The Comics Roundtable
From left: Kristen Schaal, Nick Kroll, Cecily Strong, Rob Delaney and Anthony Jeselnik were photographed April 21 at 5th and Sunset Studios in Los Angeles.
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Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales -
Nick Kroll
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales "The hardest thing about comedy is finding your voice. What’s amazing about Anthony is that he has an incredibly clear voice, and it’s the equation of putting together a beautifully structured joke that is both surprising and shocking. That’s not the goal of every comedian," says Kroll.
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Nick Kroll
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales Kroll on sketch comedy versus stand-up: "The worst part about doing sketch versus stand-up for me was at least in stand-up, you can acknowledge how badly it’s going. But with sketch, when a sketch is going badly. You can’t stop it. And that’s a terrible feeling."
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Cecily Strong
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales After training at Second City and iO Chicago, Strong, 29, joined SNL in fall 2012.
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Cecily Strong
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales Strong on comedy versus stand-up: "I feel like you do [think that with sketch]. You’re like, 'If you didn’t like that one, wait till you hear the next 80 minutes!' We got burned [doing sketch] by this old-people audience somewhere in Florida for New Year’s Eve. These people hated us so much. We were like, 'Now give us a line of dialogue that you haven’t heard in the show so far.' And this guy goes, 'Humor.' "
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Kristen Schaal and Cecily Strong
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales Best known for her work on HBO’s Flight of the Conchords, 30 Rock, The Daily Show and Fox’s Bob’s Burgers, the frequent stand-up and one-time South Park writer, 35, is starring in the ABC pilot Pulling.
From left: Schaal and Strong.
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Kristen Schaal
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales Schaal says, "Louieee [C.K.]" is the most important comic working today.
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Kristen Schaal
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales "I did a show at a college in upstate New York with my friend Kurt Braunohler, and we were going over the set. So we’re like, 'OK, so at this point we’re gonna say, ‘Now for our live sex act onstage,’ and then just hit this Prince song.' And the guy was like, 'Whoa, whoa, what do you mean, live sex act?' I’m like, 'Don’t worry, we’re not gonna bone each other.' And he’s like, 'You know this is family weekend, right?' And I was like, 'No, I did not know that.' And I look outside, and there are just like families lined up waiting to get in. And I have basically five minutes to go backstage and just look over my set and just hack out all the sex jokes," recalls Schaal of her flopping moment onstage.
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Rob Delaney
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales He has yet to land a TV series, but the 36-year-old has a Twitter following of nearly 1 million, a busy stand-up schedule and a book deal.
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Rob Delaney
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales "All of us have said filthy things that are reprehensible and, taken out of context, would be monstrous. But it’s how you are talking about it," says Delaney for making certain jokes. "Are you talking about it to encourage people to do more of that? Then I would say that’s a line I wouldn’t cross. I’ll talk about those things in an effort to make people point at it and make fun of it and try to make it not happen anymore."
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Anthony Jeselnik
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales In addition to a popular tour, the former Late Night With Jimmy Fallon writer and frequent roast performer, 34, stars in Comedy Central’s The Jeselnik Offensive.
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Anthony Jeselnik
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales Jeselnik on finding his voice: "I got into stand-up because I wanted to be a writer. I said, 'Let me try to write the smartest jokes I can, get comedians’ attention, then they’ll hire me to write for them.' I thought comedians always had a darker sense of humor, so I’ll try for that. I basically didn’t get hired on so many things that I was able to get good at stand-up by the time I finally got the Fallon job years later."
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Rob Delaney, Kristen Schaal, Nick Kroll
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales In keeping with the mood of the day, roundtable participants received a personalized (and frankly ridiculous) trophy, of which Jeselnik joked: “I think [THR] was like, ‘Let’s make these — they’ll be cool.’ ‘How much money should we put into them?’ ‘Three dollars, tops.’ ”
From left: Delaney, Schaal and Kroll.
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Anthony Jeselnik, Cecily Strong, Rob Delaney
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales “Just to know that everyone has terrible anxiety and that that’s OK,” says Strong of the best advice she received upon joining SNL, before acknowledging that she still gets very nervous before the show.
From left: Jeselnik, Strong and Delaney.
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Anthony Jeselnik, Cecily Strong
Image Credit: Photo Credit: Ramona Rosales "People think we enjoy comedy more than we do or that I would want to hear someone’s dumb joke. Leave me alone," says Jeselnik.