Q&A with comedian Wyatt Cenac

On Tuesday, former "Daily Show" correspondent and UNC class of 1998 graduate Wyatt Cenac will perform at Raleigh's Goodnights Comedy Club. Cenac, a comedian and actor who has earned three Emmy awards, talked to Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Vassello about his time at UNC, his start in comedy and his love of puppets. 

Daily Tar Heel: I read in an interview that you did that you started your comedy career in Goodnights Comedy Club. When did you perform your first open mic, and what was that experience like?

Wyatt Cenac: That had to be probably like 1996, and I was terrified. I was excited and terrified at the same time, and I was excited to try it. Once you do an open mic, the way you did it then, you’d go in the afternoon and you’d perform just for the other comedians who were potentially going up later that night. It was weirdly competitive where people didn’t want to necessarily laugh for each other because if you got bigger laughs, that meant they might not be able to go on. I remember doing that and being told that I could come back that night to do the open mic. They gave me three minutes, and I was so nervous that I sped through my jokes in about a minute and just, kind of scared and excited, ran off stage.

DTH: How does it feel to come back after gaining so much popularity in your comedy?

WC: It’s not the first time I’ve come back. I came back maybe 10 years after I graduated. I did a show at Carolina, and so that was really fun to get to do that, to go back and perform in Memorial Hall. So that was the first time I went back to North Carolina. This will be the first time that I go back to Goodnights. This will be the first time that I’ve been back in 20 years, so to see if it looks like exactly like I remember or different, that will be kind of fun.

DTH: Tell me about your time at UNC. What were some of the highlights?

WC: I got to do a fair amount of stuff with the film department. At that point in time, I wanted to do film and television. Getting to do that stuff was probably the highlight of my career when we got to use cameras and go out and shoot stuff, and just getting to do all of that was probably the things that I remember thinking, "College is fun." I was a pretty terrible student beyond that.

DTH: Did you always know that you were interested in comedy?

WC: I always knew. I always wanted to do comedy. It was one of those things where I didn’t know if it was something that I could actually do and how I could do it. I think having grown up in Texas and having gone to school in North Carolina, you’re not really surrounded by a lot as far as there’s not a lot of TV shows and movies that were in my backyard being made. Thinking, "How does one go to Hollywood?" and stuff like that, that didn’t seem that attainable. I think when I was at school and seeing how TV and film were made and being put in access with people who worked in television and film made that more of a reality for me.

DTH: Since leaving "The Daily Show," you’ve been in a bunch of really well-received projects, both in comedy and in independent films. Where do you draw your creative energy and inspiration from?

WC: I think it's just whatever I find interesting. I think I’m drawn to things that, whether they challenge me in a different way or seem like things that I want to watch. I’m as much a consumer of TV and movies as I am a participant in making them. I think as somebody who watches things, I’ve tried to go about my career thinking, "If I wasn’t involved in this, would I want to watch it?"

DTH: You have a puppet counterpart that you use in your standup special, "Wyatt Cenac: Brooklyn." What’s the appeal of using puppets in comedy? 

WC: For me, I’ve always been a fan of puppets. When I got that puppet at "The Daily Show," that’s probably the highlight of my "Daily Show" experience … having a puppet made in my likeness. As a kid, I played with puppets at my friend’s house, and I was a big fan of Jim Henson and the Muppets. I enjoyed the artistry of it and that it could be used in this way for humor. That’s for me where I’ve been interested in it, and any excuse to be able to do it, I’ll jump at.

DTH: You’ve made a lot of moves in your career that are seen as risky to some, such as leaving one job without having another lined up, etc. but they always work out. How do you know what makes a good move for you?

WC: I don’t know if I ever really know. I think there’s a moment in any situation, at least that I’ve been in, where I felt, "Okay, I feel restless. I feel like it’s time to move again and do something different," and I feel frustrated, whether it's creatively or professionally. When it's time to make the decision, I’m usually confident in the decision, but then you’re kind of in this weird space after that, and that’s the more terrifying place to be sometimes, when nothing seems certain and it all feels a little bit like, "Oh, maybe that was a mistake," or, "Maybe I’ll never work again." But in that sense of fear or feeling untethered, I think there is something that is quite powerful and forces and pushes you into new places and forces you to think in new ways. While a part of me would very much like some sense of job security, and I would love to be able to buy a home and not find myself every now and again thinking, "Wait a minute, what are you doing?" part of me appreciates what I’m doing. I think I’d appreciate it more with $10,000 in the bank saved, but I think anyone would appreciate that.

DTH: What advice do you have for any aspiring or emerging comedians, especially at the collegiate level?

WC: The biggest piece of advice I can say is do it. If you're interested in comedy, there’s not really a school for it. That’s one of the more difficult things to explain to your family when you say, "Oh, yeah, I know I went to this school, and you paid a bunch of money for me to get this communications degree. The thing I want to do I don’t actually need school for." Doing it, you learn so much about your voice and about who you are as a comedian by doing it. We all have things we think are funny, whether you’re professional comedian or not. The difference between just anyone and a comedian is the comedian decides, "Can I put this in front of a bunch of people and make them laugh with it?" Unless you do that and go through the process of doing it over and over and over again — and that’s the biggest thing. It’s a very repetitive process. You have to do as many shows as you can. So, unless you do that, you’re always going to wonder if you’re as funny as you think you are. Until you do it, you can never know. I’d say do it.

arts@dailytarheel.com