Email  Print  del.icio.us  digg  yahoo!  Comments  Feed

Hometown Celebrity

Who's Dat?

Dat Phan is the Original Winner of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, and is a Headlining Comedian touring live across the U.S. We caught up with Dat earlier this month during his nationwide comedy tour.

Hometown: I was born in Saigon, but San Diego is my hometown
High School: West Hills High in Santee!
Favorite Happy Hour: World Famous down in PB
Favorite place to hang out: Balboa Park, and La Jolla. You can see pictures of me at both on my website!
Favorite Comedy Movie: I’ve just been watching chick-flicks lately…
Something only a local knows about San Diego: The Comedy Palace is next to the Superior Court in Kearny Mesa!
Best Pick-up Line: Is your father a thief? Because I wonder who stole the stars from your eyes, and uh… put them… in your belly?

What influenced you to get into comedy? I was in a Speech class at Grossmont College and accidentally made people laugh during my speech. I didn’t mean to, but I loved that feeling!

Where was your first stand up performance? How did it go over? Well, the Speech class I guess, which led me to try open mic night at The La Jolla Comedy Store – which was a disaster. Everybody bombs at first. There’s actually a lot of skill and practice involved in being a good stand-up comic, it takes a lot of work.

What other kind of work have you done, & how have those other jobs helped to shape your current career? I was a tour guide at Sea World, and I couldn’t stop joking with the tour groups. That did help me to be comfortable in front of a group of people though. It’s a different environment, but still teaches you something.

Did you ever once feel that you couldn't be funny for your audience? Not really, but that’s the hard part is going up on stage as a job. Even if you’re sick, or tired, or heartbroken, you still try your damndest to get up there and help people to enjoy a show. I find that if I’m honest with the audience, we can still have a blast together – it’s a live art form.

Do you have a lot of hecklers? Not a lot, usually it’s just someone who’s had one drink too many. Most people come to relax, have some laughs and unwind after a tough week, so it’s unfair to the other customers if someone is heckling and being disrespectful to the show. I always try to find a positive way to quiet a heckler for everyone else’s enjoyment – they pay to see a comedian, not a shouting match or odd conversation y’know?

How do you flesh out your material? Do you use everyday incidents, or news items, or family stories -- or all -- to form your acts? Most of my comedy comes from my life, and the best comedy comes from pain. Looking back at painful or difficult moment or situations, I can make something to laugh about from that. So I draw from my life experiences, try it out on stage, and refine it until it is good. Plus, then indirectly we are laughing at me really. If I just made people laugh about others all the time, then I would just be picking on people or victimizing them. So I share my difficulties, and my observations on stage.

Give us a bizarre/silly aspect of your writing process, ie., must have chocolate as you write, or do you write in your pajamas, or only while listening to a particular musician? I do listen to a lot of chick-music, like Sarah McLachlan. I like chick-flicks too. You can’t be silly all the time, so I think getting in touch with my emotional side allows me to balance and be funny on stage.

Do you write anything other than comedy? If so, tell us about some of your other writing work. I pretty much focus my writing energy on comedy for the stage. I have worked with screenwriters to come up with movies and TV shows to pitch, but that’s not quite the same. I have high hopes for a fantastic script called “Yellow Fever” that I worked with Travis Kurtz on. I also put a lot of my creative energy into my website (www.DatPhan.com) and my Facebook and MySpace pages. I use those to express myself and connect with my fans.

How has your life influenced your art? Absolutely, that’s the source of all my comedy. For example, I’ve studied a lot of martial arts like Northern Green Dragon style Kung Fu. You’ll see a lot of those movements in my stage performance. I just have to be careful not to kick over anyone’s drinks!

What’s your advice for aspiring comedians? Only do it if you love it. Enjoy it for the first year or two, if you stick with it after that, then you are addicted to the pain. It’s a lot of work and you have to always keep trying. People always think “Oh yeah, I’d love to get paid to get up there and make some jokes! I can do that!” It’s not that easy.

Best memory as a comedian to date? I’m in a movie coming out this summer called “When in Rome”, and I had a blast being on set and filming that one. I was lucky to be with a bunch of other stars including Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel, Jon Heder, Will Arnett, Dax Shepard, and Danny DeVito. We’re talking Nepoleon Dynamite and Danny DeVito here – Danny DeVito!!! Anyway, I was lucky to be in that film and shoot in New York and Rome, and none of that would have happened for me without stand-up comedy.

A memory that you wished would have never happened as a comedian? The road is pretty tough. I tour all over the U.S., and the hard part is living in hotels and airports away from your family and friends. That’s the part that people don’t see when you’re on stage. So I really enjoy it when I’m able to perform here in my hometown at the La Jolla Comedy Store, and the Comedy Palace.

Do you ever get nervous on stage? Not really nervous on stage, but I do get butterflies before every show, I get amped up and excited before I hit the stage. I’ve done thousands of shows, but it’s still a rush every time. Each time I’m interacting with a whole new group of people and every audience has a different dynamic. Depending on the season in Lake Tahoe I might be performing for a lot of proud grandparents, or groups of radical snowboarders – so there’s always an unknown factor.

What person would you make you most nervous if they sat in the front row of one of your performances? Barack Obama. Just kidding. Actually my Mom is able to make it to my shows sometimes, and it’s really awkward because a lot of my material includes her. It’s ridiculous because it’s an exaggeration and a character, but here I am talking about her and she’s sitting right there looking at me.

What would you be doing if you weren’t a comedian? Shoot, I don’t know. I really have a passion for comedy, so I’ve always followed my heart to it. You’re talking to a guy who’s been fired from 30 different jobs. So I don’t know, maybe I’d be on job 47 right now. (Laughs) I actually really enjoyed working for Barona, that was one of the best jobs I had and the one that I had to leave to move to L.A. to pursue comedy.

Career Goals: I’d like to do more TV and Movies, but it’s tough in Hollywood. I keep getting offered the same funny Asian accent roles. Ideally I’d like to portray a more positive view of Asian Americans. We’re not all pharmacists and computer nerds. We’re can be sexy too!

Finish these sentences: If I weren't doing this interview right now I'd be... catching up with my fans on MySpace and Facebook.

The most surprising thing that happened to me... was winning the first season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. It was an honor and a wonderful experience.

A common misperception of me is... that I’m Chinese. I grew up watching Knight Rider and Three’s Company just like you white people!

I'm good at... running. I love running on the beaches.

I'm very bad at... math. And school. I’m the worst Asian you ever met; I don’t fit the stereotypes at all.

In moments of weakness I... enjoy buffalo wings.

Something that most people don’t know about me is… that I play almost all of the characters in the online short skit “Bringing Home the White Girl”. You can find it on www.FunnyorDie.com or my website www.DatPhan.com.