Quotes

Marcello was a synthesis of every Italian idiom that I could nurture out of my heart and soul. I began to realize that all great comedic actors from Curly Howard on had one character, which was the epitome of who they were. And so on that basis, Marcello got me on SCTV, and on "Saturday Night Live". You need one character that you can really put all your chops into and jazz with and jam with.

[on his childhood]: Yeah, I was mischievous. I hung out with a group of brats. We were always into trouble, doing pranks around the school.

In my second year of university ... I came down to see a Second City show. I was invited by a friend; I had never heard of Second City. And I saw my high school buddy up on stage, Peter Aykroyd, Dan Aykroyd's younger brother. I realized that they were the Aykroyds that I grew up with in Ottawa, and my next door neighbors .... I had so much fun watching the show that I thought, Wow, I'd really like to do that.

[Explaining why he returned to Second City and enrolled in Level A improv classes after his release from hospital]: Well, because I hadn't done improv in a long time. And it's a skill, as you know. You have to stay fresh with it otherwise you start losing that sense of gravity that any good improviser has, that sense of courage, and strength. I hadn't been well in the past few years, and I was trying to get back on my feet, trying to get strong again.

I started going to movies when I was around eight. I used to sneak into the theaters in Ottawa. I saw a few Italian films that I really liked, Fellini movies, with Marcello Mastroianni. He was a role model. I liked all the Warner Brothers cartoons, with Mel Blanc doing the voices, like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. I watched The Three Stooges, and The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason. Burt Lancaster was one of my favorite actors .... I liked Charlie Chaplin a great deal.

[on his favorite role]: I played this Italian character, an Italian father. Derek McGrath and I started it on stage at Second City .... It was a father and son having a conversation about the upcoming marriage that is happening in about 5 minutes. He's talking to his son sort of backstage. It's all about the fact that he doesn't think [his son] should be getting married at this point in time.

[on advice for aspiring performers]: Aim high. Aim really high. Really get your talent together, really nurture your talent, nurture your skills. Take whatever class you can to nurture your skills. Find a good teacher that you can work with. And try to get involved in the best productions that are out there. But keep going at it.

[on profanity in comedy]: It steals a little bit from language, if you use it too much. You can get away with it if it's used very punctually, and very succinctly and very appropriately - where it's just an opportune moment to swear, if there is one. It can sometimes be hilarious. But overly done, it starts to diminish language, and when that happens, the rest isn't as much a surprise. It's supposed to be poetry at its best, as poetic as you can be.

I'd done five TV series, and I still wanted to be a better actor, so I took every bit role in every Canadian movie I saw. You know what a rich path to stardom that is.

Del Close, and Catherine O'Hara, Robin Duke, the cast that I was in, we weren't allowed to swear. We had to watch our language on stage. It had to be for a very, very, very strong reason to pull out a swear word. Otherwise you just didn't swear at all. I know it sounds really weird, maybe too clean, but that's the way we were taught.

[on being humble]: I just appreciate how hard it is to work in this industry, and I appreciate all the people who are in it, and who are struggling to stay in it. It's not easy. It's a really difficult practice and art form to be part of, and to have any success in it at all is really tough, and to stay there with it is even tougher.

[After his release from psychiatric hospital in late 2009]: Four years being inside is very hard on the spirit. It's the beginning of starting to feel free again. But it's shaking off the time spent inside, that's the difficult part.

[on being in both SCTV and SNL]: I was proud to be in both camps. Wow! What an education.