Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld

Jerry Seinfeld: You always have to try something that you don’t know how it’s going to go. Experimentation, I think, is part of what every human being has to do to become anything. You got to try things. You never know if you can do anything before you try it. So with material, there are things that are funny about me that I don’t even know about. Audiences tell you.

You just do it and then they laugh. So it’s just trial and error — of trying all different things, making faces, moving, saying different things. You just try, try, try. In the old days you think, I think the audience will laugh at this. And now I think it starts more from what I believe — that this is funny and I make it work because I believe in it. But before, you’re kind of like following the audience around. It’s kind of like the tail is wagging the dog when you start out. And then as you go on you start to have your own opinions. You get more confidence, and you can never have too much confidence in comedy—in anything, really. As long as it doesn’t become arrogance.

Milling About Flashback with Jerry Seinfeld / by Robin Milling / 1987