Reggie Watts on improvisation and the art of the absurd
Comic, musician and entertainer Reggie Watts on disrupting audience expectations.
Jian speaks with creative shape-shifter Reggie Watts, a comedic performer and multi-instrumentalist with a penchant for the absurd. The fearless improviser is now in his third season as the co-star and band leader on the hit faux-talk show Comedy Bang! Bang!
"Once you're out there, I mean, you gotta make it work, you just have to make it work. And I have a lot of fun out there," he tells Jian.
Watts has also fronted the hip-hop soul group Maktub, toured the globe as a solo artist, and collaborated with everyone from Conan O'Brien and Sarah Silverman to LCD Soundsystem and Michael Cera.
He walks Jian through the common threads that unify his diverse projects, why he aims to disrupt audience expectations and whether he ever blanks during his completely improvised live shows.
Jian and Reggie Watts pose in Studio Q (CBC)
- VIDEO | Watch Jian's interview with Reggie Watts on YouTube
"I believe that chaos will often provide more interesting results than things that I can preconceive beforehand, anyway. I like surfing the chaos."
Want to watch Watts do his thing? Here's the New York performance mentioned in the interview, A Live At Central Park (2012):