17th July 2010

Where do you think your interest in comedy comes from? At school were you the class clown?

Yeah I was always goofing off a lot when I was younger. But I think the comedy comes from, especially with this Special, identity because for 35 years I didn’t know who I was and that’s kind of what I started writing about. That’s where this Special in particular comes from.

What made you want to get into comedy as a career?

I worked at a comedy club when I got out of college on a whim and I started watching all the comics and thought that it looked like a lot of fun. I went to another comedy club in New York City and tried it out and it went down really well. I thought that’s it for me, that’s what I want to try. And I just pursued it to the end.

Where do you get your material from?

Well before it was all observational stuff, I would just write about silly things that I’d thought about that would make me laugh or things that I thought other people would laugh at. With this Special in particular I was getting so bogged down with trying to relate with people I just thought to hell with it and I talked about race and identity through that and identity through music and identity through the different sexes so that’s kind of where it all came from and I literally just forced myself to write about those subjects and that’s how the material in the Special came about.

Comedians can venture into some sensitive areas, have you ever stopped yourself from writing something because it goes into too sensitive an area?

Not really I think as long as there’s some intelligence laced with an opinion and it’s topped off with an abundance of humour then no. I think that anything’s fair game. I joke about Holocaust movies in there, about there’s so many in Hollywood each year, and that could be a touchy subject but it’s one of my favourite jokes, I think it’s a really fun joke to do and a really smart joke to do and I like it. With this Special I get away with a lot more than I used to so once I thought this I thought boy, you really can talk about just about anything so that’s kind of the basis of this third hour that I’m writing right now.

You’ve worked on some of the big American shows (The Tonight Show, Jay Leno, Jimmy Kimmel) what is it like working on these shows compared to normal stand-up?

There’s no pressure in normal stand-up comedy. I mean if you fail it’s a comedy club, its part of the job. If you fail on TV you’re not going to get asked back so you better do a damn good job. When you’re in a club you’re in an environment that you’re use to, you do it all the time. When you’re on TV there’s 4 cameras pointed at you, a live studio audience, there’s definitely a lot more pressure on you, you can definitely feel it.

Having done two Specials before this one do you now think you’re in a good position to launch your third?

Yeah I think the first half-hour was just a young kid who had just enough to fill a half-hour. The hour Special was good; I don’t think it was great. With this one as I’ve gotten older and more experienced and pushed myself more. I didn’t know I was capable of pulling off some of the jokes that I was able to with this one. I truly believe that this is going to be as good as a Special as you’re going to see. It’s as good as anything I’ve seen in the last two or three years. I truly think it’s great, I busted my ass on it and it was worth all the work. Whether other people like it or not that’s to be decided so we’ll see. I could go the Oasis route and just say this is the greatest stand-up Special ever, it’s going to blow your mind [laughter].