Today we’d like to introduce you to Leland Klassen
Hi Leland, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in a small rural town in Saskatchewan, Canada. We were either poor or really, really cheap, I could never tell which. We didn’t spend much money on anything and almost everything I had was handed down. Didn’t love wearing my sister’s dresses but you get used to it. Okay, that didn’t happen, but everything else was a hand me down.
I moved to Saskatoon the day after I graduated high school to attend the University of Saskatchewan. I have a B.A. in Anthropology. I have never used my degree. Well, once I used it to prop up the window in the upstairs bedroom.
Anyway, I became a stand-up comedian after I got married. I all of a sudden had all this material and didn’t know what to do with it so I figured, maybe I’ll go talk about it to strangers. I’m the kind of person who goes all in once I decide to do something. So, that’s what I did. A lot of people in my industry talk about these big breaks or these defining moments that moved them forward. I feel like I’ve only ever really had small steps, slowly putting one foot in front of the other, eventually getting to where I am now.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has never been smooth, but because there have always been obstacles, I think I view most small obstacles as manageable and a part of this type of work.
Comedy has it’s fair share of issues all by itself. Financially I learned that agents will never go to work for you or care more about your feeding your family than you will. So, I began to work harder to get booked, marketing myself and booking myself self-promoted tours. Whatever I didn’t know, I learned as I went so that I wouldn’t have to depend on anyone else. There’s nothing wrong with (and one should strive to) putting together a team of skilled folks who do their job well to accomplish big things, but it’s nice to know if someone drops the ball on something that I can step in and at least make sure it still gets done.
I think I would’ve been way more successful had I been smart, but, you can’t buy smart. You can’t. I literally just googled it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a stand-up comedian and actor/writer. I have always loved telling stories and entertaining people. I started doing that with stand-up and it just sort of carried over into other areas like television and movies. I really enjoyed that work as well and since I love telling stories I started writing scripts. Having shot a couple of my own movies now I’ve been a little spoiled and will likely keep making movies along with stand-up.
Some stand-up comics never go into movies and acting because it’s just not them, others start acting and then give up their stand-up careers because they no longer need to do that.
I love doing both, so I will likely always do both. I hope that fans of my stand-up become fans of my movies and vice versa.
I also work clean and always have. Whether it’s stand-up or movies, my work is always appropriate for all ages.
Any big plans?
I am going to continue to write and produce movies. With each movie, the budgets become better and better to work with. Also, hopefully the audiences get bigger and bigger as well. I hope that all of that will increase the amount and type of stand-up comedy I do as well. I’m hoping the synergy from both of those industries will build what I’m doing into something that allows me to be a little more hands off so that I can focus more on the creative end of things.
Other than that…I just really want to keep doing what I’m doing. I feel blessed to do it and feel like this is what God made me to do. That’s a good feeling to have.
Pricing:
- inquire for stand-up rates
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lelandklassen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leland.klassen/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leland.klassen
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/lelandklassen
Image Credits
Movie pics are screenshots from movie “Empty Nets” courtesy of Kingdom Sight Studios.
Stand-up photos are courtesy of Leland Klassen