Page 215 - Katherine Ryan press pack

Education: Bachelor of urban and regional planning from Ryerson University in

Toronto

Length of time as a stand-up comedian: More than 10 years

How did you get started in stand-up comedy?

Growing up, I loved comedy even before I knew that you could be a stand-up
comedian. Joking around in the house, I knew it could get me out of trouble with

my parents if I was funny. In truth though, I started doing comedy when it wasn’t

cool to be a young woman doing comedy—and it certainly wasn’t lucrative. What

was key for me was to just have an authentic voice and to just persist. And I’m

talking about things that people told me not to talk about. I wanted to talk about
celebrity stuff and pop culture—and people said, “Oh no, that’s very cheap.

There’s nothing redeeming about that, nobody wants to hear you talk about that.”

And I would say that I believe it’s important if it’s my whole religion. It informs so

much about my life and so I think that’s definitely how I got into it. Just through

10 years of people telling me I was doing the wrong thing and then all of a sudden,
through doing absolutely nothing different on my end, people started to change

their attitudes toward me.

How did you have to learn to speak up for yourself?

I certainly never had any trouble speaking up for myself. I wished that I could
have more trouble speaking up for myself, actually. I wanted to be liked when I

was younger, which I think a lot of us do, I’m not ashamed to say it. I was a

product of my environment, a product of my culture. I had a really beautiful blond,

small mother, and I was in this town, Sarnia, Ontario, where the girls who had the

easiest time in my school were quiet and kind and gentle and simple and played

volleyball. I wanted badly to be one of those girls. But every time I opened my
mouth it would upset and confuse people. And I was totally not trying to do that,