The Art of Being Steve Martin

Of the many vintage movie phrases to which my brothers and I now refer, few get more play than “Look-up-here.”

Or more specifically, “Look-up-here! Look-up-here! Look-up-here!

Anyone?

It’s from the 1986 cult classic, Three Amigos!—three out-of-work movie cowboys are invited to save a helpless village from real villains. Steve Martin was the writer, executive producer, and played a starring role.

While trying to break into the studio to retrieve their costumes, Martin’s character climbs a wall to signal the coast-is-clear to the other two Amigos below, played by Chevy Chase and Martin Short. He starts with a quiet bird whistle; they don’t hear anything. Then he adds larger bird calls and flaps his arms. Nothing. Finally, Martin works English phrasing into his bird impression: “Look-up-here! Look-up-here! Look-up-here!”

It’s silly and ridiculous, and one of the countless quotable scenes from that movie. Boomers have Monte Python, we have Three Amigos!.

Learning from Steve Martin’s career

In the 30 years prior to that movie, Martin was a banjo player, and a magician who performed at Disneyland. He was a writer for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour before becoming a stand-up comedian for 18 years, producing four comedy albums. Martin made the shift to movies when he starred in The Jerk, from an original script he wrote.

After 1986, his career is unparalleled: Screenwriter, Author, Playwright, Musician. He produces six albums of bluegrass music, writes a Broadway musical, and is nominated for Best Dance Sequence at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards.

The power of rejecting expectation

In his elegant memoir, Born Standing Up, Martin maps out his life and career as a student of music, comedy, and performance. In the second sentence he chooses the words ‘learning’ and ‘refining’. While his idols were heavyweights like Jack Benny and Charlie Chaplin, Martin always paired those influences with opportunity.

“What if there were no punch lines? … What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. But if I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation. This type of laugh seemed stronger to me, as they would be laughing at something they chose, rather than being told exactly when to laugh.”

Steve Martin, Born Standing Up

Being comfortable with the unknown was his default position, and expectation was the enemy. Martin approached every attempt as an opportunity to flip something on its head.

Combining skills to drive innovation

Martin’s new show is called Only Murders in the Building with Selena Gomez and Martin Short. I haven’t seen the show, but I imagine it’s irreverent, pithy, and a bit nutty. That’s because today, Steve Martin’s choice of medium is somewhat irrelevant. Whether he’s composing a piece of music or flapping his arms like a bird, he’s always Steve Martin. He consistently harnesses his creativity to express the purest version of himself—that’s what artists do.

And that’s what you need to do.

Take all of your credentials designed for the many and throw out what doesn’t align with who you are; what’s left should be a basket of competencies that support a point of view. Then, embrace your interests and add things to your basket that might not otherwise belong. Finally, isolate and combine what drives you to innovate with purity and confidence. Eventually, the work will become Your Work.