Louis C. K.
Louis C. K.
Louis Székely pronounced , known professionally as Louis C.K., is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, director, and editor. Born in Washington, D.C., C.K. moved to Mexico City as an infant and learned Spanish as his first language, learning English once he moved back to the U.S. at age 7. He began his career writing for several comedy shows in the 1990s and early 2000s for comedians including David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and Chris Rock. Also in this period, he was...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth2 September 1967
CountryUnited States of America
Breaking records is not something you expect to be doing. That's like a sports thing, it's not usually a comedy and writing thing.
I wish I could keep a journal. I have a lot of journals with one page half written in. I sometimes will write myself a quick email on my Blackberry when I think of something.
The Jackass movies are honestly some of the best movies I've ever seen. I laugh so hard at them. Those guys are geniuses. If they had grown up with a different group of people, they could've been performance artists at Bard College, and people would be writing papers about them.
Sometimes I just want to tell a story regardless of whether it fits what the show is saying. I've been in a lot of writing rooms where somebody says an idea and everyone's dying, like laughing so they're delirious. It's like a black hole in a good way, everything starts to fall into it, you know what I mean.
There's a need to perfect things in a writers' room, and that can take a lot of fun out of a show sometimes. It's a struggle. It depends on your personality. Some people love working with a writing staff. I had a great writing staff on Lucky Louie, but it sometimes felt like Congress or something.
I could never sit down and write jokes.
I'm close to my audience. I think I have more tools in my box than other guys who might try it. Also, I know how to do this stuff. I know how to write and shoot and edit. I'm technically adept and that helped with the website. You need a big skill set.
A lot of TV is put together by teams, by writing staffs and several different directors. It's a great, very smart way to make television. It's worked for however long TV's been around.
If you have something to say, here's what you do: You write it down on a piece of paper, you go out in the lobby, and then you go home and you kill yourself.
When you write from your gut and let the stuff stay flawed and don't let anybody tell you to make it better, it can end up looking like nothing else.
When your kid is being selfish or greedy and you want to help them not be that way, you have to find a way to articulate it and inspire them.
All talking is good, negative and positive. Stabbing is bad; talking is good.
My show is sort of a short-film anthology, and I'm able to tell little stories that don't necessarily carry a whole episode in terms of narrative. I like the audience not being sure what they're getting. I think it's more fun to watch something when you're discovering it as you go along.
Either I'll never get rich from the show but remain intensely proud of the work and stand behind every second of it, or it catches on and I'll make my money down the road.