On March 21, comedian Rory Scovel performed as part of SUAAB’S Springapalooza’s festival. The Mercury sat down with him to talk about his work so far.
What prompted you to follow a career in comedy?
I don’t know if there’s necessarily one specific inspiration — maybe family. I come from a family with a lot of big personalities, and a big family. That kind of drove me to be a little bit of a performer just to get attention. The psyche of my family, if that’s the right phrase, is just that everyone’s trying to be funny. So if you are being funny, you get to have that attention and keep it. I’m just wired that way from childhood. Now that I’m doing this, my inspiration is just anything going on. To get to go out and make some people laugh, you try to think of a way to chip in, in life. If that makes people laugh and they feel good about something, it kind of makes you think, ‘Alright, I’m doing something.’
Did you face any setbacks or challenges when you were becoming a comedian?
Probably the same as most, which is financial. It’s such a commitment time-wise. What you’re making is usually what you’ve spent to go be there. Basically, you’re coming home with no money. The biggest setback for me was trying to figure out, ‘How do I actually do this and afford to pay rent and buy groceries?’
Can you tell us about any upcoming projects?
I’m in a Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler movie that comes out June 30. I haven’t even seen it yet. I already know I’m a small role and I don’t know what they’ve left in or taken out. Either way, I’m over the moon that that was something I even got to do. It’s called “The House.” They can’t afford tuition for their daughter — she’s about to go to college — so they start an underground casino in a friend’s basement that goes from being this super shady casino to being like the movie “Casino.” Dimitri Martin, who I think was here last year, I’m in one of his movies called “Dean” which comes out June 2. Outside of that, we’re going to do a third season of “Those Who Can’t” on truTV. And then I’m just kind of going out trying to get my own TV show.
Any general life advice you’d like to share with our readers?
I feel like I always have advice until it gets brought up to give advice. I try to always tell people to not take things so seriously. Maybe we’re all from different political climates but since November, I’ve never taken things more seriously in my life, especially being a dad now. For anyone who’s in college, when you look back on it, I tell people to really, truly enjoy it. Once you’re out of that rhythm of ‘your life is that you go to school,’ then you are now in a world where there’s no blueprint. All these things are exciting, but it comes at you fast.
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