Nick Kroll
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.Collection: Food
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.'Collection: Famous
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.Collection: Peace
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.Collection: Relationship
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 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.
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.
The more variance I have in my days, the more exciting each thing is and the more I enjoy doing it.
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 wish I was a cool guy and could drink coffee black, but I put almond milk and raw cane sugar in it.
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.
In high school, I went to a place called the Mountain School. It's on a farm in Vermont, and I read Emerson and Thoreau and ran around the woods. Now I go hiking with a bunch of my comedy buddies. We talk about our emotions. I also do a lot of writing on hikes, just to get the blood flowing and the ideas moving.
One of the worst things about being an actor, besides people being nice to you and getting free stuff all the time - but really, one of the worst things is not knowing what's coming next. You could shoot a pilot, and they could have you on hold for six months waiting to find out what is going to happen with the show, and you're locked into it.
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.
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.
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 do a lot of eavesdropping. That's one of the things I miss about New York: just checking people out.
I found, especially with stand-up, that if a premise works, you can make the joke work. If a premise doesn't work, you can't force it to.
The one place I've seen something really come together is in editing. Sometimes you can save pieces in a way that you're really shocked.
In general in comedy, there are fewer people making a ton of money and a lot more people making a living. For me, the goal is just being able to make exactly the show I wanted to make.
Anyone you give a ton of money to is going to go slightly crazy. I don't think comedians are particularly special in that regard; they just are better or more vocal in their expressions of their craziness.
Whether it's corporate investigations or comedy, there are certain inherent truths to trying to get what you want while trying to be a decent person doing it.
My friends, we all improvise together usually. So we write what I think is a good script but always leave a lot of room to find stuff on the day; and we always do find something. That's the advantage to having actors who are, in their own right, writers.
I think my goal was just to do comedy, honestly. It still is. Whatever form that took or takes, it doesn't matter.
Really, I just love doing comedy. Any form it takes is great, as long as I can keep doing it, you know? If I can do my show and 'The League' while also getting to do other bits, that's awesome.
A comedian is sort of like a wild animal. It really just depends on where you catch them. Sometimes they want to cuddle up, and sometimes they'll snap at you. But for me, more often than not, if I'm talking to somebody who makes their living in comedy, it'll be a very thoughtful conversation driven from an emotionally honest place.
My thinking is, if we're setting out to make comedy in which nothing is off limits, then everybody is fair game.
I would be psyched to get a phone call from Al Sharpton. I need to find out who does his hair. It's beautiful. It's a gorgeous mane.
Contrary to widespread belief, I do know something about science.
I feel incredibly lucky at this moment in my career to get paid to do basically exactly what I always wanted to do. I appreciate that in general. But you know, like any job, a job is a job, and there are days that are going to be boring, or you have a boss you don't like, or people you work with.
There's just a feeling, when you're just an actor - I have great admiration for people who are just actors. I don't understand it, the idea of waiting to get cast, being at the whim of others. I find it incredibly powerless and frightening, so that's why I've been constantly trying to create my own content.
I came to New York and started doing stand-up and improv, and started auditioning for commercials and voiceovers and stuff. My first job was on a pilot of that prank show called 'Boiling Points' on MTV.
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.'
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.
Oftentimes the shows that don't work help you get it right.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
'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 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.
Meeting someone you admire, and then that person's like, 'I'm a fan of your work' - it's a really neat feeling.
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.
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.
I got my SAG card doing commercials.
Doing radio commercials was how I was really able to leave my day job.
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.
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.
When you start out, it sometimes feels like you're fighting audiences every night just to prove that you're funny.