Filed by KOSU News in Art & Life.
June 6, 2011

From Friends to 24, Aisha Tyler is a familiar face on the small screen. These days, she voices the character Lana Kane on the FX animated series Archer, but her first love is standup comedy.

Now, Tyler has returned to the stage for a nationwide tour in which she gives audiences her honest and edgy take on childhood, married life and pop culture.

Tyler tells NPR’s Neal Conan that from the moment she got her first half-laugh at a tiny club in San Francisco, she was hooked.

“I think most comedians will describe comedy in drug-like terms,” she says. “It’s an addictive experience.”

Tyler says she can’t avoid the siren call of the stage.

“It makes you, I think, creatively and mentally tough,” she says.

Tyler explains that when she plays characters on television and in the movies, other people are there to make sure she sounds and looks good. But in the comedy club, she sinks or swims on her own merits.

“The comedy experience is a raw personal experience — it’s very stripped down,” Tyler says. “It’s pure.” [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]