Del Close

100%, yeah.

Yeah, how do you not know the beats? Del Close invented this.

Yeah.

Hello.

Yeah.

You mentioned that the glass case of emotion line specifically was improvised and that Adam McKay, he studied under Del Close, who's a famous improv teacher.

He said, always use your third idea, which is good advice, I think.

But one question I had when I was reading this is I thought, like, you have all of these groundlings and like Second City improvisers who are very funny and that makes sense in this environment.

And I guess I was just wondering, like, I don't know, maybe you don't need an improv background necessarily.

Not necessarily.

But Vince Vaughn did actually studied with Del Close briefly in Chicago.

Hmm.

Tom said this and he's like, okay, take with this how you will.

And I love this because it is also mentioned in another book by Del Close, Sharna Halpern, and Kim Howard Johnson called...

It's over there somewhere on my shelf.

Oh, the truth in comedy.

Truth in comedy.

That's the book.

Del Close actually said this.

He said, kill your babies, which at first, when I first heard this from Tom, I was like, that's an interesting, okay, say more.

It has to do a lot with confidence.

And that's another quote that I'll leave you with here that Tom said that he quoted from, I believe his name was Del Close.

And you'll learn a lot about Del Close, Sharna Halpern, amazing improvisers who really set the foundation for what improv is today.

And if he said anything, because he was a mad genius, Del Close, he said, if we treated each other like geniuses and poets, then geniuses and poets they will be.

Treat yourself like a genius and a poet, and trust what you say is true to you.

Have some courage, and I'll see you in the next one.

Oh my God, that's so nice.

That's my whole Bible, like Del Close truth in comedy is like the whole, that's like my whole tenet for acting.

Oh my God, thanks man.

Yeah man.

And then I went with her to Chicago.

And then there I met a guy named Del Close who kind of taught everyone comedy.

And he invited me to come and study under him.

So that's how I kind of got in.

was purely kind of not accidental.

Like, I always wanted to do, like, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy kind of comedy.

Like, my teacher, the teacher that I was talking about, Del Close, he taught Mike Myers.

He taught everyone.

He then started a train station, where he began speaking to her in a British accent pretending to be a spy, and she just jumped into the improvisation with him.

After going to New York City to be trained by Lee Strasberg in method acting, Nichols was invited to join the Compass Players, the improv troupe that would become Second City, with Elaine May, Del Close, Nancy Ponder, and Shelley Berman.

From there, Elaine May and Mike Nichols became a double act, Nichols and May.

Their Broadway debut was An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May in 1960.

Oh, Steven.

I guess I maybe wanted to mention about considering my career working with Del Close as an instructor.

I had his class three separate times.

And the first time I took him was level three, as I mentioned.