This much I know - Mario Rosenstock

I am not a cruel person, I don’t want to demean anyone and I don’t want to bring their personal lives into it.

The new RTÉ series has a whole new of new set of them. Frances Brennan is new, and Dr Eva. Here is someone with an East Berlin-meets-Longford accent, telling us what to do with our bodies — I’d call that good comic material.

I was an outgoing, gregarious and playful child. I was ambitious and eager to please, but that was driven by a fear of rejection.

I was always shooting for the moon. Taking part in a production of Death of a Salesman when I was fifteen was a turning point. From then on, my plan was to become an actor.

I was always interested in political people and why they want to be powerful and why we listen to them. I studied economics and politics in Trinity, but my main reason for doing so was to join Players, the student acting society. I started working at a young age — I was in Glenroe while still in college. I never had so many friends, the pints were always on me.

My parents supported my decision to act but my mother did think I could have been a good barrister because I’m good at arguing and like to get my own way.

I’m meritocratic, I believe hard work should be rewarded, but that is not the way acting always works. By twenty-six, I started to feel resentful about acting. I’d do a great job, and then the phone wouldn’t ring. I was sharing a flat with a girl from New Zealand who’d just started working in Today FM. She heard me in the shower doing Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and got me the opportunity of a comedy slot on Ian Dempsey’s show.

Once it became a regular feature, the pressure to come up with material was intense. I’d never written anything before and found the weekly deadlines daunting. I nearly had an emotional breakdown and used to end up in tears.

In my head I was still a full-time actor, working as a part-time comedian. It took two years for me to fall in love with the comedy and take ownership of it and be able to say: this is what I do. Then I stopped fearing it and was able to start banking ideas and planning material well in advance.

I’m a massive sports fan. It can reveal a lot about inner character, it turns life into theatre. I wanted to be a professional tennis player but I was handicapped by my own ability.

I’m no longer afraid to be stupid — it can lead to much more advanced ideas.

I believe in healthy cynicism, but too much of it stifles creativity and you never get anywhere.

My main fault is being blunt. I’m overly candid and arrogant at times.

Most of my life, it was all about me. That ended when I became a parent and there’s something so lovely about that.

So far the big lesson for me is — don’t be afraid to fail. If you are going to do something, give yourself to it completely — even if that means finding out that your best isn’t the best.

The Mario Rosenstock Show airs on RTÉ Two on Monday at 9.30pm.