“A large degree of my success has been because I have some business sense. Essentially, what I’m running is a small business that sells comedy products.”
Although he would run a software company and work at Heinz as a brand manager before leaving it all for a career in comedy, Darrin Rose says the seeds were sown while organizing the Jeux du Commerce at Concordia’s John Molson School of Business.
“While hosting various competitions, we’d have contests and pub crawls. I wasn’t doing stand-up or anything, but I was trying to make people laugh. I think that was my first taste of trying to be funny in public,” says the award-winning writer, actor, filmmaker and game show host on the Canadian remake of The Match Game, from 2012 to 2015.
Putting the business in show business
“A large degree of my success has been because I have some business sense. Essentially, what I’m running is a small business that sells comedy products.
I’ve worked in corporate environments, so I understand how to work with people and build a plan.”
The best part about performing live
“I started doing stand-up, and then I got into acting, writing and everything else out of that.
“You tell a joke, and then people laugh, which is how I got into this whole business in the first place.”
Career highlight
“I was on the show Mr. D on CBC for eight years, which is an eternity in television. In the last episode, I got one of those moments similar to one at the end of Cheers, when Sam Malone goes to the door, takes one last look at the bar, turns off the lights and walks out the door.
“It was really genuinely emotional because we knew that was the end for my character, and on top of that, Gerry [Dee] I are both crying in the scene.
“The problem is, you do one take and start over again. Every take felt like it’s the last, so it got more and more emotional.”
Studying in Montreal
“Comedy is such a part of the culture of Montreal – I think it really got in my bones.”