Bonding over the frequent mutual butchering of our names, Wyatt Cenac and I chatted on the phone a couple weeks ago about that grave injustice. Sharing a name with a famous cowboy apparently has not fared as well for him as he would have hoped, something that thankfully cannot be said about his comedy career. An Emmy and Writer’s Guild of America award winner, Cenac spent the past four years at “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and is also a stand-up comedian, actor, writer and producer. With two comedy specials under his belt, “Brooklyn” and “Comedy Person,” Cenac also recently starred in the pilot for a show in the works with director Greg Daniels of “The Office” and “Parks & Recreation” called “The Group.” Swinging through The Comedy Club this week from Thursday through Saturday, Cenac was happy to entertain my questions on comedy, zombies and superheroes.
Daily Cardinal: Let’s begin by talking about “The Group,” since with a director like Greg Daniels and a plot that has alien abductions, I have to figure that he is doing something truly entertaining with you all.
Cenac: Sure, yeah. It’s a pilot for TBS that we shot in Toronto. It was really fun with a lot of great people. I worked with Greg almost a decade ago as a writer on “King of the Hill.” To work with him again was really fun, especially to see where both of our lives have taken us in those 10 years to meet again now. Ana Gasteyer, additionally, was a cast member at “Saturday Night Live” when I was an intern there at 19, so working with her, this person that I watched from the sidelines at SNL but now I get to be in the scenes with, was really great. It was just a very cool experience. TBS now will look it over and see if they want to make something out of it.
DC: Do you thinking acting in this pilot gave you a taste for TV, that you may want to do more of in the future?
Cenac: It definitely throws you into this type of experience and gives you a taste of what it would be like to shoot a regularly scheduled series that’s much different than something like “The Daily Show,” where you have to put something out every day.
DC: I’ve heard you talk a lot about Marvel and DC comics, especially as far as adaptations go. I assume you have to be a fan, so are we missing something in that arena?
Cenac: It varies from movie to movie. I think it’s funny because there are aspects of comic books that, when, turned into movies fans are very protective of. People are protective of comic books in a way that say people aren’t of Shakespeare. You can adapt Shakespeare anyway, change anything, swap genders, diversify the cast, introduce different time periods, etc., and people are often times more excited about such things. Whereas, when comic books get adapted, those very same things tend to freak out the fan base in a way that is surprising given the fact that they would lose their minds if Batman was not a white guy. I think audiences would lose their minds. But they seem to have no problem with the fact that Batman in the movie drives a tank or wears more body armor than Iron Man. So as far as movie adaptations go, it’s just interesting to see what people latch onto to make sure things stay true to comic books, or what staying true to comic books even means.
DC: Do you think it’s possible that, for how long Shakespeare has been around, we had to start looking for more innovative ways to adapt it because it just wasn’t interesting anymore. But maybe that is not applicable to comic books as they’re relatively more recent, so fans still cling to the “pure” versions of it and have not as yet accepted inspired new adaptations.
Cenac: I don’t know, that’s an interesting question. It could be that. It could be that with Shakespeare there are so many adaptations out there that, even if you’re more of a purist you can find the original versions, or whichever one you want. But maybe since comic book movies and TV show adaptations get just one shot until it’s time again for a reboot, perhaps then the audience is a little more protective of them because they know that if this fails, it’ll be a decade or more until they make another one of these.
DC: You’re right, we still mourn the Ben Affleck’s Daredevil debacle. So having worked four years on “The Daily Show,” is there anything you miss at all? And what is it that you took away with you from there?
Cenac: Sure. It was a great show and a great opportunity. I relished getting to work there because it’s very fun to see something in the world and through the course of a day be able to comment on it in a funny way. While using all the resources that were available to us—clips and articles, what have you—for a specific story and then finding the humor in it. There’s so much that I took away; I would like to think that I came out of that experience a better writer and performer. But really, more importantly, I came out of that with a lot of people that I consider friends that I’m happy to see doing things, succeeding and moving forward with their lives. So yeah, I think you hope to obviously make a paycheck and keep a roof over your head, but if you can walk away having also made valuable relationships, that’s a bonus.
DC: One thing I greatly enjoy about your stand-up specials is that they suit who you seem to be so much. They’re quietly compelling and the humor just slips right in. How and when did you start stand-up?
Cenac: I started doing stand-up when I was in college in North Carolina. There were these open mics that I would go to and it was very exciting but also just as terrifying. I stopped doing it for a few years after college, I moved to LA and I honestly just missed doing stand-up. I then started doing some improv and sketch stuff as I did love being on stage and slowly started dipping my toe back in it. The confidence from having being on stage from improv just really helped going back into stand-up.
DC: Is there a specific process of yours when you write your stand-up specials?
Cenac: There’s not really a process. You kind of write things over the course of years or months and as you’re writing things – at least for me – you try them out, see how they feel or put them to the side for a while and work on other stuff. And at some point you realize you’ve written over an hour’s worth of material. So I look at some of the stuff I’ve written and see that it all goes together, or I can add a page from here or take one out from there. It usually just starts like that and fits together at the end. You perform a little of it, tour and then you think to record it. Making new things that way.
DC: On that note then, what would be your absolute favorite thing about performing stand-up specials in front of a live audience?
Cenac: It’s a perfect convergence: if the venue feels right, the crowd feels right and I feel good. I think it’s a strange power that the audience has, the more energy they give off the more you feed off of it as a performer. It’s really the little things, like if someone has their arms crossed and they seem cut off, then you notice it. You don’t want to see that, or you don’t want to see somebody on their phone. So when you can get the audience into it, then their excitement makes you more excited. It seems on par with a surfer catching a perfect wave. It’s perfect in that moment, and it’ll never be repeated. There may be another perfect wave out there—that’s why you keep surfing and that’s why you keep going out in front of the crowd. If there’s a perfect show, there [will] always be a more perfect one after that.
DC: Excellently put. If you do see people in the audience with their arms crossed or on their phones, do you do something to pull them in?
Cenac: The nice thing is that this isn’t television. An audience can see what I’m doing but I can also see what they’re doing so it can be addressed. If you address it, then people are usually prompted to remember that, “Oh yes, you can see me sending this text.”
DC: How do you deal with the terror of looking at all those faces that are expecting you to make them laugh?
Cenac: I think part of it is going in and seeing them as not a source of terror but seeing them as people who are there because they want to laugh. If you’re going to a comedy show, you’re going there with the hope to laugh. That’s at least an encouraging thing to walk into, knowing that these people want to laugh. It’s not like you just got a room full of sourpusses that have never laughed in their whole life and now you have to make them laugh. It’s rarely that, and I hope it’s never that. So I think with that in mind, if you’re walking out on stage, you’re already starting with them rooting for you.
DC: How does it feel then to be able to poke humor at things that are real around you and coax laughter out of people?
Cenac: It’s a fun thing. Sometimes in the discomfort of talking about things, drawing some humor out of it is an interesting challenge. Without getting too high-minded about it, there’s also something in the idea that if we can talk about this thing and laugh about it then perhaps we can be more comfortable talking about it everywhere. And if we’re more comfortable talking about it in general, maybe we can do something about it beyond just simply laughing about it too.
DC: We brushed over your time at “The Daily Show” briefly but now I’ll address what you might just have gotten tired of hearing... Looking back, what significance did you take away from the incident with Jon Stewart?
Cenac: I think the biggest takeaway for me was of one’s expectations in a professional area. What I mean by that are the expectations of an employee and an employer and being aware of those things. That’s probably one of the biggest things we have a responsibility for, as employee and employer to not lose sight of that. Making sure then that if I’m in a position of an employer the voices of the people that work for me are heard and as an employee to make sure that I work in places where my voice feels heard. To remember that respect is a two-way street.
DC: Kudos to you for making that happen for yourself. Do you think that influenced your trajectory from that moment on?
Cenac: Oh, thank you! I don’t know, that’s tough to say. It’s one of those things where if you and I have this conversation in another 20 years, it might be easier to look at. But right now? I don’t know. I’m still figuring out what I’ll be doing in the next 20 to 30 years, so maybe we can set a time 30 years from now?
DC: Sounds like a plan to me. Finally, imagine this for a moment. You’re doing a stand-up special and there are suddenly screams from outside. Turns out zombie apocalypse decided to break just then and there. What’s your plan of action?
Cenac: First, see if the zombies are in the comedy. Ultimately though, if you’re zombie or human and you’re going to a comedy club, there’s a two drink minimum. My hope is that they’ll honor the rules and not stick around if they’re not going to drink. I feel like we unfairly stereotype zombies, thinking they’re just brain-eating idiots. If they show up and we tell them about the tickets and two drink minimum, I think they’ll just shuffle out and go somewhere else. You can’t eat all those brains and not absorb some knowledge. Otherwise I’m going to the middle of some fields and having aliens abduct me so I can sit out the zombie apocalypse. Either way this’ll have to be the second question you ask me in 30 years, assuming zombies don’t get us before. Or if they do, I’ll be a zombie and you can say, “I told you so.
DC: I really will, I’ve given you plenty of warning.
Wyatt Cenac will perform this Thursday through Saturday at The Comedy Club on State Street. Tickets are still available for shows on Thursday at 8:30 p.m., Friday at 8:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. and Saturday at 10:30 p.m.
