Smosh's Shayne Topp on turning improv fails into comedy gold

The Street

Comedian Shayne Topp joined TheStreet to discuss the surprising power of failure.

Transcript

00:00 Did you grow up watching any comedians that sort of like inspired you?

00:04 Yeah, absolutely. My family was obsessed with Saturday Night Live, but in particular,

00:09 older eras of Saturday Night Live, we would watch a ton of reruns of. In particular,

00:16 my favorites were always Chris Farley and Phil Hartman. A lot of my comedy,

00:21 a lot of my characters are very clearly inspired from them. And other than them, though, I often

00:29 when I was younger, and even still, I would stay up and I would watch Conan O'Brien every night.

00:34 I loved Late Night with Conan O'Brien. When he was on The Tonight Show, I went and saw a couple

00:39 of his shows live for the short run he had. And I've really been a fan of everything he's done.

00:46 I love his humor, how he's willing to play the bad guy, but you can tell that he has so much

00:52 love for the people around him. So those are absolutely my inspirations, but there's many.

01:00 And how do you practice and perfect your craft as a comedian? And how has it evolved over time?

01:07 It's something you never really perfect. You're kind of always, I don't even know if it's you're

01:12 improving, but you're also just always evolving and changing as a comedian and a performer.

01:18 When I started, I'd say like 10 years ago, I feel like I was the one who was always the

01:24 insane one on screen or on stage. I was bringing the volume, I was bringing the chaos. And over

01:33 time with such a big cast at Smosh and people who play such different roles, what I feel like

01:38 I've developed into is also being able to play the voice of reason sometimes, and being the one who's

01:44 kind of helping support the crazy people around me and acknowledging how crazy their performance is

01:52 and communicating that to the audience. You've played many characters in Smosh's comedy sketches,

01:58 especially in the Try Not To Laugh challenges. Some characters off the top of my head,

02:04 Courtney "Freakin'" Miller, Tom Cruise. How did you come up with these different characters?

02:10 A lot of them kind of begin with the costume and you just go out there. With Try Not To Laugh,

02:19 there's no time to think or plan, so you kind of have to just go. And from that comes some of the

02:25 best stuff. Courtney "Freakin'" Miller in particular, I created that character because

02:32 Courtney Miller, my castmate and my wife, was sick that day. And so we needed someone to hop

02:39 in for her. They were like, "Shane, do you want to hop in?" I go, "Yeah, let's find a wig. I'll

02:43 just be Courtney. And let's just not acknowledge it." So I put on this wig and the cameras roll,

02:49 and I decide to just play the character like a WWE wrestler, the most aggressive human on the

02:55 planet. And it just kind of evolved from there with every yes and. Other people are saying

03:02 something about my character. I go, "Yep, that's true now." And we just kind of keep piling it on.

03:06 Every character I play is basically a snowball effect. And it's some of the most fun that we

03:11 get to have at Smosh because we're making so much content. We're making videos week after week

03:15 that there's so much opportunity to let these characters grow. And a lot of them are years

03:21 old now, and they didn't become what people remember them as until I'd been playing them

03:27 for like a year or two. It's a blast. And I've told our fans like they play a part in creating

03:34 these characters because I read the comments. I see their reaction. I see what they like about

03:38 the character. I see what they're assuming about a character. And then I let that play into it

03:44 as well. It seems like you have your hands in multiple projects. You're on a podcast,

03:50 you do live events, and you're acting in multiple sketches. How do you prevent or manage burnout

03:56 as a content creator? You know, I am still figuring out the solution to that. It's tough.

04:04 YouTube is really, really hard in the sense that you really don't get a break. You kind of have to

04:10 keep making content or else if you go dark, it's scary. No YouTubers really do that. I mean,

04:17 it's a scary thing. I think it's finding ways to rely on my other castmates is a great way. We

04:25 have a great ensemble. And there are days where I come in and I tell my co-hosts on our podcast,

04:31 right? Tell my castmates, you know, for filming like a Try Not to Laugh or something big energy.

04:35 I've let my castmates know like, "Hey, I'm tired today. I'm not bringing my A-game. I'm not feeling

04:42 like I'm bringing my A-game. I need to rely on you guys today." And they'll be like, "I got your

04:46 back." And it's really great to have a team around us. What are some challenges that you guys have

04:54 encountered doing improv live? Because I know it's not easy. The easy thing is when things go

05:02 wrong and improv is usually the best. As long as you're confident and you roll with it and you

05:08 don't let it stop you and you don't go, "Oh, is this show? Is this funny? Is this entertaining?"

05:14 As long as you commit 100%, committing 100% to a failure is arguably the funniest thing in the

05:21 world. How do you feel about the growing popularity of people becoming content creators?

05:26 And what advice would you give them? I guess the main piece of advice I would give to people,

05:31 and I say this having just revealed to our audience and a lot of people that I was in a

05:36 relationship and I'm married and I didn't tell anyone for years, is keeping that line between

05:45 what is entertainment and what is your personal life. Because people as content creators,

05:53 a lot of people don't have like a thing that they're doing. Their entertainment source is

05:59 themselves as themselves, which is great. A lot of people are really entertaining.

06:04 But it's a pull to be like, "Oh, anything can be content. I should talk about my whole life and I

06:10 should just share my whole life and that's entertainment and I'll get more engagement

06:14 from that and that brings in more brand deals. That brings in all sorts of stuff." And that's

06:18 very enticing. But I think it also is something that if you don't stop and check it,

06:23 you'll lose track after a while. And then that's how you see content creators. They kind of operate

06:30 almost like these bursting stars where it's like, bam, they're flashing and they're gone suddenly.

06:34 And that might be because people just lost interest or they got burnt out so fast.

06:40 I think drawing that line very early on and deciding, "This is my life. This is not for

06:46 entertainment. And this is what I plan on doing to entertain people." And allowing your online

06:54 persona to be a little bit of a persona instead of being 100% genuine because I just think over time,

07:01 that for your own sake can get a little dangerous.

07:05 [silence]

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