Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordy Martin.
Jordy, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in southern Virginia with a Dad who coached high school football. So I came up playing the sports, as I was legally required to do. But my favorite thing in the world was always making people laugh. I discovered this because luckily my freakishly athletic older sister’s favorite thing in the world was beating me up, so I had to hone that wit quickly to avoid embarrassing beatdowns. My defense mechanism became a passion as I grew up inhaling anything I could from Comedy Central. I promised myself one day before I died, I’d try stand-up comedy. Like when I was 65 or something. I went on about my life and attended Syracuse University to major in Computer Engineering. But then, freshman year a good friend I’m forever grateful to suggested I try out for a sketch comedy group on campus. And after three semesters of auditioning (and failing) I got in. This began my love of writing. I wrote sketches nonstop. And then at the suggestion of a screenwriting professor, I wrote my first spec of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. To do that, I had to study the structure of a sitcom, the way a character’s stories get the time they deserve to unfold over the course of multiple episodes and seasons and I realized this was my dream: to write on sitcoms for television. That began my five years plan to get to LA. I graduated then took a job in cyber security at a defense contractor in Orlando. My goal was to use a midlevel city to start cutting my teeth at improv and sketch while working on sitcoms all along. After four years in Orlando, I had improved my writing and had some samples I was proud of so I moved out here to LA. Where I am a computer engineer (no longer for the defense industry thank goodness) by day and do all the comedy classes and shows I can by night, working towards my dream of writing comedy for TV and making millions of people laugh. After all, it’s my favorite.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve had a very fortunate life, but everyone has their struggles. I mean, I want to write comedy, so there’s clearly something broken there right? Growing up in a sports-focused place/family was unfortunate because I’m NOT very athletic or coordinated naturally. So I always felt like I had to work twice as hard to accomplish anything at sports. That mentality of seeing more talented people around me and knowing I’ll have to outwork them whether it was wrestling, computer engineering, or wrestling has been a bit of a blessing because it gave me a good work ethic. But also a bit of a curse. Even though I love performing, there’s always part of me that deep down feels I’m not good enough to be out there. Like I’ll never “put in enough work” to be worthy. But hey, that’s what therapy’s for.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a comedy writer/performer. I’ve been writing and performing sketch comedy for ten years and improv for around 7. The most fun thing for me is when I get to combine the two. When we’re filming a sketch for a silly idea and I get to improvise as that ridiculous character that we’ve spent weeks shaping so it comes out razor-sharp. I’m probably most proud of making it onto a sketch comedy team “Uninvited Guests” at Westside Comedy Theater and of the sketches I wrote and filmed with my last sketch group in Orlando, Before Ghosts. I’m an odd combination of sports nerd, computer nerd, and just nerd, nerd. So the aspects of life and media I like to poke fun of are usually a hyper-specific things that I find odd because of that perspective.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was always a smart ass but in the most over-sensitive/ pain in the neck way. My parents would often flip a coin to see who got to take the fun kid on trips, and I was not the fun kid. I also was always really introverted didn’t like talking to people I didn’t know. Loved technology, taking things apart, that kind of stuff. But ask I got into comedy and performing, I became more willing to share my jokes with other people besides my one or two friends and the calculator I’d dissected.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsjordymartin/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/itsjordymartin
- Other: https://vimeo.com/beforeghostscomedy
