Steven Wright has been doing standup comedy for almost 30 years. The comedian, actor and producer’s first album “I Have a Pony,” released in 1985, was nominated for a Grammy, and was part of the Warner Bros. Record’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. He has performed for many late night shows, and is a consulting producer for the FX series “Louie.” Wright will be performing at Turning Stone Casino on Friday night as part of his stand-up tour and took the time out to offer a look into his comedic inspirations.

The Daily Orange: How did you first get into comedy?

Steven Wright: I watched many comedians on TV when I was in high school when they were on — Johnny Carson, George Carlin and Robert Klein and Richard Pryor and all those guys on there and that’s what made me want to do it. I wanted to be one of those people who goes on TV and does stand-up.

D.O.: How did you translate these inspirations into actually doing standup? 

S.W.: I don’t know, I went to an open mic and thought in two weeks I’m going to go back to the open mic. So then in those two weeks I started writing. I had never written any jokes before that, and they just kind of came out, influenced by George Carlin and Woody Allen. Carlin in the sense that they were about everyday things and the structure of a joke was from Woody Allen. So that’s how the style of the material came, and this is just how I talk, so it just worked with the material.

D.O.: The deadpan delivery you use — have you always used it or did you develop it over time?

S.W.: It’s basically how I talk, but when I was on stage, I was really afraid of talking in front of the audience so I had even more of a deadpan. I was concentrating on saying the joke the right way, thinking ‘what is the next joke,’ so I was very focused, so I wasn’t laughing even though what I was saying was funny. So that serious pace and that deadpan way I speak anyways, that just worked by accident to get where I am.

D.O.: How do you come up with content? 

S.W.: From going through everyday life. I don’t sit down and try and write jokes. From the minute someone wakes up until you go to sleep, thousands of pieces of information come past you. A word, a conversation, something you read, something you see in a movie, a thought you have driving down the road — it’s just an endless amount of information and some of those things will jump out to me as jokes. The world is like a mosaic painting — all these tiny pieces make up the world, some of those pieces can be connected into humor that aren’t normally connected. When I think of something, I write it down, and then when I go on the road, I try them out and see which ones work and which ones don’t.

D.O.: How important is delivery to you?

S.W.: It’s very important. You can’t be stumbling on the words, you have to know exactly what you are going to say, you have to say it smoothly. Every comedian, not just me, knows the delivery is important. Two different things are stand-up: writing, and performing. To perform what you have written, it has to be delivered a very certain way or it isn’t funny.

D.O.: How do you interact with the audience during your shows? 

S.W.: I don’t talk to them, but I am reacting to them. There’s an energy to them, how much they laugh. Each audience is like one big person, they have their own personality and their own energy — it’s kind of like waves in the ocean, and I’m just riding on the waves. I’ve never surfed in my life, so I don’t really have a right to use that analogy, but.

D.O.: What’s the hardest part of doing stand-up?

S.W.: Keeping the new material coming, but I’ve been doing it since 1979, and it hasn’t stopped yet.

D.O.: What’s your favorite go-to joke, if you have one?

S.W.: I don’t really have a go-to joke. I used to have jokes that I would throw in when I was in trouble. Now when I’m in trouble I just go on and don’t change anything. To me, it’s like a play. I change the subject every second, but it’s one long play to me, with breaks in between. Now, I just deal with the silence. If they don’t laugh I just stand there, and think about my third grade teacher and how much fun I had with crayons. And then I start right up again.

Published on September 28, 2016 at 9:01 pm

Contact Hanna: hrhorvat@syr.edu