Goofy is not a derogatory term in the Mochrie household. In fact, it’s revered. Colin and his wife, actor Deb McGrath, are true, blue, certified goofballs. They both honed their craft at Second City, perfected their union, (both professionally and personally when they married in 1989) and now hit the road about 20 times a year, as Colin and Deb’s One Couple Show unleashing their improv skills on unsuspecting yet appreciative audiences.
“We do improv, we talk about our life together, we bring people up on stage and do scenes based upon what they tell us. It’s nice. We get a chance to actually work together,” says Colin, best known for his role in the TV program Whose Line is it Anyway?
Whose Line is classic improvisation. It asks the performer, armed only with their wits, to create a story from words or ideas supplied by the audience, to create something out of nothing. The show is unrehearsed and comics like Colin have to think on their feet.
“Unlike stand-up, you’re not by yourself, you’re working with people,” he says. “With improv, the audience is sitting back saying, ‘all right, you think you’re funny? Show us.’ They know we have nothing, so they have a vested interest in us doing well because we’re using what they gave us.”
Whose Line began as a radio show in the UK, moved over to television in 1989, and is still running today. It takes mere weeks to record an entire season, so, for the past 17 years, Colin has been augmenting his TV work with a touring stage show with Whose Line regular Brad Sherwood. This year’s production, Scared Scriptless, ends its 18 US city run in May.
And new this year, a show called Hyprov, is the unlikely combination of improv and hypnotism starring Colin and master hypnotist Asad Mecci.
“Asad brings 20 people up, puts them under, picks the five best and then we become an instant improv troupe and do an improv set. It’s terrifying,” says Colin. “I have no idea where these guys are going. I’m improvising but I’m also a sheep herder.”
He’s a busy guy with Whose Line, two concurrent road shows, and the One Couple Show with Deb. And let’s not forget his book, available from his website or from Amazon, Not Quite the Classics. Colin takes the opening and closing lines of 12 familiar novels and makes up the rest. A Tale of Two Cities, for instance, starts with the familiar phrase “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…” To which Colin has added “To be more specific, it was Tuesday.” Brilliant.
“I’m glad I did it to say that I did it,” he says of his publishing career, but his heart is in performance. Improv, he laughs, is the easiest job he’s ever had.
“It’s pretty hard to beat. Essentially you just show up, make the audience do most of the work and feed off that.”
It’s even easier doing TV.
“It’s nice and cheap and fast. You meet your friends, you goof around and then go for a beer after and that’s it.”
It’s also the only job he’s ever had.
“From the time I did TheatreSports to the time Whose Line happened, I never really had a real job. My thing has always been stamina. I sort of hang in there until everyone else quits or dies. I have nothing else to fall back on. I have no other skills. So, if [improv] didn’t work out, I had no idea about what I would do.”
Fortunately, things worked out fine.
Born in Scotland, Colin emigrated to Canada with his parents while still a child. The family settled in Montreal and then Vancouver. He says he had a happy childhood but was painfully shy, which makes his career path a curious one.
“It all started in high school. I tried out for the school play. I got it. I got my first laughs and that was pretty much it. I was in sciences, at that point, and I switched to theatre. I went to theatre school and saw a demonstration of improv and thought, ‘Oh, this looks like fun.’”
After theatre school, he spent five years at TheatreSports in Vancouver. Things were so tight, the troupe went into McDonald’s to grab an audience – “Yeah, it’s true. We had to get an audience ’cause it’s really hard to improvise with nobody,” he deadpans – and then to Toronto and Second City. That’s where he met Deborah.
“She hired me for Second City,” he says. A performer herself, Deb McGrath was directing a touring production of The Best of Second City. Colin auditioned.
“He was a quiet killer,” says Deb. “He would stand in the back and BAM he’d give you the line. He’d listen, listen and then BAM he’d give you the kicker to the scene. He barely raised an eyebrow, and yet you couldn’t take your eyes off him. He was gentle. He was gracious. He was exactly what you wanted in a company.”
They married a year-and-a-half later.
“I wasn’t interested in him at all at the beginning, except as a performer,” admits Deb, “but it grew. I started to see other things in him. I liked his intellect; he was a nice person and he was as cute as a button.”
Cute as a button but underemployed. Colin was auditioning for the UK version of Whose Line still trying to get established. Deb’s career was flourishing.
“We agreed, right at the beginning, we would go with whoever’s career was king,” says Deb “and, at the beginning, I thought I’d be carrying him.”
Their roles flipped when Colin joined the UK cast of Whose Line, residing in London for six weeks at a time. Deb became a mom.
“When our daughter was born, my focus shifted. I found something I liked better,” she says.
And when Drew Carey imported the format to America in 1998, Colin came along with it, winning viewers over with his quick, dry wit, self-deprecation and gentle demeanour.
“I think I have the guy next door look, the friendly neighbour look,” says Colin. “The audience wants me to do well, so when I can get a sarcastic jab out, they feel, ‘Oh, the little guy did it.’”
The little guy did indeed do well, motivated by persistence and, as Colin puts it, revenge.
“Revenge on the people who said you’re not going to make it; it’s not going to work for you. That kind of spurs you on hoping that ‘Okay, I’m going to show you.’ It took 40 years, but I got there,” he laughs.
Fame brought him commercials, short films and TV cameos, but Colin says his public persona belies the real Colin Mochrie.
“If someone came over to the house, they would never know what I did for a living,” he says. “Deb calls that person on Whose Line ‘The Other’ ’cause it’s so different from me. I’m still shy, and Whose Line has drawn me out of my shell, but I tend to sit back and observe more. I think I disappoint a lot of people when they meet me,” he continues. “They expect me to do a dinosaur walk or something. That’s not who I am. I always say acting is my job, it’s not my lifestyle.”
The couple’s Toronto lifestyle is decidedly low key. Colin is an excellent cook, a skill he developed years ago when he and Deb were in Los Angeles. Deb was working full-time on a project she and her writing partner had prepared for American television. Colin didn’t have a work visa. So, the stuck-at-home Canadian turned to the culinary arts.
“I was working 10-, 12-hour days and I was almost eight months pregnant,” says Deb. “At that point, I did all the cooking and when he saw how tired I was, he said what’s the deal with cooking?”
“So, I said, this cooking thing, do you just look at the recipes and do it?” Colin adds.
“And I, heart pounding and eyes aflutter, said it’s both. As soon as he started doing it, he was sending me off to work with packed lunches and dinner was on the table. It has never waned. He loves it. It’s his happy place.”
“She hated it and I found I enjoyed it. It’s something I love doing,” he confirms.
More recently, Colin and Deb have incorporated the principles of their profession into their personal lives.
“One of the main rules of improv is to say ‘yes,’ where you accept people’s ideas and build on it. Deb and I had a discussion. Why don’t we do that more in our own life? Some things we may not feel comfortable with, so we tried saying ‘yes’ to things that were outside our comfort zone and, so far, everything has been amazing.”
Case in point, visiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a volatile part of the world, to film World Vision commercials. Or when Deb took a course to overcome her fear of flying.
Family is also important. And here, the jokester turns serious. When their daughter, Kinley, started questioning her birth gender, they jumped in immediately to support her choice and her decision. Kinley is presently transitioning, and Colin has taken a pro-active stance, meeting the public and spreading the word.
“I was never in any real danger when I was shy,” he says. “It’s different for people who are transitioning. There’s a hatred out there. There’s a distrust and a lot of misinformation, so I’m just trying to give people more information about it. I’m learning so much about the community and about people. And watching her deal with grace and a lot of tolerance. I go man, it’s 2019. There are so many other things we should be worrying about. People’s sexuality or gender is not one of them.”
Societal norms are rapidly changing and it’s happening in entertainment, too. Colin talks about new ideas in improv, about a show he saw at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in which the performer pretends she’s going on a date with a young man she has pulled from the audience. And, of course, there’s his own foray into combining improvisation with hypnotism, Hyprov. As for the future, he says there will always be a place for goofy.
“As you get older, you think how much longer can this last and how acceptable will it be to see a 65-year-old jumping around as if he’s a chicken? Hyprov came out of nowhere, so I’m hoping some other new and challenging thing will come up for me. I think it’ll always be improv. I’m confident in what I can do. I’ve been doing it for almost 40 years and it’s more fun now than ever. It’s the most comfortable I am at life, going out on stage in front of a paying audience with nothing.”
If you were to meet your 20-year-old self, what advice would you give him?
“I would say see more. I wish I had travelled more, met more people and worked on me a little bit, on who I am. I think that would have helped me.”
Who or what has influenced you the most and why?
“Probably the biggest influence for me was Bob Hope. He did everything. He started out in vaudeville, did radio, did movies, did television. He had a work ethic, and I think that inspired me.”
What are you most grateful for?
“I’m grateful for my family. Deb has been tremendously supportive. I certainly married above my station. I’m grateful for Kinley. She’s taught me a lot about being a father and a person. I’m so grateful they are both wonderfully loving people.”
What does success mean to you?
“Success brought me a confidence that I can do more than I thought I could. I’ve had the opportunity to do so much more because of that success. I’ve found the more success you get, the more confidence you get in pushing that success and seeing what else you can do.”
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