Comedian, actor and playwright Lewis Black is perhaps best known for his “Back in Black” commentary on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” He has also appeared in two “Comedy Central Presents” specials, Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “Jacob’s Ladder.” On Friday, Black is making an appearance at C.Y. Stephens Auditorium at 8 p.m. free of admission. He discusses his career, work and life with Daily columnist Tim Kearns.

TK: How are you doing right now?

LB: Not great. I’ve had about four and a half hours sleep. I flew from Los Angeles last night to Nashville at night. I got some sleep in chunks, and then arrived and did radio this morning.

TK: Why are you coming to Ames? Is there a particular appeal to the Midwest?

LB: I’d never performed in Iowa before; finally someone invited me. I’d guess you’d just got cable. And it’s my birthday, and I thought, you know, I’m gonna celebrate my birthday at Iowa State.

TK: Your first two albums are called “The White Album” and “Revolver,” which are pretty obviously Beatles references. Are you a big Beatles fan?

LB: Yeah, as long as a few of them are still alive, I am. I was a big Beatles fan. I’m not rabid about them, but they had a big effect on me.

TK: Do you feel like they’ve influenced your comedic career at all?

LB: In a sense, yeah, “Help!” did. I sat through “Help!” twice in a row when it came out. I just thought it was so bloody funny. You know, Lennon’s answers to stuff – they’re kind of flipping people off. They really did kind of break down this whole thing about the celebrity interview thing. They put them in a perspective that hasn’t really been seen since.

TK: Do you have any other albums coming out?

LB: I do have one that’s out right now, the new album that’s called “The End of the Universe.” It’s a lot of the stuff that I’ll do when I’m in Iowa.

TK: Is that also a Beatles reference, sort of mixing “The End” from “Abbey Road” and “Across the Universe” from “Let It Be”?

LB: No, actually it was an accidental reference. “Revolver” was just because it was a funny idea, and that was before I came up with “The End of the Universe,” which actually has a Starbucks across from a Starbucks on the front of it. It’s a photo of this place in Houston where you can stand in Starbucks and look at another Starbucks.

TK: How do you feel about balancing “The Daily Show,” a theatrical career, and touring as a stand-up comedian?

LB: It’s not been too tough because “The Daily Show” is really kind to me. It’s like two days a week, and I’m not really involved there and I have the rest of the week to travel. The tough thing is balancing the acting in and I’m trying to do more of that. But it’s hard to give up stand-up, because people will ask “Why are you going to Ames?”, and it’s because people actually want to see me. It’s hard to try to give that up when you’ve worked so hard to get it. It’s hard to give up an audience when you finally find one. You’d have to be nuts.

TK: How did you feel about winning the 2001 American Comedy Awards’ Viewers’ Choice award for best stand-up comedian?

LB: I felt it was a real honor. I’d waited a long time, and I’d had no major recognition in terms of stand-up, except among my peers, so it was nice to know that there were people out there who were listening. And it was nice to be nominated with Dave Attell and Dom Irrera, two guys who I think are the funniest guys in America. Even if I hadn’t won it, I would have felt great. And I don’t feel great a lot.

TK: With other winners like Margaret Cho and Roseanne Arnold, they’ve turned to developing sitcoms. You’re in the works on a show now. Will it be a sitcom also?

LB: Yeah, I’m writing it right now with Jeff Stilson, who is the executive producer for “The Osbournes”.

TK: Is your series signed with a network yet, or is it just in production?

LB: We really don’t know anything. I was just out there with Jeff working on it and you know how these things where they consider you to be hot. Jeff is considered to be hot right now and I’m pretty hot, so we have this opportunity and then you try and get it done while you’re still hot, and they’ll say “Ooh, you’re hot” and put you on the air. But it really has nothing to do with reality. It’s who’s there. It’s unbelievable. It’s really like buying a lottery ticket.

TK: I had to go back and watch “Hannah and Her Sisters” this morning because I didn’t remember you being in it before.

LB: Yeah, well, it’s hard – I had a lot more hair.

TK: What was it like to make your film debut working for Woody Allen?

LB: It was unbelievable. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. He was unbelievable to be around – he’s a hero of mine, and it was a real pleasure. He was great, and he taught me a lot. Even though I was in a movie for the first time, he relaxed me completely. The guy I was with [Christian Clemenson] had never done a film either. We shot the first scene, and Woody said, “We’re gonna rehearse this a couple of times,” and we did what we thought were rehearsals and after the second rehearsal, he said “That’s good, we’ve got it.” And I went, “Oh, okay. I get it now. Don’t treat it as such a big deal. Just relax and have fun – and it was fun.”

TK: How did you come across that first role?

LB: Juliet Taylor, his casting director, who’s a genius, just basically sees every person in New York who’s a performer, and she says “You’ll be in a Woody Allen movie,” and lo and behold, two years later, I was.

TK: How much do you work with the other people on the Daily Show?

LB: I have a couple writers I work with and a producer, but I’m not involved with the rest of the show.

TK: Do you think there are any comedic targets that are just too easy? Or do you put anything off-limits to yourself?

LB: I put things off limits that people cover really well. The first time I was working clubs and Denis Leary was working clubs, I talked about smoking, and he talked about smoking. He did it so much better, so I just stopped talking about it. The differences between men and women, that sort of stuff, there are guys that do it and that’s what they do. I just do whatever strikes me. I never thought I’d be talking about airlines, but then we’ve got this air line security, so now I’m talking about airlines.

TK: How much turnover do you get with material? If someone was to come to the shows in Des Moines [September 26-28 at the Funny Bone comedy club], how much of the show would be different?

LB: It would be about 10 to 15 percent different, because there are a couple of things I may be adding.

TK: What setting do you prefer for comedic performances?

LB: I like both [large shows and clubs]. You kind of lean toward larger settings only because it gives you more time and people are paying more attention, but I still love doing clubs. With a large setting, you don’t fool around as much. I will, but you still don’t do as much fooling around as you might do in a club, where you don’t feel as obligated to kill yourself in the process. When people come to see you in a theater, an expectation is there. Especially in a series, where it’s me and some guy talking about aliens, that list of things that I’m kicking off this series is something I’ll cherish forever. I’ve been put in a lecture series. It’s phenomenal.

TK: Do you think the backlash towards Bill Maher on TV or the wave of hyper-patriotism has had any effect on your comedy?

LB: No, if anything it’s just made me madder. You just kind of go “What?” It’s like [President Bush’s] first speeches about Iraq. I’ll grant you, there’s a reasonable enough reason for a discourse on it, but you don’t go and say “This is what we’re doing,” and not talking to us. And now he’s backtracked completely. It’s extraordinary. You can be patriotic without saying it. That’s the thing. They’ve never gotten that point, and they never will, so you might as well just forget it. It just doesn’t seem to be a learned thing.

TK: Do you feel like the Lewis Black on “The Daily Show” is the real you? Are you really that angry?

LB: When I’m in Los Angeles, I’m that angry by eleven o’clock in the morning. I literally was just there, and I was that crazy by 11. I was there for a series of meetings, and I came out of a meeting with E! Entertainment and I was psychotic by the end of it. So it’s a part of me, but it isn’t me. I don’t come off stage and act like that. If I acted like that all the time, I’d be dead.

TK: So it’s really more of a comedic persona?

LB: It’s certainly a part of me, it’s probably what I was like when I was 14.

TK: I’ve read that you’re involved with the 52nd Street project. What is that exactly?

LB: It’s a project where we work with disadvantaged kids who live in New York City and work with them in theatre. It started as a project of a very close friend of mine, and we would write plays and then perform with the kids. It’s since grown into a larger theatrical project. You can literally come in there when you’re eight and leave when you’re 16 or 17. We’ve established a scholarship in my brother’s name for kids who come out of the program and a number of kids who stay in school and maintain a B average will get about $1,000 from us.

TK: How did you first get involved with the project?

LB: Well, I’ve always worked with kids in the theatre. I’ve done it since when I was a kid. I’ve always kind of been in one program or another. I’ve written plays for kids, and worked in creative dramatics and all of that stuff you do with theatre people. It’s always been something I’ve done, and I’ve become very involved with the project. There were not a lot of kids when we were involved initially, and there’s still not a lot of kids, but it has a pretty profound effect. It’s kind of a mentoring program in theatre. I mean, if you want someone to mentor your child, you want it to be me.

TK: What kind of plays do you write?

LB: They’re mostly comedies, very dark comedies.

TK: What kind of differences do you see between working on television and being in front of people on stage as a comedian or actor?

LB: Energy. There’s just nothing that compares to being in front of a live audience. When you’re doing it on your own, you’re the one editing – you don’t have to discuss it with anyone else, which is exhausting sometimes. When you get what their take on humor is when you’ve done it most of your adult life and you’ve got to listen to someone who’s never really done it, especially on television, it’s astonishing.

TK: What’s the best project you’ve ever turned down?

LB: I turned down “Billy Bathgate,” which is not a great project, but it’s a pretty good project. It’s got Dustin Hoffman, but I turned it down to do “What About Bob?” and then they cut me out of the movie.

TK: If you hadn’t made it as a comedian or an actor, what do you think you’d be doing right now?

LB: Teaching theatre in a small Southern girls’ school where they’d never met a Jewish man before. But I’d probably be teaching theater and writing plays.

TK: You mentioned Dom Irrera and Dave Attell. Who are some of your other favorites on the comedic circuit?

LB: Dom, Dave, Mitch Hedberg, Kathleen Madigan, there are a number of them that I really enjoy. Larry Reed, who never gets any attention, and there are really a bunch of them. That’s just a few who spring to mind.

TK: What would you say your biggest success in life is?

LB: My biggest success in life is that I’ve always done what it is I wanted to do. I got out of school, I spent a year working for the federal government and then the rest of my life I’ve made the choices on what it is I wanted to do. Sometimes those choices haven’t been the smartest choices, and I’m coming to terms with them, but I’ve always done what I wanted to do. Really, that’s it. I didn’t care about the money – ever. I cared about being happy, especially in enjoying my work. I think that’s vital. I don’t know why parents tell their kids what they think they should do. I don’t know what these parents are thinking. I think that’s the major life lesson. I sound like Rosie O’Donnell, but I think it’s true.

TK: Anything we should watch for?

LB: Well, I’ll be on David Letterman for his 9th anniversary show, and if people want to keep track of me, they can check www.lewis black.net.

TK: If people want to buy your albums, where should they go?

LB: Well, there’s amazon.com, but if you go to lewisblack.net, they’ll connect you to two sites.: rockboss.com and junobeach.com, which also has a pretty good interview with me.