Name: Adam Driver Explains His Acting Method to Bill Burr
Uploaded: 2024-01-13T16:00:16.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Adam Driver Explains His Acting Method to Bill Burr' from Fans of Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Adam Driver Explains His Acting Method to Bill Burr' from Fans of Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-01-13. Transcript available.

He just grinds you down.
In perpetuity.
All right.
Well, how come people don't seem to understand that a person wouldn't want to
watch themselves?
Because when I saw that whole bullshit, it's just like, why would you want to
sit there?
Because I have a theory that if you're looking at the side of your head while
you're talking,
it's like that Native American thing where they didn't want to get a picture.
It takes a piece of your soul.
It's like something that you should never do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, some people watch themselves and they benefit from it.
And I've started to do that now, too, where now I've started to watch things
that I'm in
just because I realize that even when I watch it in retrospect, I don't like it.
And I feel like I could have had a time when we were putting it together to
fight for the part a little bit.
Like protect your performance.
Because usually before, I'm like, okay, I did it.
I absolve all responsibility.
It's your movie.
I'm going to go away now.
I like that.
That's like denial.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a way of coping, I think, with when it doesn't work, then I don't, then it's
not my responsibility.
I mean, there's lots of reasons.
Is that trauma inspired?
Because that's how I go through life.
Right.
I just keep marching forward.
Yeah.
Because if I slow down, like the fog of what has happened in the past catches
up to me.
So I just keep going like, all right, you know, I don't need to look at it.
You know, I'm sure it's fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No matter what it is, it's going to make me cringe.
I wish I was that way, but I'm not.
I get all obsessed about a detail and go over and over again, and I'll drive
myself crazy
and everybody else around me crazy, asking them to explain what the thing was
as opposed
to just fucking watching it.
But at the same time, I also came from theater where you don't get to see what
it looks like
extra.
You're only, you know, you're on a stage and you do it and always at the last
performances
that I'm sure you feel this was stand up.
I mean, maybe not.
You get, you do it for so long and every time you do it, it's something new and
then
it just gets better and better and you become more relaxed.
There's a part where you're like, oh, I need to be over here at this part of
the stage when
I say that as opposed to over there, or I was tense in this part and now I
found a way
to relax.
And that's what I feel about the film.
It's permanent.
You can't go back and do it again.
It's at the same time improvisational, but permanent.
It's a document that lives forever.
Then you make it and you made a mistake or you thought you were going to do
something
that wasn't operating.
It's fucking, it is traumatic when you watch it and you're like, oh, and I can't
go back
and redo it.
That's it.
That's what it is.
Now it lives forever.
But in the same, but in this, also the other end, it's not about you and how
you feel about
it.
It's about how an audience responds to it.
So, you know, I try to absolve responsibility, but now.
I think that's healthy.
I think so too.
Suddenly it turns into this thing where people ask me about it all the time as
if it's very,
you know, odd, but to me it makes sense to not watch things if you don't want
to.
Yeah.
Not wanting to see yourself retiring, like figuring a way out of this business
and just
being able to sit and be quiet.
Right.
Like stuff like that makes sense.
One thing that does as far as like, like with like standup and, and you doing
when I watched
you on burn this, uh, on Broadway, it's the same thing where it's live.
Okay.
And there's like no do overs, but me, I can adjust to a screw up.
I can call it out.
I'm breaking the fourth wall the entire time.
The entire time I'm talking to the crowd.
I'm not creating this, this world that you guys are doing.
So if there's like a mistake, it's very easily handled once you're seasoned and
you can, you're,
you're relaxed.
So when you were doing that play, cause this is what's, oh, I've always wanted
to ask someone
that's acted on Broadway.
What happens?
What do you do?
Like if the other actor forgets their line and you see them in a panic looking
at you or
you can like, right before you're going out, you're like, what the fuck do I
say?
Yeah.
And there's this crowd there and go, there's your cue.
Like, how do you, uh, like, what is that night?
Like that first night, no matter how many times you've rehearsed it, there has
to be that
thought of like, what if I, I forget my lines?
Yeah.
Not so much.
Not when I first did a play on Broadway, that was that terror that, uh, that I
was not going
to memorize, you know, know my lines, but now I don't feel that way.
I like, I feel like I know my lines and all, but, but that happens all the time.
Let's talk about the terror.
So what, what, what was that like?
How did, did it happen?
Did it where I lost my lines?
Yeah.
No, no, no, no.
I remember the first play I ever did was called a play called Mrs. Warren's
Profession.
It's a Robert Shaw play and I was sitting backstage and it was with Cherry
Jones and Sally Hawkins
and they were acting and I had, there's the mic in my dressing room or the
speaker in my
dressing room and somebody said something that was funny.
And for the first time I heard the crowd that that size laugh and I was fucking
terrified
because it was, cause it's immense, you know, and very, uh, deep.
And then I just was, I blacked out or I don't know if I really blacked out, but
I was terrified.
And then I, uh, had to go out and I stumbled through it and that was that.
It wasn't, it was not a good show.
Did you, have you ever gotten mad at yourself for choosing this profession?
All the time.
In those moments?
Yeah.
I do that all the time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's all self-induced.
Yeah.
No one asked me and no one is asking for it.
That's what, and that's what I was always saying.
I would always be sitting there like when I was getting called on stage,
horrible crowd
or, or like, you know, you're going to do, do Letterman and it's freezing cold
and he
doesn't look, he's in a good mood.
And I'm just like, well, I'm a fucking shy person.
Why did I decide to do this?
This is stupid.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
All the time.
Yeah.
But then when it's over, then you're like, you feel amazing for like 20 minutes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then that's it.
I always, the best part of getting, of, of, of jobs is the first 20 minutes
when I realize
I'm going to do the job.
But then after that, it's just misery until it's over.
Yeah.
You're like, oh fuck.
Now I have to go do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it has to be great.
And it has to be something that was worth all the effort to get there.
Well, I got to tell you, when I saw you on that, like, dude, you came out in
that play,
Burn This, it was like, you know, it was already a good play.
You didn't come on, I felt, for like the first 10 minutes.
And when your character comes in, I think it was hammered or whatever.
It was just an erratic, crazy fucking person.
And you came in and it was just like, electrify, the whole thing just, it just
was flying after
that.
And I'm not, you know, I'm a comedian.
So like, I'm going to Broadway and we have like, I think we confuse, you know,
cats with
everything else on Broadway.
So we just think it's going to be like, oh my God, I had a dream.
Oh no.
How am I going to lie to this guy afterwards and be like, oh yeah, that was,
that was fantastic.
I got, I got my little cats doll here and I, I am now, I want to be on the
great white
way.
I was so, uh, like psyched, like two, that's only happened two times.
Oh really?
Um, your play.
And then, uh, when I first moved to LA, my neighbor across the street wrote a
play and
put it out up here in LA.
And you know, LA theater is not known to, does not have a reputation and I was,
I was in
a fucking panic because it wasn't not only what I have to say that I liked it
after the
show, the guy lived across the street from me.
So like, how long could I keep the lie on my face?
And fortunately I went there and I loved it and it was really hilarious and it
was really
smart and really funny.
And, uh, I was like gushing afterwards and like most of it was my relief that,
oh my God,
thank God.
I, I, I, not only did I like it, I actually loved it.
And, um, so I've gone to, you know, that kind of opened me up because up until
then I'd
only seen like, uh, I, I'd just seen like off, off, off Broadway plays.
Thanks.