My brother, who's a few years older then me, went to college in New York. He said all of these people from Saturday Night Live do improv together in Upright Citizens Brigade, and I thought, "Oh, that sounds really cool." So when I got braces and couldn't play music anymore, I said to my parents that I wanted to go to New York and take a class at that place. They were remarkably on board with it. I got on the train, went up, took a class and I loved it.

When I was a kid my father would read Neil Simon plays with me when I was going to bed, as bedtime stories. All of these old plays like The Odd Couple and Lost in Yonkers - funny but corny plays about Jewish New Yorkers in the mid-20th century.

This is going to sound pretentious, but I like comedy that addresses something I find either worrisome or interesting in my life. I like Louis C.K.'s stuff or Bill Burr's stuff. I feel like there's comedy where someone will think of something that they think will work comedically, and then they reverse engineer that point of view so they can say that funny thing. The comedians I like, it could be an allusion, but it feels like their point of view comes first and then the jokes are a reflection of what they actually believe, or are frightened of, or are curious about, or are interested in.

There's some boring advice for improvisers beginning their careers like "see as much of it as you can and do as much of it as you can." Volume, in a way, is the most important thing. Not, like, decibel volume - just immerse yourself in it as much as possible. I'd also suggest that you put a high value on your personal interests and tastes.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a musician. I used to play the trumpet. I practiced all the time, but I got braces and I couldn't play it anymore, so I had all of this free time.

I remember the first joke that I made, which went over terribly. I was at my cousin's birthday party in Brooklyn. I was a little kid and she was a little older. They were going around introducing themselves; I was probably four, and I was very eager to impress all of these older New York kids. They went down the line and were like, "I'm Jake," "I'm Jane," "I'm Silvia," and I said, "I'm hungry," because I thought that was really going to bring the house down.

I would rather a sex tape make its way out than a video of me doing all of the different grunt sounds. I'm not eager for a sex tape to leak, but in terms of personal humiliation, I'd feel less vulnerable to be in a Kim Kardashian situation than seeing myself grunting in a booth.