Arts & Entertainment

Jim Breuer: Building the Arts in Your Own Backyard

Chester resident, actor and comedian is working with the Morris County Arts Workshop to bring improv, film and comedy classes to the town he calls home.

Jim Breuer is known for his mimicry skills.

The actor, comedian and former "Saturday Night Live Star" has a series of characters that everyone knows him for. But at his Evening with Jim Breuer fundraiser for the Morris County Arts Workshop at the Hive in Chester, it was his impression of MCAW director Jane Shatz that nearly brought the house down.

“The arts are alive and they are here in Chester,” Breuer said, with a perfect imitation of Shatz’s European lilt and delivery.

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Breuer who is now on the board at MCAW, was bowled over by Shatz.

“You might be wondering why you are here. You are here tonight because of the passion Jane has,” Breuer said. “I really feel we need to encourage the arts out here. This is why I started the Chester Family Film Festival. I want to encourage art here in Chester. Little film classes, improv classes here at the Hive. I want people to be able to come here and not have to go to the city.”

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Arrival in Chester

Breuer said he had no idea what to expect when he came out house hunting in Morris County (check out the video of Breuer describing his culture shock in moving to New Jersey).

“I had never heard of Chester. No intention of living in Chester, but wife is from Jersey. I remember I woke up in the car and there were three deer in the driveway of the house my wife wanted to buy that I believe that were released right before we got there because I had never seen a deer live before,” Breuer said. “And now that we’re here. I come from a blue collar background. I am all about block parties and community and families.”

It wasn’t long after that Breuer met Shatz.

“Jim is one of us. He is here to help us make art,” Shatz said.

The program with Breuer featured a question and answer session where Breuer answered questions out of a bowl and from the audience.

Advice For Aspiring Actors

"If your kid wants to be an actor or go into comedy if you don’t know how to relate to them, don’t hold them down. My whole life was ‘what if you don’t make it’. They said ‘you need to have a fallback plan.’ That whole world of secure jobs doesn’t exist anymore. Where you work for 45 years at a company and they take care of you when you retire. My mom wanted me to be an accountant. My father came out of WWII and did anything to make money.

And Eddie Murphy is the one who made me go for it. He was on the Arsenio Hall show and he said to aspiring comedians, 'Don’t listen to your mother.'"

Literally I went home and booked an open mic night and never looked back.

Training

"Acting training really is to each his own. I took acting lessons with Helen Hunts father, Gordon Hunt and he taught me something so simple about acting. He had me moving and doing something. That is acting. There is always something going on."

Film Acting

"Film acting is the easiest thing in the world and I hate to say that. You get 40 shots. Its all editing. Its all what kind you are into and what you want to get to."

Standup

"You don’t learn until you go up on the stage. But you need to know why you are doing it and bring that up on stage with you. Me, I am a hangout guy and a storyteller. I also watched comedy all the time. 24/7."

Favorite Fruit

"Mango. I love mango after a meal. Its light. Its yummy."

Improv and Storytelling

"My wife calls it lying."

Saturday Night Live

"SNL inspired me to work hard. Work on my family. Keep my morals."

Entertainment Business

"There are people who control the streets and the people who control the street walkers."

Difference Between Long Island and New Jersey

"When I moved to Jersey people acted like I moved to the Ukraine.  People have no clue places like this exist in Jersey. They think it is all Newark and the Sopranos."

Goat Boy

"I went into a certain bar and did characters so we could drink for free. So one of them was a goat tick because the bartender thought there was something wrong with us and we would drink for free."

How To Raise Teenagers

"I watch the First 48. I am the investigator. I watch that show so I know how to interrogate teenagers. If they come at you too strong they aren’t going to listen to you. One of you needs to learn to talk to them. You need to learn to talk. Even if it means hearing something you don’t want to hear. You gather than information and learn what to do with the information so you can go after them."

Hurricane Sandy

"I did way better than probably everyone else. I had nothing to complain about. If you looked at my neighborhood, it looked like someone took a 500 ton bowling ball and just wiped trees out like I’ve never seen in my life. We lost power, but I have to be honest with you but that was some of the best times we had. People were helping each other cook. My neighbor was bringing over breakfast. I had a generator but no wire to hook it up. I had to go to Budd Lake behind the Diner to get a cable to hook it up. I also remember standing in line for an hour for coffee for at Maria’s in Chester. I had a tour and I had to leave my wife in the house with the three kids in a house with a generator that was a real pain to start and she really kicked butt."

At the end of the evening, Shatz and Breuer reiterated that art, in all forms was going to continue to bloom in Chester.

“People are going to say Chester? Yes, in Chester. Not in New York,” Breuer said. “We’re doing it here in Chester. This is your home. Tell people about it. We want to have open mic nights. We want to have improv nights.”

Shatz said MCAW is about giving people a place to create art of all types. And Breuer said he wants a place where art can be created and not judged. 

And does Breuer, after all this time, have a fallback plan?

"If I am not doing television or a movie I am doing stand up. People always need to laugh,” Breuer said.

Whether or not the impression of Shatz makes it into a set remains to be seen.


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