Comedian, actor and book author Chris Gethard recently sat down with thehundreds.com and talked about "the most bizarre and often saddest talk show in New York City" (well that’s what he likes to call it), The Chris Gethard Show.
The American actor and comedian is the host of The Chris Gethard Show, a talk show based out of New York City, which currently airs on Fusion.
The television talk show might be something new for some people, so the interviewer started by asking Chris to explain a little about his about his popular show.
The book author said: “I very vaguely say, “It’s a talk show.” And then when they say, “Oh, so you tell monologue jokes and wear a suit and do celebrity interviews?” I say, “No, I do none of those things.” And then they say, “So how is it a talk show?” And I say, “Exactly.” ”That’s a quite interesting explanation. And lack of monologue jokes, suit and celebrity interviews is what makes his show unique and popular.
The interviewer praised Chris for his policy of solely Do-It-Yourself. He pointed out that the host answered to no one except himself and even asked him if he had any disadvantages while following his method. Chris had quite a long answer for this particular question. He stated: “Some of the disadvantages are obvious—I’m poor and more stressed than I’d have to be if I directed my energy towards things that are established and lead to bigger things.”
“The others are a little more theoretical. By taking all the freedom, you also have to install your own discipline. What I mean by that is that answering to no one is a great, great thing, but you have to hustle ten times as hard to honor your audience at that point. I think sometimes people think freedom means things are easier, but I’d argue that when you make a grab at freedom in the DIY sense, you aren’t rejecting oversight, you’re adding it to your own plate and that requires a lot of hustle and a lot of objectivity and a lot of internalizing stress.”
“The advantages are that I can actually do things creatively that I want to do. And with the way my brain works, I don’t think that would happen if I did it under anyone else’s umbrella. I like experimenting too much.”
He added pretty interestingly: “And actually, I enjoy FAILING too much. I think failing is one of the most interesting things an artist can do in public.” Now that’s something, isn’t it? He added: “But people who throw money around and fund things, they aren’t into failure so much. They much prefer success. When we succeed, we succeed big. But that’s only because we’re willing to fail huge. So I get the freedom to do that.”
The Big Lake proudly added: “We have the show on Fusion now and over 20 people who worked on the public access show for free now have jobs through it. That’s rad to me. That’s because we went the DIY route. We earned the right to stick together.”
The TCGS host also gave three important advices to such aspiring comedians.
“1) Be honest with yourself about your talent. You really have to decide if you have what it takes.
2) Be honest with yourself about sacrifice. Are you ready to not live that well for a long time? You have to. There’s no way around it unless you’re extremely lucky.
3) Can you decide to just not quit? If you make something that you are really proud of, that you know is good, but the world never sees it or appreciates it, are you ready to fall on the sword and just make it anyway and stand by it and hold your head up high? Can you keep going when facing the fact that the world isn’t listening? If all the answers to that line up, you can probably make it.”
He is married to his wife Hallie Bulleit and if you are an aspiring comedian then you can follow him on Twitter.