If you haven’t seen Seth Samuels before, you either don’t like improv comedy, don’t go to on-campus plays or don’t like dogs. On an uncannily warm Sunday, Samuels graced me with his presence and gave me a run-down of life with dogs, large noses and why he wants to be a Jewish cowboy.
LAURA GOLDBLATT: I think what everyone wants to know about most is the dog. So you recently acquired a dog?
SETH SAMUELS: I did recently acquire a dog and he’s the best dog ever. His name is Sonny and he’s really sweet.
LG: Aside from the dog, what do you do that makes you worthy of being a WesCeleb?
SS: I don’t know. Nothing. Um, I’m in Gag Reflex, it’s a group, it’s an ensemble, there are six of us. Gag is amazing. It’s one of the most fun activities I’ve ever done, and I love doing it at least twice a week. Our shows are just a blast for us and I think the audience as well. Even if I stop acting, I won’t stop doing improv because it’s always just really fun the whole way through. In “Truth In Comedy,” which is essentially the improver’s bible, Jim Belushi refers to good improv as being “better than sex.” I mean, it’s an exaggeration, but you get the point.
LG: Aside from improv comedy, you’ve been in a couple plays. What were they?
SS: Here, I’ve been in “The Real Inspector” and my freshman year I was in “On Borrowed Time” which was a senior thesis. And I was in “Defying Gravity” and “Glengarry, Glen Ross” and most recently “Wants Unwisht Work.”
LG: So you’re a theater major?
SS: Not at all, I’m done with acting forever. I’m an American Studies major.
LG: So when did you know you were funny?
SS: I still don’t think I’m funny. Sometimes I do. Actually, that’s not true. You know, my brother was actually always really funny when I was growing up and he would always say incredibly funny things when we were out with my family, and I generally didn’t. And then I kind of figured out that I was funny as we got older and they started to laugh more at the things that I said and his humor started to be stupid.
LG: Can you give an example of his humor?
SS: Um yeah, actually I can. He called me last year, he was so excited about his idea that he called me to tell me, he thought it was so funny. He thought there should be a TV show which was sort of like a…Jewish cooking show called, “Holla for Challah.”
LG: Do you guys get along or did he beat you up a lot when you were little?
SS: He beat me up a bit when I was little and he can be a little difficult sometimes, but since he went off to college and we haven’t been living together we’ve gotten along better. Actually, I took a year off before I came here and we lived together and that was fine.
LG: What’d you do in your year off?
SS: I worked at Manhattan Theater Club in New York. I was a production assistant, which meant that I made coffee and photo copied. And I worked on two different plays. The first one was called “The Class Act.” It was a musical that eventually moved to Broadway and they actually really liked me. They were a whole bunch of musical theater fags as they’re technically called in the business. They really appreciated my vast knowledge of musical theater which is really, really lame.
LG: How did you acquire this vast knowledge of musical theater?
SS: Theater camp mainly. I definitely have a secret enjoyment [of musical theater]. I mean, I think it’s really, really cheesy and it isn’t really good theater, but it’s a lot of fun. When I was at camp there were three different sessions and each session there were twelve different shows so there were 36 shows a summer, about 30 of which were musicals…I would usually be in three of them and see 27 others. So I acquired a fairly broad knowledge of musical theater.
LG: So why are you done with theater?
SS: I don’t know that I’m totally done. But I’ve been acting for about ten years, and everyone I knew in the theater world kept encouraging me to pursue it, which I did without ever stopping to really think about whether or not I loved it. And I don’t really like the spotlight so much so it’s not really the right kind of life for me. People are kind of surprised of that because I perform a lot but I’m also really, really shy so when people see me a lot of times they expect me to be really crazy and outgoing and I’m totally meek. I disappoint them and they think that I hate them when really I’m just afraid of them. Well, not really afraid of them, I’m just shy, though I am afraid of really burly men. Though not anymore, because my dog barks at them.
LG: Is the cocker spaniel really intimidating to burly men?
SS: No, but he feels like he is, which is all that matters. He’s got some fight in him. He doesn’t kill rats or mice but he does chase squirrels. He actually chased a cat up a tree once, which is not something that I thought actually happened in real life, but apparently it does. And I was like, “So, should I call the fire department?” I don’t know if cats climb down from trees, I had always heard that dogs chased cats up trees and a little old lady calls the fire department.
LG: So what are you going to do now?
SS: I think I’m going to take some psych classes because I’ve been reading a bit about it and it really interests me. And I’m going to try to work for a nearby minor league baseball team. These days I’m thinking I want to run a baseball team, ideally the Mets, and take down the f***ing Yankees. Baseball is an amazing thing to me. When it’s done right, it’s a convergence of art, science, athletic grace, intellectualism and religion. And anyone who disagrees only needs to see Trot Nixon hit a game winning home run in Fenway Park or Mark Prior strike someone out with a filthy curveball at Wrigley Field while millions of people in the park and at home on couches stand up as one. There’s so much history, so much passion and so much physical beauty.
(Somehow, we start talking about middle school)
SS: I went through the most awkward, awkward stage in middle school. My nose has been this big since I was in third grade – the rest of me was much smaller and slowly has been filling in around it. And when I was in seventh grade I had a zit on it that the entire class named Freddy.
LG: Any jokes?
SS: The only one I can think of off the top of my head is that there’s a stand-up comedian with this incredible dead-pan delivery, and he’s like “I got on a bus the other day and I sat down next to a beautiful woman and she looked really upset and she said, ‘My name’s Diane. I’m a nymphomaniac but I’m only attracted to Jewish cowboys.’ And I looked at her and I said, ‘Hi Diane, I’m Bucky Goldstein.’” I think that’s pretty amazing.
LG: Any last words?
SS: I wish I were a Jewish cowboy.
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