![]() ![]() Watch the trailer for the improvised Netflix specials Middleditch & Schwartz They have nothing to point to, like a special from anybody, to say: ‘Look how good this can be!’” So I think people’s perception is based on watching performers starting out, who haven’t put the hours in. And my class shows were horrific! I didn’t know what I was doing. “Any time I tell people I do improv,” says Schwartz, “their only reference is their friends’ class shows at college. OK, so making up comedy on the hoof pays “zero dollars” and is afforded near-zero credibility in the entertainment landscape. It was a career-making turn – but it didn’t break Schwartz’s bond with improv. I tried everything, hoping something would stick and I could be in this industry I loved.” Aged 29, he sealed the deal when cast alongside Aziz Ansari as the unjustifiably cocky Jean-Ralphio on Poehler’s hit sitcom Parks and Recreation. I freelanced writing for David Letterman. “Since the beginning,” he says, “I was always like: ‘I’m going to find a way to do this.’ I tried everything. Soon improvising himself, he carved a niche with sketches and contributions to the Funny or Die platform and the web series Jake & Amir. Schwartz started out as a dogsbody at the NYC improv club Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB), paying with his labour for access to the work of Poehler, Tina Fey and co. Netflix said: ‘What’s going to happen on stage?’ And we said: ‘We don’t know!’ “I can’t tell you how excited I am to get on that stage in England and do a show,” says Schwartz, his motormouth positivity buzzing across the transatlantic Zoom line. The tour is Ben Schwartz & Friends, which has been circulating North America in the (rare) gaps between the 41-year-old’s acting work, and is coming to London. It is the streaming platform’s first experiment with live improv. Those Netflix specials, under the banner Middleditch & Schwartz, are three fantastic long-form improv shows (not sketches, but a whole, hour-long story) performed with his occasional sidekick Thomas Middleditch. That, like standup, it can be done successfully in front of thousands of people.” “With the specials and with this tour,” says Schwartz, “the goal is to show that improv is fun, exciting and freeing. What makes Ben Schwartz different is that, even as his Tinseltown career rockets – he is in Apple TV+’s The Afterparty and the forthcoming Nicolas-Cage-as-Dracula movie Renfield, and is the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog – he just won’t leave his much-maligned first love behind. Plenty of Hollywood stars started out in improv: Amy Poehler, Bill Murray, Mike Myers – they all got noticed on the improv stage then moved on to loftier things. ![]()
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