Jamie Lever And Her Multifaceted Talents Today women in comedy have made their mark, from the early explorers to the modern trailblazers. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Jamie Lenoir, a groundbreaking comedian and actor in the nation, about her career, life story, and other topics.
By Kavya Pillai
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Today women in comedy have made their mark, from the early explorers to the modern trailblazers. These women have repeatedly demonstrated that humour is genderless with their wit, charm, and bravery. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Jamie Lenoir, a groundbreaking comedian and actor in the nation, about her career, life story, and other topics.
We commenced our conversation by asking the artist when the moment she decided to enter into the entertainment business. Lever revealed it was not until she was 24 years old that she thought about a career shift. She said, "I had already been working in marketing at an agency. I had a career in sales and marketing. And the whole time when I was studying and working, I just felt like it was a miss. Like I'm in the wrong place. I just felt deep down inside, I am a creative person. I have observed that every time I make people laugh casually among friends and family, it just makes me very, very happy to see that people are laughing at everything I'm doing or saying. I would try very hard to just continue doing that in a social setting. I would always want to say something funny and draw attention to myself." She added, "That is one of the traits of an artist. Like, they want, they like the attention. I didn't know I would be a comic, but I just knew that when I'd make people laugh."
As for how she comes up with her sketches and bits, the artist revealed, "Initially, it was just me trying out different things, and I did not think so much about or strategize as to what people would like. I just did things that I wanted to do. Honestly, I was selfishly putting out stuff that I thought was funny. And I realized that whatever I find funny, eventually people find that funny, too." She later analyzed the responses she received on her content, "people started responding to my videos, that's when I realized their likes, their preferences, and what was working for my audiences."
However, comedy is an art that needs to be natural to the person. Feedback can only help you grow but the skill is a gift. "Comedy and comic timing come very naturally to people. I would say it's a God's gift. And, yes, people can learn how to tell jokes, but it's not authentic or it's not organic, you know, and I don't even think that lasts very long." Lever shared she draws inspiration from various artists she grew up watching, "I saw a lot of Rowan Atkinson Mister Bean videos. And I think those animated faces and the way he performed as Mister Bean, that really kind of inspired me." She added, "and very naturally my dad, seeing him around my house and my uncle, both comedians, so there was a lot that I learned from the both of them. Of course, my dad has been an influence to me in many ways, not just in my career, but also as a human being, because he's very disciplined when it comes to his art and his profession."
About the challenges in the space, Lever shared, "There's so much comedy content out there that people have so much that they're consuming already. So it's a task for us (as artists) to kind of break that clutter and present something extremely unique and out of the box or unimaginable." Regardless, one grows with these challenges and learns a lot. Especially when it comes to scallions of one's talent as a brand. At times creativity and business are looked at as separate entities when they need to go hand in hand. On this Lever shared, "Creativity and business, yes, they are looked apart, but they need to go hand in hand because honestly, money is important, and that is a motivation. But somewhere, you know, as artists, you also have to kind of sacrifice a lot of things just for the reason, for the sake of creativity."
Lever revealed, "I've had projects come my way, where I've not made a lot of money, but I've only taken it up for the sake of creativity or for expanding my creativity or exploring a different side to me. Sometimes you want to pick up a project that gets you great money and have to sacrifice your creativity. I did television in my early days, I was making money, but I was doing the same thing over and over again. So I was being repetitive, but I was like, it's okay because at least I'm making money here." "I'm monetary, business-wise feeling pretty comfortable. So I wouldn't mind exploring, taking my time, slowing down work, and, you know, just being selective with my work," she added.
To conclude we asked the artist to go down memory lane and share her first experience with performing for a live audience. "The first time I performed for a large audience. It was my dad's show, and he had given me a chance to go up on stage. You know, what I realized is that when I was backstage, I was a nervous wreck. I had zero confidence in myself, and I didn't know what I was going to do. I thought I was forgetting my lines. But the minute I got on stage, I changed as a person." "I don't know, it sounds funny or cliche, but the minute I got on stage, I just felt like I'm, you know, like my alter ego or something," she added.