WILMINGTON — Award-winning actor and comedian JB Smoove is starting a new chapter after 14 years on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” by opening his stand-up tour in Wilmington, a first-time performance in the Port City.
READ MORE: Local comedian talks ‘The Long Road’ of standup, plans to pitch recorded special to streamers
Best known as Larry David’s permanent houseguest and trusted confidant Leon Black in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Smoove was born in Plymouth, North Carolina — located 150 miles north along the Roanoke River — and raised in Mount Vernon, New York. His career spans stand-up and writing roles on “Def Comedy Jam” and “Saturday Night Live,” as well as films, from the cult classic “Pootie Tang” to recent “Spider Man” blockbusters. He also has “author” under his belt, for 2017’s philoso-comedy guide “The Book of Leon: Philosophy for a Fool.”
“I really wanted the book to be true to the character,” Smoove said. “These are things the character would know about. Some of the chapters are just silliness, but it really shows you, you can’t take life too serious.”
Following the April series finale of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Smoove is returning to his stand-up roots with a comedy tour beginning Friday at Cape Fear Community College’s Wilson Center.
Smoove spoke to Port City Daily about the therapeutic power of comedy ahead of the show. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Port City Daily: What does it mean to you to come back to your home state of NC?
JB Smoove: Man, it’s gonna be good to come home. It’s good to come back to Wilmington, I haven’t been there in a minute now. I will say I saw that movie “Cape Fear” and I hope my weekend doesn’t end up like that.
I’ve got family all over North Carolina and you know how we do man, I love it when they come on out. Let me tell you, I want to retire there one day. A lot of great memories growing up there every summer. I absolutely love it — I call it my “North Cackalacky.”
Come out and see your boy JB Smoove — my first stop is going to be my home state and I’m looking forward to it so much.
PCD: Really looking forward to it, I remember my cousin showing me “Pootie Tang” when I was 10 years old …
JBS: “Sadatay my main damie!” Man, it’s a cult classic. I think we hit a weird place with movie comedies. We hit a weird pocket where everybody became so serious about everything.
I think it’s coming back now — over-the-top comedies are coming back. I think people are starting to get a little looser about their perception of what comedy is — and what it has always been — which is an extension of your life. But also to take away the ills of the world and try to attach it to what makes you laugh.
PCD: It’s interesting how there are these cultural transitions of social mores. And we’re in a change now.
JBS: I think the human brain can only take on so much. It becomes stagnant in this weird place where, you know, everybody’s so reactive.
It’s like flinching. You know how you can do that to somebody? They flinch — people are flinchers now, there’s a lot of flinchers out here. But there’s flinchers and then there are counter punchers, two different things, you know? A flincher can make you jump. A counter puncher can react and deflect, you know what I mean, and keep moving.
PCD: I imagine your improv-based style helped you be that counter puncher.
JBS: That’s definitely what it is. I’ve always loved improv. But I was doing something before I knew it was.
I was the guy who would say stuff around his friends and didn’t realize that I was basically improvising and just being in the moment with people and didn’t know it. Then I started doing stand up, I took an improv class, I learned the rules of it.
It’s one of those things where you’re headed somewhere, but you don’t know why you did something and why you got pointed in that direction. But it makes sense later on that you end up on an improv-based show like “Curb your Enthusiasm.” It prepared me for something.
PCD: It’s interesting how Larry David is receptive to Leon in a way he doesn’t seem to be with others. What do you think it is the gel or chemistry there?
JBS: He’s from a different background. He’s not from the same background. He’s not, you know, a rich, white guy. I mean, He’s just from a different place. He has a different mindset. He’s oblivious. Sometimes being oblivious is the best thing you could ever be because you don’t realize someone’s talking crazy to you, you don’t realize someone’s trying to take advantage of you.
Cause no matter what you do, what you say, it’s not gonna affect me because I’m oblivious to what the f**k you’re trying to do to me right now.
PCD: Reading about your background, it seems like you faced a lot of hardship with the passing of your father at a young age. How does that relate to your philosophy of comedy?
JBS: People forget how short life is, and people really focus on too much stuff that keeps them stagnant and keeps them in this certain mindset for a long time. Until they realize that being in that mindset has affected them long-term. And by the time they get to a certain age, they realize they can’t fix it. They can’t repair it because they’re locked into it.
They presented someone to everybody. And now everybody knows them as that personality and that person. But if you can’t find a way to laugh — find a place in there for humor and growth — we’re in trouble.
And I think comedy is a departure from the normal world. You should put your phones away and be in the moment with somebody. It’s kind of like an intervention.
We as humans have definitely attached ourselves to a different speed of the world. And there’s something really intimate about a setting like that — when someone leans forward in their chair, I’m like, “Oh I got ‘em.”
That’s the fun thing about stand-up, man — attach yourself to the heartbeat of the world.
PCD: It’s comedy’s ability to break people out of mental patterns that are like prisons to them because you’re reframing the story they tell themselves into something kind of ridiculous or hilarious.
JBS: I say all the time: “He ain’t wrong, but he just ain’t right.”
There’s something about being honest in your comedy and who you are, but you don’t have to be a hundred percent right. There’s a way of being right and wrong at the same time because your purpose is to make people think.
Everybody’s path is different. The moment everybody’s path is the same, we are done as human beings. That means we have been molded to the point where we have to all be the same. You gotta have a variety of people so you have different experiences. And I think storytelling does that with stand-up. When you tell a story, that’s your story — that’s your story, people should be like: “Oh man, that’s crazy.”
We are given the ability to do that as stand-ups and as actors. That’s not real, that’s entertainment. But I like to find a way to merge the two worlds.
There’s something about being smart and a dumbass at the same time. You can be the smartest dumbass because you’re oblivious. You don’t know how to fail.
PCD: I like the idea of right and wrong at the same time. I always thought of Leon Black as maybe saying something explicit or crazy, but there’s an underlying good vibe. He’s like a conscience to Larry David in some ways.
JBS: You are exactly right, man. I wish Leon was a figment of Larry’s imagination. I wish Leon was Snuffleupagus from “Sesame Street.” He’s Larry’s subconscious, and he’s another person that Larry doesn’t want to deal with that’s in his world.
PCD: Yea, you could have a spin-off with Leon being a spiritual inception type thing.
JBS: He says some of the craziest, most ridiculous, but the deepest stuff. He’s really attaching his thoughts to the world and how he sees it.
People who live day-to-day are the most interesting people I’ve ever seen. They know how to survive. That character is a damn survivor. We don’t know how he does it, but somehow that dude eats every day, he breathes, it’s like he’s off-the-grid. There’s something about understanding what’s going on in the world, but not being caught up in it to the point where it slows their day down.
PCD: What advice would you give to aspiring comics?
JBS: Find who you are and constantly work on your style. Match your style to your personality. Say things that only you would say and talk about what you know about. Don’t be stuck in one place. It’s great to have material but you don’t want to be a robot, you want to be able to connect with people.
If you can walk on a stage and grab that microphone, you’re fifty percent there already. Fifty percent of what it takes is the guts to get up there. There’s rules of course — you’ve got to have an intro, you’ve got to have a presence on stage, you’ve got to have a certain amount of laughs per minute — if you want to be technical about it.
But you don’t have to go by these rules. There’s something to being offbeat and true to yourself and talking about what you know about. Which is absolutely golden, because you’re taking people on vacation — on a trip through your brain.
PCD: Is bringing people together one of your goals in comedy?
JBS: If I can do my show, and someone comes up to me after the show when I do my meet-and-greet and hug me and say “I needed that” — that is me letting you know that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. You know, there’s more than one way to deal with life. There’s more than one way to hear it.
Sometimes it’s not good for certain people — it’s too much stress on their body — to hear straight news. You need to hear from somebody who can take it and reprocess it, filter in their own damn body because comedians have a high tendency of pain.
We can take anything that happened to us and reshape it and tell you a story that makes it connect to you, relatable to you. …
Tickets are on sale to JB Smoove’s Sept. 13, 7:30 p.m., performance here.
Tips or comments? Email journalist Peter Castagno at peter@localdailymedia.com.
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