Edi Patterson

“You can expect every Gemstone, at some point, to be in way over their head. I think it's just in their DNA.”

“I was obsessed with Tracey Ullman. I was obsessed with 'In Living Color.' I used to meet up with a friend of mine after school, and we would literally just stand in his room and do Fire Marshal Bill for hours.”

“When you're around siblings a lot, those default kid settings come in. You could be 30, 40 years old, but you decide they're still that little punk.”

“We didn't have cable growing up. We had these three upper channels that played all reruns, so I would see episodes from 'The Dating Game' from the sixties and seventies, and I and a few friends thought they were so funny.”

“Vegas has this weird, weird vibe where some hotels can actually be so blown out that they almost feel cozy.”

“I feel like anyone who's ever wanted to be a performer went through this phase, where you thought that being funny equaled doing stuff you already saw on TV.”

“The Groundlings is definitely one of the major places that I learned through doing. It taught me through performances and workshops, successes and failures, and hilarious friends that all I've got, my only superpower, is that I'm me.”

“I grew up in a family that went to church every Sunday and then I went to youth group during the week and covered dish suppers and stuff like that.”

“You stay a kid with your siblings.”

“A lot of times if I'm writing, if something is awesome, something in me wants to go like, it's awesome. Let's stop. I'm ready to shoot.”

“I was in a fairly religious family.”

“Yes, you write your own sketches at The Groundlings. If you want to create a character, you write a sketch where you're playing that character. You write on your own and with others. It's an intense process, and when you're doing a Main show you're writing on your own and meeting up with people to write all the time.”

“Luckily, my mom and dad both have a pretty absurd sense of humor.”

“Everyone's superpower is that they are their own unique selves.”

“If I can be me, and let it rip, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.”

“I think I had a base-level aptitude for improv.”

“I'm a little different in that sometimes I need to stare at the laptop for a little while or pace, and then an idea will sort of come in sideways.”

“I grew up in Texas City, which sounds like a fake city from a TV show.”

“My only experience with the megachurch oeuvre was a show called 'A Current Affair,' and they would sometimes put clips on of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. I was very fascinated with them. Not in, 'Oh, I want to go to their church.' But she had so much makeup and their thing was so theatrical. They tapped into the theater-loving side of me.”

“I really started writing at the Groundlings. We all have to write all our own sketches and stuff.”