Ben Schwartz may be playing Radio City Music Hall this fall but he remembers a time when the audience wasn’t quite so large.
“I once did a yoga studio where two people were there,” he told in a recent exclusive interview. “I once did improv shows where maybe three or four people were in the audience.”
Schwartz, 41, even performed in front of … no one.
“I was an intern at the Upright Citizens Brigade to pay for my classes because I couldn’t afford them,” he explained. “I’d do the garbage and recycling and I’d show people where their seats were.
“And then when everybody left, I would ask the manager of the theater, ‘Can I just get on stage with my two friends? (Adam Pally and Gil Ozeri). Just so we can improvise on the same stage that Amy Poehler was just on.
“And so for 10 minutes, he would let us improvise on this empty stage in front of nobody. And we had — it’s some of my fondest memories of improv — we had the best time … it was like heaven to perform for nobody on that stage.”
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The Bronx-born performer’s life came full circle several years later when he was cast as Jean-Ralphio Saperstein on the Amy Poehler sitcom “Parks and Recreation.”
Even though he has since gone on to star in shows like, “House of Lies” and “The Afterparty,” and voiced “Sonic the Hedgehog,” Schwartz said he’s still most recognized for “Parks and Rec” — despite appearing in only 22 episodes.
Schwartz can currently be seen in the horror comedy “Renfield” in which Nicholas Hoult plays a tortured aide to his narcissistic boss, Dracula (Nicolas Cage), who breaks free after centuries of servitude.
The “Space Force” star plays the son of a mafia boss and joked that he researched the part by spending “the past seven years in the mob and I feel like I’ve fooled a lot of people.”
He said that it was a dream come true…
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