Catching up with Comedian Sam Morril ’05
Comedian Sam Morril ‘05 speaking at Browning as the 2018 Class of 2000 Distinguished Speaker, Dec. 19, 2018. Morril’s Comedy Central special “I Got This” has received over 4.5 million views on YouTube (Photo: Jeremy Katz ‘04).
Comedian Sam Morril ’05 is rising to fame. In February 2020, his second Comedy Central stand-up special “I Got This” debuted, where it has since received more than 4.5 million views on YouTube. A momentous achievement for him, Morril says this is just the beginning and that there is much more content to come.
“It feels good that people watched it and liked it, but I'm not good at feeling the love,” he said. “I'm back to work and editing a new special which should be coming out very soon.”
After graduating from Browning, Morril attended Tulane University and later transferred to New York University. Since then, he has made appearances on Conan, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Inside Amy Schumer, and America’s Got Talent. This success, though, does not come without work. Morril credits a consistent approach and work-ethic to his ability to navigate the field of comedy.
“I looked at the career of comics I admired and saw them doing well,” Morril said. “I figured if I could work hard, [doing stand-up comedy as a job] would happen. You have to say yes to gigs early on that say things like, ‘We'll give you a free panini.’ Then slowly, gigs start creeping in with ‘also actual money.’ Each year gets better.”
One of the difficulties of stand-up is writing both original and entertaining jokes that captivate an audience’s attention. You need to have a constant set of new material ready for multiple shows. Morril’s content consists of a variety of topics. He could crack a joke about politics one moment, but then veer the attention towards a funny personal experience, which typically draws loud guffaws from his audience. In terms of writing, Sam lets his material naturally come to him in order to make them as genuine as possible.
“If I knew where the jokes came from, I'd spend more time there,” Morril said, “I'm still a sit-in-front-of-a-computer type of writer, which probably explains why I have back problems. All this time traveling and hunching over a screen, I'm scared I'm destined to be one of those bent-in-half New Yorkers. Those people that look like the city broke them literally.”
In addition to getting featured on shows, Morril also participates in gigs all across the United States–he is always on the move. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he lost this ability to speak in front of packed and animate crowds. In the summer, though, Morril began to use outdoor venues to continue shows with an audience in a safe way.
“I heard Dave Attell say, ‘I love comedy now. All the danger, none of the money.’ That's how it feels,” Morril said. “[I now do] mostly outdoor gigs. I've found strangers’ rooftops to perform on nearly every night in August and September, and I hired a film crew. That's the next special. It's very pandemic-y.”
Being in the midst of a pandemic clearly changes the whole dynamic of how Sam does comedy, but it also changes the way he creates jokes. All of his personal experiences are different and the political and social atmosphere is different as well. Therefore, he has to tailor his content to fit the current situation, while also having to create new material in a much different way.
“I think being still is terrible for creativity–at least for me,” Morril said. “I know J.D. Salinger would lock himself in a shed, but I need to be in constant motion. Meeting new people, having new experiences, that really helped my writing. I have a lot more New York jokes now, which I definitely did not need.”
A career in stand-up is certainly difficult, Morril said, citing that it possesses challenges that are hard to handle. He did, however, give one piece of advice to any Browning student who wishes to pursue a career in comedy: “Just be prepared to be humbled. I think that goes for any career, but comedy happens in a less subtle manner.”
