The world’s hottest comedian Kevin Hart's second stand up film, “Let Me Explain,” hit theaters July 3, and he chatted with Backstage about his approach to the comedy craft and turning his jokes into a business model. Pick up a copy of the latest issue on newsstands on Thursday, and check out a sneak peek of the story below!
Kevin Hart On His Writing Process
All comedians have different approaches to building a standup act. Kevin Hart’s is, by his own admission, “weird.” “This is gonna sound crazy,” he says. “I don’t write. I go onstage and I talk, and I remember what I’m saying, and I track it. I literally have my two writer’s assistants who stand with their notepads while I’m onstage and jot down the funny beat points. And every time I go off the stage I say, ‘Where are the beats?’ They tell me, and I go back, and I just keep doing it. It becomes repetitive. I do it over and over again. Then I look up, and I’ve built 15 minutes.”
Hart goes about adding 7- to 15-minute segments, each building on an element of the one prior, until he has an hour of material. But having the hour doesn’t mean the act is ready to be filmed for a special. “It’s your special; you don’t want to have a lapse,” he says. “That’s why you go and you do 70 cities, and before you go to those cities you do 25 cities of comedy clubs. Before you go to those cities you do three months in New York. You have a system, and once that system works and is in position, it’s not going to fail you.”