do Steven Wright very well. Not everyone can do Steven Wright's jokes with the same results.
I think hard work is definitely a huge thing, but there is something, if you want to call it luck or whatever - a window of opportunity - that is totally outside of your control, and it's that thing that will sometimes separate a good career from a great career.
I know for myself, every now and again on HBO, they'll show some of the young comedian specials from the '80s and early '90s, and it's just fascinating to watch those comedians - some of whom are people that are world-famous, like Chris Rock or Judd Apatow - to see the jokes that people had, but also, the way everything looked.
There are certain things that you can blast through a stereo. You can blast hip-hop. You can blast heavy metal. You can't blast 'All Things Considered.'
Getting a Grammy nomination for 'Brooklyn' meant a lot, especially because, as an album, it was one that was very personal to me but also one that I self-produced and had gone outside the label.
I think when you write something as standup material, it forces you to think about how you're gonna tell that story in one way, and then, when you get the opportunity to shoot it, you almost have to reframe how you go about it and rethink the entire process.
So much about getting onstage is creating a connection with an audience that allows you to go different places and try different things.
I do love Instagram, but even if I spend 15 minutes looking at stuff, I feel guilty.
When I came up in L.A., a lot of comics produced their own shows, and so if you wanted to have a show in the city, you produced it yourself.
I enjoy doing standup, but when I'm 50, I don't know if I'll still enjoy doing standup. It might be one of those things where I find other palettes that I want to paint on and make comedic.
When we simply write a place off as, like, 'Well, it's just Trump country,' for the people who are there, we do them a disservice on some level. It's their country, too.
For me, funny is funny, and what's unfortunate is these comedians aren't being allowed to operate in rooms for everybody and that everybody can laugh and say, 'Okay, I find that person funny, and I don't just have to find them funny because they look like me.'
Monsters aren't as scary if you start shining lights on them.
What's sad is that we can have a reality-television performer for president without incorporating the other aspects of reality television - like voting and voter engagement.
I have worked in animation on 'King of the Hill.' I've worked in late-night with 'The Daily Show.' I've worked on single-camera stuff, whether it was a movie or television. I have performed onstage.
I went to an all-boys Catholic school in Dallas.
