YouSaid · the spoken record

BJ Novak

lines on the record
130
first
2015-11-25
most recent
2015-11-25
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Could be a comp dad right now From that point to the office, well, raising dad got canceled. I continued doing standup. I ran out of all the money that I had saved on my big money year in about a year and a half, two years of doing open mics and gradually getting better to the point where at the end of sort of after a year and a half, which is a long time when you are a kid from the suburbs. It's a long time. It's a long time, but compared to most stand-ups, you know, I got very lucky, of course, but it did feel like a very long time because I had been working. After about a year and a half, I got decent, definitely decent at stand-up, and I was starting to get booked at respected alternative rooms, at the improv. And, you know, there's a lot of people in Hollywood that are always looking for anyone, half promising to sign or to put on showcases. And I was becoming that comic that people would see.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “My parents were like supportive, supportive, supportive. And then they really supported something different. You're like, okay. So you were not, okay, you were just being polite fair enough.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Yeah, I think they thought I wasn't very good. You know, my dad also is the co-editor of a couple humor books that are very good, the big book of Jewish humor and the big book of New American Humor. And my family like comedy is a big deal to us. We watch, they watch Seinfeld every night. Seinfeld and Kean Peel are the only things my parents watch, which I think is very good taste. So, you know, I think they kind of just, they definitely supported me writing. You know, I'd studied literature at Harvard, you know, my dad's a writer. There was nothing, again, huge advantage for me that my parents thought writing was like a good, solid job, you know. And then stand up was where they were like, okay, get it out of your system. This is not you, but whatever. You know, they never said this to me, but in retrospect, it's like, it's the same thing on stage when the audience is laughing and then you say something off the cuff and you get a huge laugh and you realize, oh, they weren't even laughing before.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “For some big people The biggest one he did was Leiaco, his biggest and first one he did. He also did the memoirs of Nancy Reagan. Of Tip O'Neill, Magic Johnson, which was very exciting for me. He worked with Tim Russert on two books and George Stephanopoulos. So a lot of political people on both sides of the spectrum and a lot of just eclectic business leaders, various people.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “It was really that. It was the idea that I'm going to really do this night after night and I will evolve the act. And, you know, I was really bad for a while. But, you know, let's say you do 20 jokes and three of them get pity laughs. Well, those are the three you keep. And then after a while, one of them always does well. Well, that's your opener. And now two of them do well. Well, now you have a closer. And you sense, oh, okay, when I do this kind of joke, it does well. And it evolves that way.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “And after that, I did not get on stage for three months. I had to work up the courage all over again because it had been such a disaster. And that time I was like, you know what? Tuesday I'm going to this coffee shop. Wednesday I'm going to this bar, you know, all these open mics. And, you know, the first night back, I did pretty well. And the second night I didn't do well, but you can't make each night a referendum on whether or not you should be doing it. You just have to do a bunch.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “And I followed a guy who killed. He did an impression of Robert De Niro taking a dump. And I have to say it was great. It was a great impression and you didn't need to know English. And it was completely opposite of what I was doing. And so I did this bit. It was horrible. And the host said after me to try to keep the show going. All he could muster for me was takes a lot of courage to get up on this stage.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “You can't quit because I got up all this curcy to my first show. It was at a youth hostel, the Hollywood Youth Hostel. It was October 10th, 2001. So less than a month after 9-11. All my jokes were about 9-11.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Well, the first time was a real disaster. And one of my most important pieces of advice to anyone doing stand up is if you're really going to try standup, book your whole week of shows, your whole first week, in advance.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “And he also came by now and then gave some words of wisdom and jokes and then left and was also celebrated for his own voice. And I thought, well, those are the guys I want to be. And they were both stand-ups. So I thought I had never thought of doing stand-up before then, but I realized, well, how insurmountable is this? Being a standup is writing a joke and then saying the joke, and that is what I'm doing in this writer's room. I write a joke, I say it out loud to see if it goes in the script. I guess I could try that and try to be like them. And so as the show was winding down, I signed up for open mics around LA and I would start, you know, saying one liners into a microphone and I was kind of doing stand-up comedy.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “I did aspire to be something like, where Bob Saget, who had come by now and then in his fancy car and cool sunglasses and tell ten jokes and leave and get to be the star of the show. And Jonathan Katz, who created the show and had previously created Dr. Katz on Comedy Central. Really cool show. Oh, yeah.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “I took it, moved to LA, started writing for it. And I looked around the room. It's interesting. I kept telling myself I'm making so much money because for a kid at that age, it's so much money. But any job I've had since then, I made more money on the office, for example, and I never thought I'm making so much money. So anytime I'm telling myself I'm making so much money, I'm making so much money, that's a warning sign that you're doing the wrong thing. So I would tell myself that because I gradually realized this isn't the life I want I'd look around this writer's room and think these are not the jobs I want and I really and I'm glad I did I really had these dreams of doing something important and visible and exciting and the only people in the room who”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “There's a huge integrity pull towards doing the seller thing because you think, who am I to turn down all this money for something that someone else would struggle their whole lives to, et cetera, et cetera? And you actually feel very guilted towards at least doing what you would have considered a sellout thing. So it's an interesting paradox that I've observed with a lot of successful people. They get offered a really lame movie for a ton of money and their thought isn't fuck that. I'm an artist. Their thought is, God, who am I? I'd put my kids through college just to do a Christmas movie. Who am I to say no? It's very surprising. I mean, it makes sense, but I'm sorry.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Easy Rider is Raging Bulls about sort of filmmaking in the glory days of the 70s. And I wanted to be like that. And then there's a sequel about sort of the Miramax, like the 90s Tarantino, Kevin Smith, that is also good. But I really wanted to write a screenplay that would blow Hollywood apart. It was so edgy and innovative, et cetera, and then demand to direct it. And, you know, that's, I think anyone who saw pulp fiction as a teenager, that was their fantasy. So that was very much my fantasy. And, you know, in my privileged wannabe artist mind, this was a sellout move. But, you know, I knew it would be even more like privileged and eye-rolly to turn it down. I mean, so it's an interesting paradox. I've noticed this. When I was young, I thought, oh, I'll never be a sellout if anyone ever offers.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Perfect in a way. In a way. I mean, too good to be true on a career level. But again, like I didn't. I really had these fantasies of being a great artist, a great filmmaker and sort of a family WB show. I didn't want to move to LA. I knew that I shouldn't say no to this and I didn't say no to it, but it was, you know, I actually wanted to be like a starving artist. Look, I'm from like a suburb starving artist means like borrow a little money and live cheap. I have no real illusions, but I didn't, I had mixed feelings. So it was sort of a dream come true in sort of career moving forward, but it was, you know, I was not.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “As well. But they hired me. They were like, oh, cool, a young edgy writer, Harvard Lampoon, perfect. And they gave me a job on that staff while I was about to graduate. So I'm gradually”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “So I called CAA. I said, do you guys represent Bob Sagett, the receptionist says, no. I say, do you know who does? They say, I think Brilstein Gray. So I look up Brilstein Gray. I call Brillstein Gray. They do represent Bob Saga. They put me through to a guy. I explain my case. He says, send the stuff you're writing for Bob. I'll take a look. This guy later becomes my manager. So the manager, Michael Price, likes the material, recommends that Bob does it. Bob comes out and does the show, which is a very highly scripted show. There's a parody of Full House called The Lost Episode of Full House in which Bob learns about sex for Muckle Jesse. Very dirty, very funny. Anyway, so after the show, Bob and he had brought his shows creator. He was doing a new show that never really went anywhere, but it lasted one season. It was called Raising Dad. Oddly, it starred Cat Dennings and Bre Larson, who are now both very, very successful.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “By the way, that's a great thing. Always, if you don't care about the money, always give the money to charity because then everyone will do it. And often you just don't care about the money. You just want to put on something cool. So that's something I learned in college that I'll probably use again if anytime I have like some cool scheme. Like, sure, keep them like, who cares? So I cold called his management. I asked my dad, how do you think I... Get in touch with Bob Sagitt. He said, Call CAA. We're from like Boston. I don't know how he does. He said, call 411, get CAA's number, and ask CAA. They'll probably know. I was like, that's so smart. One of the big agents.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “No, no, this is after. Or, I'm sorry, after. So he's well known as a family-friendly guy. But I have heard rumors that he's really filthy. So I think maybe we can book him. Maybe we can. Maybe we can honor him at the Harvard lampoon and because he'll want the award, he'll come and do the show, which worked perfectly. I approached his management, I cold-called his management and said, I'm calling from Harvard. We want to give Bob Saga an award and feature him in this show. And this show, you know, the proceeds went to charity. It wasn't a scam for me. I just thought it would be a great show.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “Yeah, it's like, you know, I have the same name as the guy who was on the plane. Maybe we should do Slane together. So we put on the show and I got, you know, some of my comedy friends. We wrote this sort of, it was a variety show in parody of a variety show called the BJ Show. My senior year, I decided let's invite”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Well, I have a sort of bizarre sort of course of events and what it has in common with everyone else is that everyone who gets a job in Joe business, they have a story that's not replicable. That's the one constant ironically. So what happened was I was one of my main extracurriculars at Harvard was I put on a show called The BJI Show with another kid named BJ who was like a campus celebrity. He was like a reality showstar before reality because he had stowed away on a plane to visit his family for Thanksgiving. This is before 9-11, so it wasn't quite as bad. But it's still, you know, it made the papers harvested and stows away on plane. He was the guy from the plane, you know, and so I saw an opportunity here, you know, to hitch my fame to his. And we put on this to get attached to the plane.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “How did you improve, or was it just online? I have no idea. I probably just improved because I was older and had been doing it longer, but it's also incredibly subjective. If I had not gotten on, I had vowed to never try again and decide those people didn't know what the fuck they were talking about. And then I did get on. And actually, I did keep a healthy sense of this is not the be-all end-all. But it's so subjective.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “Well, I tried to get on from the very beginning. So I tried comp is the term for auditioning for it with your writing. So I tried three straight semesters. So I didn't get on until the middle of my sophomore year. But I wanted to be on from day one.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “You have to write a number of pieces in order to get on the staff. I think that everything A place like that is And this does not lead to the best comedy writers by any means. It is just that's one advantage and the other advantage is that they believe they can do it. There are also huge disadvantages to coming from the Harvard Lampoon, which is a lack of sort of life experience or being in touch with what real people actually find funny or a sense of cockiness that is very antithetical to comedy. So there's definitely advantages and disadvantages to coming from a place like that.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “Well, I imagine that was simply imitative of other Rigorous Where The ski club or row The Harvard Crimson newspaper, whatever. Probably it's more inherited from that because a lot of people want to do these activities. People Comedy writing. And so you put them through, well,”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “Lot of people ask me, oh, did you have those advantages? Yes, of course, to an extent, but I find the biggest advantage is just not thinking that it's a crazy idea to try to be a comedy writer or to try to be a writer. Many people waste years working as a lawyer, working, you know, whatever they do that they think of as a more reasonable choice before they finally get the courage to write. So I think the huge advantage is if you have the talent no matter where you are, if you believe that it's a reasonable choice of action, you're extremely fortunate. And that, I think, is a main advantage of going to Harvard. He doesn't seem crazy.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “Is unlike just about anything else you'd be exposed to at that age. So that has led to a lot of people falling in love with and becoming very good at comedy writing, which is, you know, a real A building block of entertainment that can be put to use. So a lot of people have traditionally graduated the Harvard Lampoon and gone on to write for the Simpsons or Saturday Live or many, many other shows. And I think once you see graduates do that, you kind of think, oh, maybe I could do that. A big advantage, I think, of going to a fancy school or my dad who did not go to a fancy school but is a writer.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “The main correlation that I am familiar with is the Harvard Lampoon, which is a really one of a kind comedy magazine that has its own spectacular castle building in the middle of prime real estate in Harvard Square, William Randolph Hearst funded this incredibly bizarre and exciting old building, and that has fostered a lot of intelligent people trying to get into this building slash magazine slash party house. And those people sort of train each other really, I wouldn't quite say viciously, but really rigorously about comedy. This joke doesn't progress. This joke is predictable, and it's very rare that you'll get nineteen year olds being hard on funny eighteen year olds year after year. And so I think that is a training system that”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “Comedy Debate podcasts people really at the top of their intelligence to Harvard friends of mine who are very well educated erudite comedy writers just going at the most trivial and Bizarre topics. One topic was it would be cool if the Pope had an affair with Mora Tierney. And one of them took the side, the Catholic Church needs this sort of jolt and rebranding, and the other person saying, what's the point of an institution like this?”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “I live over an hour away, so I've been getting into podcasts. I actually enjoy, I was telling you on the way in, I enjoy getting to see this other part of town because LA is really like several different cities and I've never really known the west side. So it's worth it to me at least for now to spend that hour. And listening to podcasts on the drive, it's really like an extra hour of reading a day.”

    2015-11-25 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #121: BJ Novak of The Office on Creative Process, Handling Rejection, and Good Comedy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT