Comedian Jim Breuer talked extensively with Hamptons.com about his career, growing up on Long Island, and his September 1st show at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center with Joe Sib. The former SNL star performs his unique stand-up successfully all over the U.S.A. Although he now lives in Naples, Florida, and left Long Island in the 1990s, he “absolutely” considers himself a Long Island boy.
It was during his childhood on Long Island in Valley Stream that Mr. Breuer realized he had the gift of making people laugh. “It really started in sixth grade,” he said, adding, “That’s when it really started. I kind of forgot about that, I wrote a sketch and we did a talent show and I made everybody howl.” He also enjoyed dramatics and being in plays, enjoying the notes and applause from his classmates. Calling it “The first bug for show business.” He said by the time he was sixteen, “I started writing material and visualizing, and following fellow Long Islander (Roosevelt) Eddie Murphy,” it was as Breuer fondly called it, “The launching pad.”
By the end of high school, he was “… the class clown, but that was also where I was going.” To this day Mr. Breuer enjoys performing for Long Island audiences. “They get everything,” he explained, “Because I grew up as a street corner story-telling animated kid. When I am there (performing on L.I.) or anywhere, I am that same person… but when I am performing on Long Island, it is literally as if I am going home to my family and everyone I know. I feel I know everyone there. They get everything I say.”
Mr. Breuer’s landing the SNL job was “painful” for him as he wove a story of not truly being wanted by the show’s management but by NBC executives at a time when the show was not spiking the ratings. Once there on SNL, he learned about the power of a great sketch saying, “Molly Shannon did that sketch, Mary Katherine Gallagher and she murdered, I never saw an audience react like that from a sketch. That’s what I wanted to do, not just some half-ass sketches.” However, he believes the moment he found his footing on the show was purely by accident at a time he felt like he was definitely going to be fired. The magic hatched while talking to an intern, Breuer tells the story, “He heard me messing around doing my Joe Pesci in the break room.” Then the intern said, “Hey dude, you gotta do Joe Pesci on update.” As Breuer recalls, “ That led to the skit, The Joe Pesci Show, that, in my opinion, saved my job; that’s what saved me from that moment on.” Lorne Michaels told Breuer, “You have to do something that people know you so that they know it is you doing Joe Pesci.” When the SNL gig came to an end, Lorne Michaels told Mr. Breuer, “Jim, you’re too nice for this industry; if you ever need a producer, I’m your guy.”
Breuer said his comedy heroes started with Steve Martin in sixth grade, but he added his Mt. Rushmore would start with Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Sam Kinison, and Eddie Murphy.
As for the future, Jim Breuer said, Even if it’s not a full-blown tour, I can’t see myself not going on a stage and making people laugh. I got to see Richard Pryor shortly before he really was immobile (from MS), and it was inspiring and one of the most powerful comedic moments. I had always looked for him, and I went to the comedy store one night, literally hoping he would be there.” After going there every night while he was then in L.A., on the very last night, magic happened. “I was getting ready to leave, and all of a sudden, they said, ‘Please welcome special guest Mr. Richard Pryor. There was a whole bunch of people helping him walk, holding him up. They brought him onto the stage he talked slowly, but he was so funny. I can remember it as if it was yesterday. He was talking about the most painful stuff in his life, but he was putting it out there, and it was so powerful and amazing. To this day, it was such a powerful moment. I want to do that pretty much right to the end.”
The show at WHBPAC on September 1st will feature all new material, and he promised, “Even if you saw me up-island in Huntington a few months ago, where I play four times a year, you will hear all new, fresh material.”
