Jon Lovitz: I Took Up Standup So I Wouldn’t Go Broke
by Philip Recchia, BlogTalkRadio
The Jon Lovitz interview begins at the 6:00 mark
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If you’re hesitant about shelling out 20 bucks to catch Jon Lovitz riff onstage at his new comedy club, rest assured the money’s going to a good cause – namely upkeep on the funnyman’s abode.
Rest assured, too, that he won’t have been toking in the green room.
Interviewed on The Radio Happy Hour, Jon discusses why he made the leap from screen actor to owner of the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club in Universal City, Calif., which opened last week, and where he regularly performs live.
“When I was on Saturday Night Live, I’d ask Robin Williams, I’d ask Eddie Murphy, Dana [Carvey], ‘Do you think I could be a standup?’ And they all said, Yea, you can do it,” he tells host Dr. Blogstein.
“So that was encouraging. But it was always the fear of just getting up there I had to overcome.
“And because the movie roles were drying up, it kind of forced me. It just happens. I did a lot of [movies], and then you get older and people go, Ah, we want somebody new. It’s rare that someone is just constantly working,” Jon continues.
“I had an agent and a manager and I said, ‘Listen, get me work. I have money, but if don’t work, I’m gonna run out of money in five years.’
“And one said, ‘Sell your house,’ and one said, ‘Move to a smaller house.’
“It made me really mad, so I fired them. And I just said, ‘I’m gonna do the standup. I’m not selling my house.’ So that motivated me.”
Jon, who spent the past two years developing his act, also wants would-be patrons to know that he’s not sparking anything but laughs at his establishment.
“I could’ve just said right away, ‘I wanna do standup.’ And I could’ve just gotten baked and just gotten on stage and not really known what I was doing – and just gotten the money.
“But I thought that would be a big mistake.”
To hear Jon’s full interview, click here.
To learn more about The Jon Lovitz Comedy Club, click here.
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