“I don’t like directing myself,” says Dane Cook. “I don’t listen.”
Cook learned this while shooting his directorial debut, the new Showtime stand-up special Troublemaker, over two nights in Las Vegas earlier this year. It’s Cook’s first special in four years following a hiatus he took in 2010-2011 after he lost both his parents to cancer within nine months of each other.
“I was like Jack Kerouac,” he tells Off the Cuff while describing a year spent driving cross-country while undergoing some serious soul searching. “I was reading Nietzsche, like, ‘What’s my constitution?'” The result, he says, can be seen in the new special.
“I was hitting 40 and it was like, okay, all the shenanigans of my 20’s and some of the stuff I was coming at in my standup in my 30’s, that era was over,” he recalls.
“I came back with more fervor.”
Cook also opens up about the controversy over rumors that he stole jokes from Louis C.K., why he’s never had a drink in his life, and which bits have gotten him into serious trouble with audiences — even if they thank him for it later.
“I’ve gotten the emails from people saying, ‘We broke up two days after your show,'” he admits.
Is there any topic too taboo for him to approach?
“There’s always a right approach,” he insists. Ever the troublemaker, indeed.
Listen to Cook’s full interview in this episode of Off the Cuff and be sure to subscribe to #pretapodcasts on iTunes for all the latest episodes.
