We get funny with award-winning comedian, Lawrence Leung, from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He has managed to turn the complex subject of science into a pleasurable and entertaining experience by incorporating breakdancing and wacky experiments into his live performances. So what actually goes on inside the mind of an ‘Albert Einstein-cum-Eddie Murphy’ type of person? Lawrence takes us on his intimate journey.

Interviewer: What were you like as a child?

Lawrence: I remember being a curious kid. I wanted to know how things worked, so I took apart phones and watches. Sometimes they wouldn’t work again so I would get in trouble. I used to climb trees just to see the view from above. A treetop is the most inspiring place to daydream. It’s also a good place to throw nuts at the neighbor’s kids.

Interviewer: When did your interest in comedy/entertainment begin for you and did you complete any training/study for it?

Lawrence: I knew that I always enjoyed making people laugh as a child. My fellow students thought I had a gift for slapstick comedy, but I was actually clumsy. I still am. I exploited that physical comedy in many Theartesports competition shows in high school. I guess my “training” in comedy was during my college years with a comedy troupe called The Improbables. We were a bunch of friends making sitcoms and impromptu movies in theaters, pubs, and comedy festivals. Some of us (Andrew McClelland, Christina Adams, Nick Caddaye and Yianni Agisilaou) went on to become successful comedians both here and in the UK.

Interviewer: Did your family support you?

Lawrence: They had a bit of a hard time understanding what he was doing. Stand up is not a typical career path with role models that my parents had heard of or liked. My parents want me to have a job with financial security, but that’s hard in the arts. I was stubborn and stuck to what I thought I was good at, practicing my skills in pubs, stages and festivals and eventually the job opportunities arose (writing for TV/film, presenting radio and touring live). My parents have now calmed down a lot.

Interviewer: Are you a born comedian or have you learned it along the way or is it a combination of the two?

Lawrence: Definitely a combination. I think it helps to have an innate “comedy sense” and also to experiment with your comedy in different situations and audiences.

Interviewer: Where does your passion lie, since you have a wide variety of talents (comedian, director, radio host, filmmaker, writer)?

Lawrence: I get restless and bored very easily. All my favorite jobs have been those that involve creativity. But since I get bored easily, I want to try to be creative in as many different mediums as possible.

Interviewer: Describe your first stand-up routine? How was it? Were you nervous and how did you get over it? How old were you?

Lawrence: I used to be scared before every concert. I was 22 years old when I did my first stand up routine. It was at a weekly open mic night called “King Of The Ring.” The small audience was made up of nervous beginners and their drunken friends. The MC announced my name incorrectly (“Welcome to the stage, Lance Long!”), so I wasn’t ready. Realizing too late that he was referring to me, I ran onto the stage in the awkward silence that comes when the audience has exhausted all its welcoming applause. I tripped on the step leading to the microphone and fell onto the stage. That earned me my first laugh. He hadn’t even told a joke yet and I let out a laugh that made me lose my nerves. I won the open mic competition and received a bottle of cheap wine and a ‘foothold’ that Saturday night to do it all over again in front of a bigger drunken crowd. I still get nervous before a concert, but as soon as the first laugh hits, it’s always good.

Interviewer: Were you scheduled to perform at the Melbourne Comedy Festival early in your career?

Lawrence: When I was in high school, the only thing I watched every year at the Melbourne Comedy Festival was the Raw Comedy Grand Finale. It is a stand-up comedy competition, with finalists selected from hundreds of aspiring comedians from across Australia. I used to picture myself standing on that stage at Melbourne City Hall. I was so inspired that I made up jokes and routines and scribbled in exercise books. A couple of years later in college, my friends from The Improbables sent me my Raw Comedy application form because I was too nervous to get in. A few months later, on the Melbourne Town Hall stage, I was lucky enough to come second. I never had a plan to get into the Comedy Festival because I didn’t think telling jokes was a career. It was a hobby or a passion that evolved almost by accident into something else.

Interviewer: What was it like to perform your first solo show instead of doing stand up comedy?

Lawrence: My first solo gig was very different from my brief club gigs. The main difference is of pace and pace. Standing up in a club setting tends to be 5, 10, or 20 minutes long with plenty of “bang-bang-bang” hit points to compete against the attention-sapping and soul-sapping effects of alcohol. slot machines. . Solo shows (usually 60 minutes) allow stand-ups to take their time, create an intimate relationship with the crowd, and perhaps tackle concepts and topics that may take longer to explain. Sometimes I like to tell long stories that may not have a lot of laughs until the end. The downside is that if the audience doesn’t like the comic, they’ll have to try extra hard to make the room feel less like an hour-long hostage situation.

Interviewer: With Sucker you not only took risks as a performer but also as a writer, was it very daunting?

Lawrence: Unlike actors who mostly perform other people’s scripts, comedians (as opposed to film or TV comedians with writing teams) write their own material. So, whether it’s a full-length solo show or a 5-minute commercial, it’s extremely daunting to put yourself out there on stage. Sucker was my first solo show and it was very overwhelming because of the research and amount of writing that I had to do. I had a wonderful, intelligent director named Clare Watson who gave me the confidence she needed and had the brutal honesty to tell me what worked and what didn’t.

Interviewer: When and where did your interest in breakdancing develop?

Lawrence: I wanted to be cooler than my older brother, Dennis, who has always been cooler than me my whole life. He played bass in bands and has an amazing goatee. So I decided to learn to breakdance and write my latest show about this silly quest for cool. It’s called “Lawrence Leung learns to breakdance.” I will present it again at the Sydney Opera House from April 15 to 26. Come along.

Interviewer: Have you felt many moments of ‘ouch’ (I confess to having grown up at that time and giving it a try; fun but very exhausting)?

Lawrence: Every time I do the show there are “ouch” moments.

Interviewer: Without speaking to you and just developing my questions from your biography, you present yourself as a very intelligent person who successfully mixes comedy with reality; What is your IQ?

Lawrence: I have no idea what my IQ is, but it’s probably higher than a shark’s but lower than a dolphin’s.

Interviewer: How did you get involved with the “Chasers” team?

Lawrence: I first met them when they were acting as professional corporate robbers driving a silver Lotus on Hollywood Boulevard. They got lost and asked me for directions, which I thought was a request to write contributions. From that initial flirtatious misinterpretation, a fairytale world of polo games and diamond necklaces and… no, wait, that’s Pretty Woman. In recent years, members of The Chaser have been coming to my Comedy Festival shows. My shows often feature social experiments and jokes, which is why they asked me to write for their show War On Everything.

Interviewer: Who are some comedians that you admire and inspire you?

Lawrence: I really admire Andrew Denton, a guy who has done it all: live shows, radio broadcast, presenting and television production. I also quite admire Daniel Kitson, Josie Long, Frank Woodley and Tony Martin. These people do top-notch work, have unique voices, operate without regard to business commitments, and have absolutely no interest in stardom.

Interviewer: Your ultimate goal and how far are you from achieving it?

Lawrence: I don’t really have an end goal. I just want to create work that I can be proud of and that I hope some people will like.

Interviewer: If you weren’t a comedian, would you be…?

Lorenzo: Filmmaker.