How Ben Schwartz went from taking out the trash to being a comedy superstar

Ben Schwartz had the kind of on-the-job training most comedians could only dream of.

As an intern at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB), the improv and sketch comedy theatre and training school co-founded by Amy Poehler in 1996, he was tasked with menial chores such as taking out the garbage in exchange for free classes.

The real lessons, however, came on Sunday nights in a basement underneath a supermarket, the location of the tiny UCB theatre. There, some of the world’s best comedians such as Poehler, Jack McBrayer, Seth Meyers and Rachel Dratch would gather for UCB’s longform improvisational comedy show, ASSSSCAT.

In a diverse career, the one constant for Ben Schwartz has been performing longform improv comedy.Credit:

“I was watching the best people perform,” Schwartz says, sitting in his Los Angeles office. “Watching how they made people laugh, what they did.”

One night, Robin Williams turned up unannounced.

“They bring on Robin, people go crazy,” he smiles. “They’re like, ‘From Mrs Doubtfire and Jumanji and every movie you’ve ever heard of, Robin Williams!’”

Also performing that night was Schwartz, who didn’t have a single credit to his name. He did, however, have good comedic instinct.

“I walked onstage and as a bit I said, ‘You better give it up! You give that to Robin, you give nothing to me?’ I’m making people give me the standing ovation they gave Robin, and Robin is cracking up. It was so exciting. Afterwards he was like, ‘I needed to get onstage so desperately; I needed to make people laugh.’ He went around every single one of us to say thank you. It was amazing. I’ll never forget that.”

Schwartz, 43, has come a long way since those fledgling days in New York.

As an actor his television credits include Space Force, House of Lies and Parks and Recreation, in which he birthed one of modern comedy’s most memorable characters in Jean-Ralphio Saperstein.

He has featured in live action and animated films, voicing Sonic in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and starring in movies such as Renfield with Nicolas Cage and Standing Up, Falling Down with Billy Crystal.

He is also a published author and scriptwriter and won an Emmy for co-penning Hugh Jackman’s opening monologue at the 2009 Oscars.

The one constant throughout his career, however, has been performing longform improv comedy, most recently with his Ben Schwartz & Friends show. In May he brings the production to the Sydney Opera House and State Theatre.

The setup is simple: Schwartz walks onstage with nothing prepared and introduces his cast mates for the evening. (He declines to say who’ll join him in Australia, other than revealing “they are people who have done a lot of Ben Schwartz & Friends tours”.)

He then asks a question of the audience, such as “Give me an example of the most exciting day or night of your life”, after which an usher passes around a microphone to those with their hands raised. Once he and his cast mates feel they’ve heard a story they can work with, they create an entire improv show around those few details.

It’s a high-risk, high-reward scenario.

‘The biggest thing about improv is being in the moment and saying yes to the idea’

Ben Schwartz

“It’s like magic, it’s so wonderful,” Schwartz says. “It’s one of the few comedy forms where the audience is in on it with us. Any new piece of information, the audience is finding out with us.

“The biggest thing about improv is being in the moment and saying yes to the idea, but also just listening to the person in front of you. Someone once said it’s almost like meditation because you can’t think about anything else but exactly what’s in front of you.”

Born in the Bronx to a music teacher mother and social worker father, Schwartz was raised on comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons. When as a child he and his family moved to Westchester, he realised the fastest way to find friends was by making people laugh.

“I was class clown,” he says. “I loved to joke and be silly, that was my identity at the time.”

Schwartz won an Emmy for co-penning Hugh Jackman’s opening monologue at the 2009 Oscars.Credit: REUTERS

Years later, while studying psychology and anthropology at Union College, he was convinced by his then-girlfriend to audition for the shortform improv group, Idle Minds.

“I really didn’t want to, because I didn’t want to find out I wasn’t funny from the people who were funny,” he says. “Luckily, I got in.”

Upon graduating he told his parents he was going to focus on a career in comedy and started hustling. He made money bartending and working as a page at the Late Show with David Letterman, showing audience members to their seats.

Never one to miss an opportunity he began pitching jokes for Letterman’s monologue. After myriad unsuccessful submissions he finally landed one, for which he was paid $75. He freelanced for magazines, pitched jokes to Saturday Night Live, did voiceovers for commercials, became a staff writer on sketch comedy Robot Chicken, and started the website rejectedjokes.com, where he turned his rejected jokes into short videos he could post to the internet and send to agents.

“I’ve always had my fingers in as many pots in the entertainment industry as I can,” he says. “I wasn’t hitting hard in anything, but I could at least get my foot in the door.”

A move to LA in 2009 coincided with co-writing Jackman’s Oscars monologue, but even then, he was still sleeping on a friend’s floor.

Schwartz’s living conditions have improved substantially in the years since, yet for all his success he remains a student of acting and comedy. When he lines up opposite John Malkovich in Space Force or Jim Carrey in Sonic the Hedgehog, he’s learning from the best, just like those early days at UCB.

“You’re watching these legends, they’re the best at what they do, and they all work harder than anyone else,” he says. “Those are the traits I’ve noticed and admired and want to keep doing.“

Ben Schwartz & Friends, State Theatre, May 2, Sydney Opera House, May 3, Hamer Hall, Melbourne, May 4