SPOTLIGHT
hundreds of people. We met them at a reception before the din- ner. There had to be about 800 people in this room but when he saw me, he made direct eye contact and he was like, “Hey. There’s one of my favorite comedians right there.” We talked and he had these people draped around him trying to get his attention. The first lady too…they are able to connect. They’re really there in that moment with you. It’s not looking around to see “Oh. There’s Tom Cruise. Let me go say ‘hi’ to him.” They are just amazing, amazing people.
Rage: You’ve managed to create such a potpourri of entertainment with television, stand-up, films and your book. I think that’s phenomenal. Do you have any plans after your tour to create another book? WS: I’m not ruling it out. I have a few ideas I’m knocking around
so…we’ll see. I really feel like I need something major to happen. Like maybe I’ll go into rehab for something (laughter). I need something to sell it. So, I’m thinking something like a good rehab…who knows?
Rage: I’m really sorry about no new New Adventures of Old Christine. Will you share a bit of the experience of working with Julia Louis-Dreyfus? WS: She is amazing and just incredibly talented. I love how she
just enjoyed doing the work…sweet, funny, sincere, gracious and just a professional. She enjoyed showing up. She enjoyed re- hearsing. She wants to try things…whatever to make it funnier. She was just great to work with, I’m really gonna miss all of them.
Rage: What motivated you to start doing stand-up comedy and how do you feel that you have grown over the years with your current tour? WS: I was always into doing something with comedy but I went
to school and got a marketing degree. Pretty much followed the path that most people take…especially growing up in the Maryland, D.C. area who work for the government. But, I was just bored and I knew there was something else that I was supposed to be doing. One night I was looking through my high school yearbook
and people just wrote everything about how funny I was, how I need to be on stage and blah, blah, blah. So, I heard about a talent show and comedy was one of the categories. I went down and auditioned and took that and everything just made sense to me. It was like “Okay. I know how to write jokes.”
Rage: You sure as heck do. WS: I think the first three or four years, I was just doing what I thought a comedian should do. I was doing more of an imper- sonation of a comic. It really wasn’t anything personal or my point of view. It was just how I’d seen other comics do it. It wasn’t until I just got older and wiser and more confident that I sort of put myself out there more, instead of putting the jokes out first. I became more personalized. I think that’s just how it goes…the more comfortable you are with yourself, the easier it is to open up and dig a little deeper to give a point of view. Yeah. I think that’s how I evolved.
Wanda Sykes Friday, August 27 Starlight Theater at Pala Casino and Resort
Palacasino.com
36 RAGE monthly | JULY 2010
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