When Jen Kober sat down to plot out her career goals several years ago, she didn’t specifically list working with Charlie Sheen or Robert De Niro as goals, she says, but she did know she wanted to do television and film work in addition to stand-up comedy. She was very specific in that and was determined to go for it.
Once she did find herself doing guest spots with people like Sheen and De Niro, she started making a list of people she’d like to work with. Even then, she never imagined having Arsenio Hall open for her, as he did recently.
“That was crazy,” she says.
“Charlie Sheen is one of the funniest people in real life I’ve ever been around,” says the Louisiana native. “He’s always smiling and jovial. Working with Robert De Niro was amazing. He didn’t talk to anyone else, so the crew was like, ‘Oh my gosh, why did he talk to you so much?’ I’m like, I didn’t know he wasn’t talking to anyone. And I’m a Southerner – we talk to everybody.’
“He was fascinated with how I do what I do. He was really interested in what it means to be a comic.”
Kober will co-headline the grand opening of the new Comedy Catch at the Chattanooga Choo Choo starting Friday through Sunday, Nov. 27-29, with Jon Reep, the Season 5 winner of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.”
“I get to work with Jon Reep – hello.”
After 28 years on Brainerd Road, club co-owners Michael Alfano and Cheryl Gorrian have now completed the club’s move into the old Station House space at the Choo Choo. The move is part of a multimillion-dollar renovation/rebranding effort at the city’s most famous tourist attraction/hotel/banquet space.
“I’m very excited about this move,” Alfano says. “It’s re-energizing.”
Kober worked the old club on Brainerd Road last year “and loved Chattanooga. I love everything about it,” she says. “I did the incliney [Incline Railway] thing and the rock [Rock City] thing, and I found out my childhood girlfriend lives there. I hadn’t seen her since 1983, but we started right back up where we left off.”
She’s also happy to be part of the grand-opening festivities.
“I’m so excited for Michael,” she says. “I deal with a lot of club owners and they all tell you, ‘Oh, we’re going to do this and that,’ and you come back a year later and they’re still talking about it.”
Kober realized early in her career that she has a unique physical appearance and an outlook on life that is just as unusual.
“I have a different look and way of thinking,” she says. “I’m not the pretty Hollywood girl, so I started submitting for things that were different. The last audition I went to there was a Chinese guy, a black girl, a redhead and me.”
While working with Meryl Streep and Amy Schumer are now on her to-do list, her main gig will always be stand-up, she says.
“My favorite part is live performing with the audience right there. I go to bigger clubs and small towns. Anyone that will have me. I like to involve the crowd, not picking on you but picking out people and finding out what your thing is and making fun of you.
“It’s fun.”
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6354.