Steve Martin, perhaps the greatest stand-up comedian of all time, begins his memoir: “I did stand-up for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent in learning, four years were spent in refinement, and four were spent in wild success. In short, the message is clear, making jokes is not easy. Nonetheless, Tom Hanks has such a natural charm that you’d imagine he couldn’t fail – charisma, after all, can turn the most tired one-liner into a rib tickler.
In 1988, the man affectionately known as Tim Honks among fans, starred in the box office flop adored by the Safdie brothers, Punch. The film sees Hanks and Sally Fields star in the story of “a medical school dropout and housewife trying to become stand-up comedians.” They become friends and help each other out at a comedy club in New York.
Never one to prep for his role, Hanks decided the best way to portray a stand-up on the New York comedy club scene was to simply train as a stand-up on the club scene. of New York comedy. So was he good? Well, in the audience at one of his sets was hopeful stand-up Adam Sandler and he said to Hanks, “You were good. You came in right away and the comedians would go crazy. May you be calm and cool on stage. You were yourself.
In the canine world of comedy clubs, annoying other stand-ups is about the best stamp of approval you could ask for. However, Hanks admits it was just about one of the toughest roles of his entire career. “Comedy is hard,” he explained, “because you instantly know if your soup is good food.”
And speaking of food, it’s largely the subject of his own recorded stand-up music video. Under the direction of Barry Sobel, Hanks took to the comic book stage and recounted his rather dated take on a stereotypical service incident. However, his timing and enthusiasm are certainly apparent. Although he was not a huge star at the time, there was no doubt that those present were hoping to see the actor fall apart and they were apparently happily disappointed.
However, not all nights went so well. He wrote a five-minute set for the Comedy Store in Los Angeles and recalled, “It was a pure sweaty moment, an embarrassment. This material lasted one minute 40 seconds, and it had no theme. In the end, he perfected his craft and after a month was able to take the stage without “sweating like a pig”. Fortunately for him, the clip filmed below seems to surprise him in his refining phase.
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