Which of your characters do you have the most compassion for?
Denny.
Denny from "Choke".
God, I can tell the story now,
because I hope I didn't tell the story two years ago.
Denny is named after a friend of mine
who died of hepatitis.
I think, sexually contracted hepatitis.
One of those weird, strange, like, hepatitis D,
that comes from nowhere.
And people get it, their liver is gone and they die.
And Denny was just the sweetest, dumbest guy, but he had like this --
this really enlightened dumbness.
And when I was little, when I first...
God, I can't even remember...
When I first learnt how to jack off, okay?
When it happened -- sort of accidentally --
and you think: "Whooah!"
And this is such a bourgeois child that I was, I thought:
"I've invented something!"
[Laughter]
I'm going to make so much money!
[Laughter]
Everybody's going to want to learn how to do this!
[Laughter]
I'm gonna be king of the world!
I can give seminars!
[Laughter]
I'm like, what, 12 years old... you know?
Thinking, instantly going:
"I can turn this into money."
I can parlay this -- this handful of cum --
this is gonna make me rich!
[Laughter]
I was so fucking disappointed!
[Laughter]
[Applause]
My mom's like,
[KNOCKS]
knocking on the bathroom door, and I'm like,
"I'm doing market research!"
[Laughter]
Shut up, I'll make you rich!
So I wrote that into this Denny's character.
So Denny does that in "Choke" because combining that --
that sort of sweet stupidity --
with my friend Denny -- who is dead --
I just love that as a character, that...
You know, a real character that I felt something for.
And I don't typically like my characters.
It's much more interesting,
and there's a lot more sort of energy,
in creating a character that says stuff that you don't like.
Because then you have to sort of make a case and research,
and eloquently present something
that is not necessarily your own viewpoint.
And that's always so much more of a challenge!
So, you don't have to like the character,
you don't even have to like or believe what they are saying.
They just have to be really well developed.
And you have to make a real case for what they're saying.
And Denny is possibly the only character I've ever written that I liked.
Let's call it good at that!
I don't have any more funnier stories than that, so... thank you!
[Applause]