Michael Ian Black
Michael Ian Black
Michael Ian Blackis an American comedian, actor, writer, and director. He has starred in several TV comedy series, including The State, Ed, Viva Variety, Stella, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, and Michael & Michael Have Issues. He is also a poker player, appearing on Celebrity Poker Showdown several times. He released his first children's book, Chicken Cheeks, in 2009, and has since released six more, in addition to four books for adults...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth12 August 1971
CountryUnited States of America
By the end of the time I'm writing a book, I'm tearing my hair out and I want to go do stand-up. And then I want to do something else. I don't know why it is true with me that I can't just be satisfied doing the one thing, but I'm constantly flitting from one thing to another.
Hosting a show, even a talk show or a game show, there's so much business you have to conduct. There's so much guiding you have to do.
I think in doing stand-up there are no rules and there's no architecture.
With stand-up, you can be as freeform as you want to be. You can say what you want, how you want, at any moment without constraint.
Twitter is about creating whatever persona you want to create and either sticking with it or changing it or evolving it or contradicting it, and I've done all that stuff.
It's such a deliberate thing to sit down and write a tweet. You're putting yourself out there in a very deliberate way, and over however many tweets, you start to create a character for yourself.
The characters that I have on Twitter have very little resemblance to me, the person who's writing them.
I was very surprised how many people were earnestly reminiscing about the '80s. It's such a stupid thing to do, like, to be honestly invested in nostalgia. It never even occurred to me to do that.
I think people just love to win.
If you say "I'm going to be an actor, but I'll get a teaching degree just in case," when things get hard, you'll just be a teacher and that's how you get stuck.
I'm enough of an optimist and a patriot to believe that in U.S. you have a lot of opportunity and can do pretty much anything you want in some form. For me, the idea of failure is far preferable to the idea of regret.
My fear is if I expose myself, not so much that I'll be hurt, but that the reaction will be "Is that all there is? Is that the entirety of you? Because it's boring."
My tastes in all things lean towards the arty and boring. I like sports documentaries about Scrabble players, bands that play quiet, unassuming music, and TV shows that win awards. In that way, I am an elitist snob. And proud of it.
I'm very introverted, so it requires a huge effort for me to put on a smile and extend a hand and accept compliments. I would much rather be insulted than complimented any day.