Billy Crystal shares views on current state of comedy: ‘It’s becoming a minefield’
‘I just keep doing what I’m doing and that’s all you can do right now’
Billy Crystal says comedy has become a “minefield” he understands but doesn’t like.
The actor and comedian stars with Tiffany Haddish in the new comedy-drama Here Today, released on Friday in the US.
Speaking in a new interview with the New York Post, he said of the current state of comedy: “It’s becoming a minefield and I get it.
“I don’t like it, I understand it … I just keep doing what I’m doing and that’s all you can do right now.”
Crystal added “with a laugh” that “it’s a totally different world” and “it doesn’t mean you have to like it”.
In response to the interview, some Twitter users pointed out that Crystal was criticised in 2012 for wearing blackface in the opening montage of the 2012 Oscars, which he hosted.
The video featured Crystal impersonating Sammy Davis Jr as part of a skit.
“No one really does blackface anymore,” Reuters noted at the time. “Crystal did it when he played Davis on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, but what somehow airs on a late night show nearly three decades ago doesn’t necessarily fly during on of the most-watched shows of the year.”