Scott Adsit Quotes

I know how to have a conversation, but I've never done improv. I've never taken improv classes.

It's always hard to watch bad actors improv on your skit.

I'm not an improv guy. I'm not a nerd, I play one on television.

I'd never experienced stress before I did stand-up, and it was a massive shock to my system, this thing of waking up, and the nerves of, 'You're on stage tonight.'

Once I get out onstage, it's the same sort of basic production that it is anywhere else. But I might be a little bit aware that there might be people I know out there, who wondered where I was.

I don't have any ambitions as an actor. I felt very uncomfortable doing it. The first take every day I'd open my mouth and no words would come out. I'd do a couple of takes and eventually I could run the lines.

To me, if people really want to improvise, get into classes and learn.

Generally, I've found that a heckler in an improv audience is just enjoying the show so much that they want to be in it.

Anyone who tells you they're not nervous playing on the CMAs stage, I'm afraid they're not telling you the whole story.

I took an improv class in 2005 in Chicago at ComedySportz, which was short-form, more of a games-based improv. I remember it being real fun and helping with my stand-up. If I did an improv class, and then I did stand-up later, I felt looser on stage and more comfortable.

I think for anyone - male or female - in improv, the biggest thing to get over is the fear. I think every improviser has that.

I like the adrenaline of playing improv - it makes me feel really calm.

I know what it feels like to walk out in front of a sold-out crowd of a thousand people that are there for you, and how good that feels, but as an opener, you just have to train yourself to think that it's going to be harder.

Reading a piece of poetry with no beat in front of 20 people is way more challenging than rocking for 10,000 people.

It scared me to death to think about improv, but I got hired for a year at Second City in Chicago, which made me nervous, but I found I could improvise. Then I was in a group called the Ace Trucking Company, which we'd do, like, a half hour set of material, then open up for improvisation.

When I first started out, I was really, really scared when I performed before an audience. I'd look over their heads.

I was never in an improv group. But when I went to school, we would do it all day long with friends, not knowing what it was called.

The night before a show, I don't sleep. Really. I've been doing this for 30 years, and the night before a show, I still don't sleep.

When I first started performing, I was a nervous wreck. Honestly, sometimes I felt like I was going to run off the stage.

That's the thing: when I'm on stage, I don't care; there could be ten people there, there could be ten million people there. But if I'm offstage, I'm, like, counting the people. I know exactly where everyone's standing, how far they are from me.

For me, the audition is always the hardest part of the whole process. Once you get on set, once you're in costume, you're with the director, it's so much easier to get in the headspace.

My early years as a 'speaker' involved note cards that shook like a leaf while I held them because I was so nervous.

It's not so much that I don't enjoy playing live - that's one of the best parts of playing music - it's that it's nerve-racking with 300, 500 people watching.

I don't feel like I'm the type of performer who's going to knock your socks off. I'm trying to get over my nerves.

I never did improv professionally, but that was certainly in my training as an actor. I like it. Actually, when I did theater, I used to have a partner, and that was the way we used to write a lot of our sketches, through improvisation. So it's something I feel comfortable with.