From The Comic's Comic

Episode #380

Colin Mochrie is one of the most successful and best-known improvisational comedians in the world, having performed on several hundred episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? since 1991, first broadcast in the UK, then later here in America on ABC, ABC Family and since 2013 on The CW. Born in Scotland and raised in Canada, Mochrie learned his theater and comedy skills at Vancouver TheatreSports and Second City Toronto. His face is famous in Canada, having appeared in countless TV commercials and series over the years. In 2022, Mochrie celebrates 20 years of touring North America in a two-man improv production with Whose Line co-star Brad Sherwood. He also tours with hypnotist Asad Mecci in a show called HYPROV. He sat down with me to talk about his career, as well as his most recent appearance on Amazon Prime Video’s Last One Laughing, competing against some of Canada’s other great comedy stars. And he had me laughing quite a lot.

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Last Things First, congratulations! Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t watched Last One Laughing: Canada but congratulations.

Thank you and why hasn’t everyone watched it by now? It’s been out now for days. Come on! There’s my agent calling. All the offers are coming in now that LOL is finished.

Was there any doubt that you would be triumphant in this?

Oh, yes. There was a lot of doubt. I mean, the beauty of this was anyone could go at any time because, to be focused for six hours on not laughing — it’s a long time, and you can lose focus so easily. Like, the time I got my yellow card (warning). For some reason I thought, oh, we’re having lunch so the game doesn’t count. Nobody said that! I don’t think anyone walked in feeling very confident. I thought Tom (Green) and Dave (Foley) were going to be the ones to beat, just because they’re old, jaded and know everything.

Right, but they don’t have the improv skills that you have. And essentially, this is a long, short-form improv game.

Yes, it is, kind of. But I mean, Tom is a master of understatement? Or over understatement. I don’t even know how to describe what he does. But he can keep a straight face and he’s just so unpredictable. There’s never a point where you go, oh, I know what he’s going to do next. Nothing. Anything he could do could be comic fodder for the next five minutes.

And the charity that you won the money for? That has a lot of personal meaning for you and your wife, right?

Yeah. It’s (Welcome Friend Association’s) Rainbow Camp. It’s a camp for the LGBTQ+ community. We got involved maybe six years ago, shortly after our daughter had come out as trans. And we went down there and did the show as a fundraiser and met the two founders, Chris and Harry, who were just the loveliest people. And it just seemed like a great place — a great place for these kids to go where they’re not being judged, where they have mentors, where they have programs they can take, where they can spend a summer just having fun, having fun.

So let’s go back to when you were a teenager. Did you feel like you were being judged?

Probably. Well, maybe not that much. I mean, I was very, and I still am, but to a lesser extent, because I’m married and have to do things. But I was very quiet. I was a bookworm. I kept to myself, so I think I flew under a lot of people’s radar. I was very popular with my friends. But outside of that, I don’t think I caused any ripples.

So did improv and specifically, I guess, TheatreSports in Vancouver. Did that really kind of unlock something in you that you didn’t know was there?

Yeah. It started with theater. Because I was so shy, a friend of mine, Derek, made me go out for the school play, which I got. And then I got my first laugh. And that, I still remember that moment. As the moment that just totally changed my life. I thought. Oh! I want this all the time. It was like I had a hit of heroin. And I was looking for my next fix. So I was mostly into sciences at that point. So I switched over to theater. And then I was in theater school when I saw the demonstration of TheatreSports because it had just started. It was there at the beginning. And I thought oh, this looks cool and got involved and I just thought well, this will be something that’s just fun to do on the weekends. We’re hanging out with my friends and making stuff up. It’s never gonna be a career. How could it be? Nobody even knows what it is. Thanks to Whose Line that sort of changed everything.

Right. But there were several years, maybe a decade even, where you were performing improv that wasn’t on TV and had to explain it to people.

Constantly explaining because nobody, they go oh, so it’s stand-up? No, it’s not stand-up. Stand-up is actually a craft. We’re more of an art, I guess? I don’t understand stand-ups, why people do that. I’ve nothing but the deepest respect for them because I truly think it’s the hardest of all the comedic arts. With improv, the audience has sort of a vested interest because they’re giving us suggestions for scenes, so they kind of want it to succeed. But my thing always was, if I’m going to die onstage, I’m going with as many friends as I can.

I just have to say right now before we go any further — like this is a real treat for me to be able to talk to you. I am a journalist by trade, but my world started to encompass comedy in the mid 90s, when I was living in Seattle, I ended up joining —there were three different improv groups in Seattle in the mid 90s. And the one I joined was called Improvus Comicus. We had Wednesday nights at the Comedy Underground, which was the main comedy club in town. But it was all short-form. It was all games, a lot of interacting with the audience, and I didn’t even know that there were other forms of improv, that there was such a thing as long-form improv. I just thought this was the be-all end-all. And having you on TV, with Whose Line like made it seem like oh, this is a thing. This could be a thing.

(NOTE: The other two improv groups in Seattle still exist to this day, Jet City Improv, and TheatreSports)

Yeah. I mean, when I started, it was only short form and it really wasn’t until much later that long form came in. I was living in Vancouver at that point. So we would go down to Seattle and have you know, TheatreSports tournaments with the Seattle people. It was always fun. And I always felt short-form gets short shrift, so to speak, because they think well, it’s just gaming. Well, yeah! Nobody’s saying different. But it’s not easy to do. I mean, we had a lot of great improvisers who tried out for Whose Line, but it wasn’t their thing just because especially Whose Line — everything has to be short and jokey and schticky and that kind of goes against a lot of the basic, purest principles of improv. But it really is hard to do. With long-form, it also can be difficult, but you also have more time to build your character, build the situation. You can take your time. You can work more with your partner. So I think anyone who goes into any kind of improv, I salute them. Because it’s not the easiest thing in the world. A lot of people are terrified of it. And I think once they get in there, they find why was I terrified of this? It’s just kind of fun, and it’s actually quite easy.

I mean, it’s easy for you to say because you make it look easy.

No, that’s true. Well, I mean part of it is, a lot of people. It’s interesting, because I’m working with a hypnotist. We have a show called HYPROV where he hypnotizes people and I improvise with them.

And we’ve had some amazing improvisers who, not their main job. We had one the other day, he works in the government shuffling papers, and he was our star. And it’s because what happens when you’re hypnotized, the part of your brain that deals with self criticism, that activity kind of disappears. And it’s the same with improv. I had to, I was part of a test study to see what happens to the brain when you improvise. So I was in an MRI for an hour and a half improvising. I can’t recommend to anyone. It’s pretty horrible.

When you ask, can we get a location, please don’t say MRI.

But the same thing. The self-critical part of brain, that activity sort of goes away. And that’s the reason a lot of people won’t improvise. Because they stop themselves. All the things we do an improv are things we’re not really comfortable with in life: listening to people, saying yes to their ideas, and trying to make them look good.

Right. Isn’t the secret to improv really also, letting go of your inhibitions and just going with your gut instinct of what comes next.

Yeah. It took me a while to do it. But now I can walk onstage with truly nothing going on in my mind. Where it’s just this, whatever. I’m getting something from the audience. I’ll be getting something from whomever I’m working with, and then we’ll just do it. I mean, that took a long time to be relaxed enough and trust myself enough to just do that.

So you’re doing it for a few years in Vancouver, just you and your pals and whoever comes in. Was it tourists or who came to shows?

Well, because it was fairly new, we were very lucky when we’re starting out, that there was this theater that was so perfect for improv. The stage on the ground and then the audience sort of rose above it on three corners. And the artistic director there said, you know what? After our main show on the weekends, you can have shows like from 10 (pm) on. So there was a McDonald’s next door and we would run into the McDonald’s to go: Hey, come see our show! What’s it about? We don’t know yet. You have to yell things at us, come on! And then within the year it was the big thing in Vancouver. There were lineups around the block, people were talking about it. And I’m guessing it was probably mostly younger people, college students. We did have a wide range. I think the older people was mostly our parents and the like, but then it started to grow and we had a really wide demographic.

Right. The Theatresports in Seattle also benefited from great location because it was right at Pike Place Market which is the the place where they throw the fish and all that stuff. And of course when I was there, they also benefited because Joel McHale was part of their crew. But at the time when you’re just in Vancouver, dragging people in from McDonald’s. The idea that you could be doing improv for another 40 years, let alone 30 of those years on television. That had to seem like a pipe dream. Or not even that?

Not even. It was not considered. It was just no, this is something I’m doing on the weekends with friends. And we tried, maybe four or five years in, when we were doing really well, we tried doing improvised plays and productions. We’d improvise Hamlet. And they thought hey, why don’t we try a television show? And sometimes I wonder, I really hope they destroyed whatever that was filmed on at that point. Because I don’t think it worked. And it was all the best improvisers in the group, but it just died horribly. It just didn’t work for whatever reason. It took a British guy to figure it out.

Right. But in the meantime, I know Vancouver now has a great reputation for being kind of Hollywood North. Although Toronto might be in the running for that also?

Yeah, it seems to alternate year to year. I think Vancouver does more television and maybe Toronto into slightly more movies.

But in the 80s, when you were still on the come up, as it were. Was there a sense that you could parlay the improv into bit roles and TV shows and movies?

Nope, the only thing we had at that point, I think were the three Canadian stations. I mean, we could, I mean, obviously we see American television, but nobody was filming up there. The first part I got in the movie went styles and I got passes and extras in the movie called Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone.

Oh, of course, Spacehunter.

(NOTE: I’d never heard of the existence of Spacehunter as a movie. Turns out, not only was it an actual movie, but it’s available to watch for free (with ads) on Crackle as I type this! Moreover, Ivan Reitman was the Executive Producer! This dud came out a year before Ghostbusters, and featured two of the future Ghostbusters in Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson.)

It was a 3D movie they were hoping would be the next Star Wars. And they sort of overestimated it. It didn’t work out. But there was excitement because it cast — there were a lot of people in the cast, mostly extras. Michael Ironside was the villain. Molly Ringwald and Peter Strauss were the heroes. Ernie Hudson was in it. And it was still, as I say, it was still a new sort of deal. There was one point in the movie where they go into a cave and they’re supposed to get attacked by bat people. And that’s perfect for 3D, because all the bat hands come out. But of course, Vancouver didn’t at that point, didn’t have the facilities to come up with like, 50 bat costumes, so they had to send down to Hollywood. So I’m always thankful that I was there for that moment. The crates arrive. They open up the crates. There’s 50 fat suits. So you watch the movie. They go into a cave, and there’s fat people hanging upside down for no reason. They melted the costumes a bit to give them sort of a mutant-y look. But yeah.

That is scarier!

Yeah, I think it probably worked out better.

Now, is this true that you actually had to audition three different times for Whose Line?

Well…

They didn’t see your genius right away?

No, no, they’re because they’re idiots. I’m trying to think. Well, unofficially, I kind of auditioned more than that. But here’s what happened. They were doing the cross North America tour. I was at Second City at that point. They came to see the show. They loved the show. So they decided to audition the entire cast the next morning at eight o’clock. Which. Horrible time for comedy. Horrible time for Second City people because usually after a show you’re so hyped up, so we’re out until like three (a.m). So we auditioned and because we, at that point, we’d been a cast for a little over a year, everybody was doing what you’re supposed to do in improv. Everybody was supportive. So nobody stood out. So none of us got it. The next year, we’d moved down to LA because my wife had created a TV show that was being produced. So I auditioned with people I didn’t know. So it’s like, hey, screw you. Look at me. I got cast. My first show sucked. I did not do well. I totally psyched myself out. I got into my head. I ended up being tentative. So it didn’t happen. The next year they were filming some episodes in New York, and I still don’t know why. But they were there filming like six episodes in New York. This is the British version.

That’s weird, the British Whose Line filming in NYC?

Right. Yeah, I think because at that point, the show had become kind of a big hit on the Comedy Channel at that point with university students.

(NOTE: Canada’s cable station is called The Comedy Channel, while of course, the Americans had Comedy Central, which is where Gen-Xers like myself watched it in college)

So they figured…I don’t know what they figured. So at that point, Ryan Stiles was part of the show and Ryan and I had worked together forever and we’re good friends. So he said to them, give Colin another try. So in a way that was kind of my third audition. And because it was with Ryan, I was totally comfortable. I was in America, which I was also comfortable in. And so every year they would bring me back, but every year they would say, OK, we’re gonna have you for two episodes. So I still felt like I was auditioning because I would end up doing all of them. Bu they never — Every year we go back to OK, we’re gonna give you three episodes this year, and then I would do all of them. And then it wasn’t till the very last year of the British one, that they said we’re going to do all the episodes.

Was it a little bit easier with either the Drew Carey version, or for Aisha Tyler?

Yeah, by that point, I was pretty much established. So I felt OK.

You weren’t still working on an episode-by-episode contract?

No, I figured at 44, I think I’ve proved myself to these people. I think I can relax and just have fun.

Now, I know that for a while there — I don’t know if they’re still doing this to you — but for a while, the other improvisers liked to gang up on you. Was that something that you approved of beforehand or not?

No. But you know what? You know how Americans can be. They see the lone Canadian. And let me tell you, Ryan is also. I mean, he was born in America, but he was raised in Canada, but he quickly changes depending on where the winds blowing. So he can be Canadian one second. The things they’ve got me on? You know, being bald. Fine. Now, Wayne Brady? Completely bald. Gary Anthony Wiliams is on the show: bald. I still get the bald jokes even though I have more hair than all of them.

Right, so how do you put up with it?

For me, it’s just, you know what? They have nothing. They’re floundering. They feel OK, I have to get an easy laugh. So, you know, I’m helping out these guys. Because the fact that they’re still on the show — because let’s face it, hacks, they’re hacks. So I feel like I’m helping them keep their job. It’s like fine. You will pay for it later, at a later date. You won’t know when. All of them have been paid back at various points. So I’m fine with it.

So what has it been about Brad Sherwood that’s made him be the guy that you perform with for now, 20 years?

Yeah, I guess Brad is the person on the show I’ve known the second-longest amount of time. Because he was on the show that my wife had created in Los Angeles. So we would improvise at this place on Santa Monica Boulevard where Second City alumni would go Friday nights and have a jam. So that’s where I got to know him. And then of course during Whose Line and during the Drew years, every Super Bowl weekend he would take us to Vegas, where we would do shows at Caesars or MGM. And it was great. It was a lot of fun. The problem was, there was like 12 of us. So there was people in the cast and there’s some friends of Drew who were there. And so we didn’t get a lot of stage time. And both Brad and I are stage hogs. So Brad said, you know, I’ve been thinking of doing a two-man tour. Would you be interested? So we tested it for a couple of weeks just to see what it would be like and yeah, that was like 20 years ago. It’s worked out.

What does it take to do two-man improv? Because you have nobody else to lean on when it’s just the two of you out there. When there’s four of you or there’s 12 of you, you can easily like pick your spots, but when there’s just two of you, you’re out there the whole time.

It does lower your chances of success. Because both of you have to be on top of it. Or at least one of you has to be on top of it for the entire show. And we’ve come up with ways where we’ve had the audience or fill in in kind of a Drew role, where we have them as another improviser. So we never feel like we’re completely alone. And you know, after 20 years, we kind of really feel comfortable with ourselves. And we’re constantly trying new games, so it never gets repetitive or old. Most of the work that goes into our show is coming up with ways where we can ask for suggestions that we get something we’ve never had before. Which is really hard. You know, trying to find a way of getting an occupation so that you don’t get gynecologist or proctologist is difficult. So finding ways of, What was the most unusual job someone in your family has had? So they actually use a real-life situation. And from that we got, We had one, the relative was someone whose job it was to answer the phone for people who are trapped in elevators. I didn’t even know. I guess, of course it would be a job. But it was something I never thought oh, there’s a cushy job. How often does that happen? But those are the jobs that every once in a while I’ll read a newspaper or a book and I’ll see somebody’s occupation. I think I will never get that as a suggestion. And so I tried to figure out: How could I word it so I could get something like that? It’s still an ongoing process.

Well, it’s I don’t know whether to be depressed or amazed, maybe amazingly depressed? That 25 years after I was doing improv that proctologist is still something that improv groups need to figure out how to avoid.

And they blurt out when we’re asking for a suggestion for sound effects. So I think really? You want like a 10-minute sound effects scene about a proctologist day at work?! What are you expecting?

What does it say about them?

Exactly. Yeah, it’s constantly trying to raise — not raise the intelligence of the audience. I’m sure they come in intelligent — but for them to play at the height of their intelligence rather than go for the joke answer. We certainly try to stay away from all the toilet stuff, which is amazing how often…Can we have a romantic place to fall in love? A toilet. Really? No.

A bidet, maybe.

Yeah, bidet. Make it sound French. At the very least.

You’ve had so many TV and movie credits in Canada. How does it feel to be like, one kind of star in Canada, and then then another kind of star in America?

It’s, it’s fine. All I ever want really are free coffees every once in a while. I’m fine with that. You know, sometimes I think, oh, you know, I would have loved to have been in that big, dramatic series that has some sort of a final episode where they have the episode before that. There’s a recap of everything that has happened over the years and how the actors have grown. Which Whose Line will never have that. I mean, let’s face it. But then again, I kind of have the perfect, for me. Just the perfect kind of life. Whose Line is two weekends out of the year, so it doesn’t take a lot of time. I get to travel around with either Brad or the hypnotist doing shows. I get recognized as myself, although they rarely get the name. I’ve been called Colin Montgomery, Colin Farrell, Colin Firth. In one weird instance. Colin Powell.

But at least they always get the Colin right.

They got the Colin right. After that it’s a crapshoot. And I think I’m kind of in charge of my career. You know, when you do a movie or TV series, you’re just one part of the puzzle. You got the director, you got the executives, you have what the editor does. When we’re onstage, we’re in total control. We suck. That’s because we suck. We do great because we’ve done great. there’s no one we can blame except ourselves. And I like having that pressure. I like and when I say pressure, it’s not main pressure. But I like being in charge of my own fate. I hate I had done some things, where you’re going, boy that was great. And then you see the final product and go. Why didn’t they use that take? And why are they shooting from there? So I love the immediacy and I love the control. We have as much control as you can have over an improv stage show.

So it’s probably for the best that Spacehunter didn’t spawn a sequel?

I can’t even imagine. I can’t even imagine. I don’t even know how they thought a movie about two space bounty hunters searching for lost space models would somehow blossom into…

I mean, it’s not too far away from The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda.

I guess not once you dissect it. But still, quite a bit. After five minutes, like I saw on the big screen, of course, because you know, I was in it. I had a headache from the 3D. It just didn’t work on so many levels.

But improv still works for you on all the levels.

Yeah! It’s fun. I never get bored. It’s always something different. We’re always trying something new. Every show is an opening and closing. It’s a show that no one else is going to see except for that audience. It’s a show they can try to describe to someone and no one will get it, because you really had to be there.

Well, Colin Mochrie. Thank you for giving me my own unique experience. I really appreciate it.

Oh thank you. It was a pleasure.