Hey, I'm Patton Oswalt
and it's time for "Ask A Comedian"
so I'll hop out of this chair
and you can bring one in.
(Patton laughs)
Right, guys?
'Cause...
What you fucking flipping me off for?
The first time I went on stage,
I was probably trying to be like George Carlin
and then once I got going, it was always my friends
and I was always being influenced.
I had to embrace the influences and then grow out of them.
So it was people like Mark Voyce.
It was people like Brian Posehn and Karen Kilgariff.
It was just different voices
that eventually led me to my own,
but it took some time,
so don't have anxiety
if you're sounding like someone when you're beginning,
'cause you're gonna do that,
and then you'll figure out your own thing.
The most memorable city I've ever performed in
was Milwaukee, Wisconsin
because I did a club called Sir Laughs-a-Lot.
That was its actual name
and the club, I'm not kidding, was in a hotel,
and under the hotel's giant, grand staircase
they piled massive exercise mats on either side of it,
and in that space was the comedy club.
So I performed under a set of stairs
like a frigging goblin and I was treated as such.
(Patton yells)
What I remember about being on "Seinfeld"
was it was my first paid acting gig,
so I was really nervous.
You could tell how nervous I was.
I had two lines, and I'm just going over them in my head
and "Oh, I'm gonna screw this up."
I've been to four other places.
You're the only ones that have had it.
Well, I can put her on reserve for you if you'd like.
Jason Alexander was in the scene with me
and I will forever be in his debt
because right before we shot he leaned in and said,
"Still not too late to be fired, Patton."
And it made me laugh so hard.
It so broke the tension
and then I loosened up and I've been acting ever since.
(Patton laughs)
I know exactly the moment when I felt like I had made it.
It was 1993.
I made $11,000 that year doing comedy.
I somehow made $11,000 for the whole year
and I didn't have to work a day job.
And I was like, "I made it.
This is great, I'm in."
And it's just been great ever since.
Yeah, you're welcome.
Pretty good, pretty amazing.
Being fixated on pop culture, being fixated on anything,
sports, religion, films,
is such great training as a comedian
because as a comedian, you tend to fixate
and obsess on strange, little details that seem unimportant,
but then you tie it in with something big
and that ends up getting a big laugh
or a big moment of recognition.
You fixate on stuff.
That's kind of the nature of this business.
Every superhero, they do the thing that everyone does
the minute you lose the loved one.
You know what I'm talking about?
CrossFit and martial arts.
That's the first thing you do.
It's not a question of what's harder, stand up or acting.
They're such different beasts that for me,
acting is more, more rewarding,
but standup is so much more fun
and I'm never gonna want to give up that fun.
But I also like the challenge of,
'cause I don't think I'm a great actor,
so I really have to work at it,
and when I can really nail a scene,
it feels so great when I do it.
So I don't want to give up either of those thrills.
Because I need magic in my life.
I'm trying to play it cool about
my excitement of playing Matthew the Raven,
but I have been into Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comics
since the first issue.
I picked it up in college.
I stood in line for three hours in San Francisco in 1992
so that he would sign my hardback of "Season of Mists."
I've since become friends with him.
It's a big fucking deal.
America has spoken.
Pile my food in a fucking bowl like I'm a dog.
I don't give a shit anymore.
As far as corporate fast food products getting more extreme
they have been getting more extreme,
but I've had to disconnect myself from them.
They've gotten so crazy that to me
it feels like a shadow document of the coming apocalypse
when they're making sandwiches
where the bread is the fried chicken,
or they're putting mac and cheese,
but they're inside of fries.
I don't know what they're doing now.
They're tampering with the laws of physics.
They're gonna rip open a hole.
They're gonna try to put a whole turkey dinner
into a single french fry, and it's gonna rip reality
and dinosaurs are gonna come through and eat everybody.