We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rick Izquieta a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rick, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

In entertainment it’s important to have friends and family to back you up no matter how crazy your ideas are. Entertainment business can be a never ending grind that may not be lucrative, and a lot depends on who you know. Many people became famous or had an opportunity to work as an artist with the “who you know” strategy. That is a fact. As much as we’d love to believe it’s our talent, a lot is based on “who you know”. That is why it is like any sport or any hard working job that requires dedication and sacrifice. A calming thought can control one’s pressure or jaded POV of their career, like “You’re toning your craft” or “Creating your art to the fullest will bring you rewards in the end.” As artist we can’t have dollar signs in our eyes. That needs to fall in place for us after we’ve built our inventory of projects or talents. If our family or friends knew how far they possibly were to the person that can help with our success in entertainment, they’d immediately start talking for us. However people don’t know or think these things in today’s society. They really wouldn’t have to leave their homes today with social media. We don’t like to ask for help, but it’d be great help if our family & friends knew how easy the process really is.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was a loan officer who gained a lot of business skills in those years. So when I jumped at Stand-Up Comedy, I wanted to make sure I focused on my craft instead of the business aspects of it. I wanted to be known as funny and not as a smart business man. I knew I had that skill down, so I had to get ready to write and perform. I started by taking speech classes, joined toast masters and even gave classes to the local board of realtors to find my comfort in front of an audience. After the RE market crash of 2007 I started to get ready and then launched myself into stand-up in 2009. I treated it like any other project or business, I had a lot of tasks to complete. I scheduled my open-mics, joke writing and even socializing to get to know others in the industry. At time I wasn’t aware I was starting along side of some very successful comedians that are working a lot of big projects today. After 15 years of doing Stand-Up, I’ve manage to become a headliner, perform at the big clubs as a paid performer, perform at casinos nationwide, perform on cruise ships and work in writing teams for potential series or feature projects with other great professionals. Today I work with some great people in the industry who have accomplished some great things and who know the right people. I haven’t boomed yet, but I feel I’m getting close. I also produce projects like scripts, documentaries and feature films or series.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The goal to create comedy in many ways, from stand-up live to featured scripts. To keep learning many avenues the can help reach this goal. Acting, voice over, script writing, live performances, etc; these are all tools to get the job done and I’ve been sharpening them for my success. The drive is in your heart and soul. The more in touch one is with life, the more one can allow their personal strengths and talents flourish.

Have you ever had to pivot?

There was a time I had to decide whether I was going to host and feature only, or become a national headliner. Being a national headliner one has to be a strong act and attract a large fanbase. I’ve managed to create a strong act, but still lacking on the large fanbase. I had to decide if I was going start headlining more often, I had to start going through the learning curve of headlining. There are a lot of rules to become a headliner, and it’s been a wild educational ride to say the least.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/rizquieta
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rick_izquieta/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/izquieta
• Twitter: https://x.com/rickizquieta
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rickizquieta7228/videos
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@izquieta

  My link tree is my website. There are more links there to more of my projects.

Image Credits

DREAMLAND: A STORMING Area 51 STORY. This is a movie I was a part of that is on Amazon Prime.

My Album: IZ WHAT? is on Spotify