'I'll break you! I'll get you!' — why these 6 comic actors need to make 'em laugh
LOS ANGELES — Comedy takes on many different forms. Larry David's HBO series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," weaponized improv for more than two decades to make its audience laugh-cringe. ABC's love letter to underpaid educators, "Abbott Elementary," elevates the workplace mockumentary. And "Saturday Night Live" has harnessed the power of sketch comedy to rule late-night television for nearly half a century.
But those who practice the art of humor agree there's at least one unifying element among these different approaches: Comedy performers are people pleasers.
"People want to laugh, and I love when we get our audiences there," says Sheryl Lee Ralph, who plays everyone's favorite teacher, Barbara Howard, on "Abbott Elementary." "Where all they can do is laugh and be happy, and we're the ones that gave it to them."
"We have to notice what people love about us the moment we're onstage," adds J.B. Smoove, who played the forever houseguest Leon Black on "Curb" before the show wrapped this year. "There can be a thousand people out there laughing, but we'll find that one dude who's sitting there like this [frowns]. We can find that one person who is not laughing."
"Mine's always in the front row," says Hannah Einbinder, a stand-up performer who plays a comedy writer in HBO's multigenerational dramedy "Hacks." "His girlfriend is [all smiles] and he's [grimacing]. With comedians, there is a desperation. You can't imagine not doing it. And as we all know from performing, the fear is real. But the second you get that laughter, it melts. It's a relief."
"That's the people pleaser thing in us," adds Daniel Ings of Netflix's breakout British gangster satire "The Gentlemen." "I'm like, 'I'll break you! I'll get you!'"
These revelations and more emerged when six performers from today's top comedy series gathered in late April for The Envelope Comedy Roundtable, comparing notes on everything
