We get down to business with award-winning comedian, Lawrence Leung, from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He has managed to turn the complex subject of science into a pleasurable and entertaining experience by incorporating breakdancing and wacky experiments into his live performances. So what really goes on inside the mind of an ‘Albert Einstein-cum-Eddie Murphy’ type of person? Lawrence takes us on an intimate journey with him.
Interviewer: What were you like as a child?
Lawrence: I remember being a curious kid. I wanted to know how things worked, so I took apart phones and watches. Sometimes they wouldn’t work again, so I got in trouble. I used to climb trees just to see the view from above. The top of a tree is the most inspiring place to daydream. It’s also a good place to throw nuts at the neighbor’s kids.
Interviewer: When did your interest in comedy/entertainment begin for you and did you complete any training/study for it?
Lawrence: I knew that I always enjoyed making people laugh as a child. My fellow students thought I had a flair for slapstick comedy, but in reality I was clumsy. I still am. I exploited that physical comedy in many Theartesports competition shows in high school. I guess my comedy “training” was during my college years with a comedy group called The Improbables. We were a bunch of friends making impromptu sitcoms and movies at theaters, pubs, and comedy festivals. Some of us (Andrew McClelland, Christina Adams, Nick Caddaye and Yianni Agisilaou) became successful comedians both here and in the UK.
Interviewer: Did your family support you?
Lawrence: They had a little bit of trouble understanding what I was doing. Stand up is not a regular career path with role models that my parents had heard of or liked. My parents want me to have a job with financial security, but that’s hard in the arts. I was stubborn and stuck with what I thought was good, practicing my skills in pubs, on stage and at festivals and eventually the job opportunities arose (writing for TV/film, hosting radio and doing live tours). My parents have now calmed down a lot.
Interviewer: Are you a born comedian or have you learned it along the way or is it a combination of the two?
Lawrence: Definitely a combination. I think it helps to have an innate “comedy sense” and also to experiment with your comedy in different situations and audiences.
Interviewer: Where does your passion lie, as you have a wide variety of talents (comedian, director, radio host, filmmaker, writer)?
Lawrence: I get restless and bored very easily. All of my favorite jobs have been the ones that involve creativity. But since I get bored easily, I want to try to be creative in as many different mediums as possible.
Interviewer: Describe your first stand-up routine? How was it? Were you nervous and how did you overcome it? How old were you?
Lawrence: I used to be scared before every concert. I was 22 years old when I did my first standing routine. It was at a weekly open mic night called “King Of The Ring.” The small audience was made up of nervous beginners and their drunken friends. The MC announced my name incorrectly (“Welcome to the stage, Lance Long!”), so I wasn’t ready. Realizing too late that he was referring to me, I ran to the stage during the awkward silence that occurs when the audience has exhausted all its welcoming applause. I tripped on the step leading up to the microphone and fell onto the stage. That earned me my first laugh. I still hadn’t told a joke and I let out a laugh that made me lose my nerves. I won the open mic competition and received a cheap bottle of wine and a ‘foothold’ that Saturday night to do it all over again in front of a bigger drunken crowd. I still get nervous before a concert, but as soon as the first laugh comes, it’s always fine.
Interviewer: Was it on the agenda to perform at the Melbourne Comedy Festival early in your career?
Lawrence: When I was in high school, the only thing I watched every year at the Melbourne Comedy Festival was the Raw Comedy grand finale. It is a stand-up comedy competition, with finalists selected from hundreds of aspiring comedians from across Australia. I used to imagine myself standing on that stage at Melbourne City Hall. I was so inspired that I made up jokes and routines and scribbled in exercise books. A couple of years later in college, my friends from The Improbables sent in my Raw Comedy application form because I was too nervous to get in. A few months later, on stage at Melbourne Town Hall, I was lucky enough to come in second place. I never had a plan to get into the Comedy Festival because I didn’t think telling jokes was a career. It was a hobby or a passion that evolved almost by accident into something else.
Interviewer: What was it like doing your first solo show instead of doing stand-up comedy?
Lawrence: My first solo performance was very different from my brief club performances. The main difference is rhythm and rhythm. Stand ups in a club environment tend to be 5, 10 or 20 minutes long with lots of “bang-bang-bang” key points to compete against the mind-draining and soul-draining effects of alcohol. the slot machines. . Solo shows (usually 60 minutes) allow stand-ups to take their time, build an intimate relationship with the crowd, and perhaps address concepts and topics that may take longer to explain. Sometimes I like to tell long stories that may not have many laughs until the finale. The downside is that if the audience doesn’t like the comic, they’ll have to go especially hard to make the room feel less like an hour-long hostage situation.
Interviewer: With Sucker you took risks not only as a performer but also as a writer, was it very daunting?
Lawrence: Unlike actors who mostly play other people’s scripts, comedians (unlike movie or television comedians with writing teams) write their own material. So whether it’s a full-length one-man show or a 5-minute ad, it’s extremely daunting to put yourself out there on stage. Sucker was my first solo show and it was very overwhelming due to the research and amount of writing I had to do. I had a wonderful and intelligent director named Clare Watson who gave me the confidence that she needed and had the brutal honesty to tell me what worked and what didn’t.
Interviewer: When and where did your interest in breakdancing develop?
Lawrence: I wanted to be cooler than my older brother, Dennis, who has always been cooler than me my whole life. He played bass in bands and has an amazing goatee. So I decided to learn to breakdance and write my latest show about this silly quest for cool. It’s called “Lawrence Leung learns to breakdance.” I will present it again at the Sydney Opera House from April 15 to 26. Come along.
Interviewer: Have you felt many moments of ‘ouch’ (I confess to growing up in that time and giving it a chance; fun but very exhausting)?
Lawrence: Every time I do the show there are “ouch” moments.
Interviewer: Without talking to you and only developing my questions from your biography, you present yourself as a very intelligent person who successfully mixes comedy with reality; What is your IQ?
Lawrence: I have no idea what my IQ is, but it’s probably higher than a shark’s, but lower than a dolphin’s.
Interviewer: How did you get involved with the “Chasers” team?
Lawrence: I first met them when they were acting as professional corporate raiders driving a silver Lotus on Hollywood Boulevard. They got lost and asked me for directions, which I thought was a request to write contributions. From that initial flirtatious misunderstanding, a fairy tale world of polo games and diamond necklaces and…no wait, that’s Pretty Woman. For the last few years, members of The Chaser have been coming to my Comedy Festival shows. My shows often feature social experiments and pranks, which is why they asked me to write for their show War On Everything.
Interviewer: Who are some comedians that you admire and are inspired by?
Lawrence: I really admire Andrew Denton, a guy who has done it all: live shows, radio broadcast, television presentation and production. I also quite admire Daniel Kitson, Josie Long, Frank Woodley and Tony Martin. These people do top-notch work, have unique voices, operate without regard to business commitments, and have absolutely no interest in stardom.
Interviewer: Your ultimate goal and how far are you from achieving it?
Lawrence: I don’t really have an end goal. I just want to create work that I can be proud of and that I hope some people will like.
Interviewer: If you weren’t a comedian, would you be…?
Lorenzo: Filmmaker.