Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to William. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

William, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I don’t think there’s any way to learn how to be a standup comedian other than just going out there and doing it over and over and over again. There’s no blueprint on how to be funny, taking a comedy class could be helpful to break that barrier of never having done it before, but it won’t unlock anything for you. You have to figure it out through trial and error. Every comic you meet when you are starting out that has experience for many years and is actually funny will all say the same things, you have to get up every night and just try your jokes. When you’re a comic starting out you’re praying to hear the magic words from an established comedian on how they did it, like it was some trick they used to be good. But knowing what I know now, there is no trick. It’s just time and patience and frustration and bombing and still really wanting it and delusion and listening and taking a break and writing and rewriting and going up and up and up all the time. The skills I think that are most essential to being a comedian would have to be listening. If you’re listening then you’re paying attention and paying attention is so important in comedy. It keeps you present with the audience, it keeps your mind sharp and on the look out for where you can make a joke. Listening is such an important skill as a comic, if you’re only focused on saying the words you write down and memorized then you won’t be funny, it will feel like a weird speech that no one cares about. If you tell a joke and didn’t get the response you had hoped for you need to adjust to that quick and keep the show going in the right direction. A lot of new comics just need to say what they have and they are not present in the moment and it becomes stale and boring. The only thing standing in the way of being a comedian is yourself. It’s very easy to make excuses for yourself as to why you can’t go out tonight and do a set or why this joke isn’t working or why the crowd just sucks and they don’t get it, but that’s not the case. The crowd can always be made to laugh, you just have to always put in the work. Theres no substitute for stage time. It always shows when someone is familiar on stage cs someone who isn’t.

William, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I never knew what I wanted to be when I was older. I had ideas but never seemed to apply myself in anything that was serious or important, I always just goofed around and figured things out last minute. I always was funny and knew I could make people laugh, it came so naturally to me because it was fun and was rewarding making someone happy. I never thought I could do anything with it really, no one said I couldn’t, I just didn’t know I was allowed to try. I always loved comedy movies and wanted to be in a comedy one day, I figured I’d be good at it maybe. I also watched Saturday night live all the time and had favorite skits that I would quote constantly, I figured snl would be the most fun place to work ever. But I had not thought about standup comedy being the thing for me really. That is until one day my dad was playing a Louis ck album at work when I was 12 years old and helping out for the summer. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be hearing the things he was saying because of the look on my dads face he kept giving me like we would both be in trouble if I repeated those words, but he also couldn’t help but still laugh so hard to what the jokes were. That was it for me. I had found the coolest thing ever and wanted to make my dad life at the same things. That same year I watched a bill burr special with my friend during a snow day and it solidified for me that being a standup comedian would be the coolest job on earth. It took me many more years after though to believe in myself and think I was deserving to try it. I graduated high school and worked for 2 years. I didn’t go to college and I was bored in my home town for all that time with my friends gone at school. I was becoming depressed and had no life direction. I had a coworker at this restaurant I worked at and became really good friends with him. I had never told anyone out loud that I wanted to do comedy, I didn’t think I could say anything about that, I thought I would be judged. One day when I was hanging out with my friend he played me music and I liked it, I didn’t know who it was because I hadn’t heard the song before. He said it was his music and that blew my mind. I believed you could do anything you want to in that moment. He spoke so passionately about his art and what it meant to him, it gave me chills. I felt like maybe I could do what I want to and try it out. On January 2nd 2018 I was still icing at my dad’s house, and on that morning my dad sent me a text that said “it’s January 2nd 2018… what are you doing with your life?” I notes it for 4 hours to think if I was actually about to say what I wanted to do. I wrote back to my dad “I want to move to California and become a standup comedian.” My dad was so supportive and said “Do it!” So I did. I moved to California in October of 2018 and finally did my first open mic at the second city in Hollywood on February 13th 2019. I have been performing ever since and loving every moment of it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being creative is I can be totally honest about anything I want and I can share things that have upset me before and turn it into something positive. Doing standup comedy has helped me so much with my confidence and ability to talk to people, I’m not afraid of embarrassment like how others might be, I almost welcome it at this point because I know that there is something funny behind it. If I am stressed out in my every day life about something, I find a way to talk about it on stage and make it less serious, it helps me look at it from a different perspective and makes the stress dissipate.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I want to get to the same level of every famous comedian that inspired me to start doing comedy and have their respect. I want to be peers with everyone I find hilarious. Fame and money would be cool but I want to be amongst the greats and inspires other people to try this. It’s the most vulnerable art form that can only be worked on in front of a live crowd. I want my comedy heroes to think that I am hilarious. That’s what keeps driving me to pursue this career.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Willleonard2
• Youtube: WilliamLeonard98
• Other: TikTok
  Williamleonard98

Image Credits

Alejandro Villacorta