I remember 9/11; we had 'Comics Come Home' about a month after those events. That night, even the comedians were concerned. Would the audience be ready to laugh? It was a release for everyone.
Denis LearyStand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.
Denis LearyMy charity is in the business of helping firefighters in any way that we can. For instance, after 9/11 we were the second-fastest charity to raise and distribute money to the widows and surviving family members of the 343 firefighters who died that day.
Denis LearyCertain movies like 'Wag The Dog,' we used improv on every scene that we did. Pretty much, we would shoot from the script and then some stuff that we came up with in rehearsal, and then we'd have at least one or two takes where we completely went off the script and just flew by the seat of our pants.
Denis Leary