The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #4 Alex Brightman

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

Today's guest and I have a lot in common, we both went to college for musical theater, we both acted in the upcoming Billy Crystal/Tiffany Haddish movie Here Today, he's performed in Broadway's Beetlejuice, School of Rock, Matilda, Big Fish, Wicked and Glory Days, and I've seen several of those shows. ALEX BRIGHTMAN is our guest and I did everything I could to find the downsides to having the life I've always dreamed of. We talked growing up in Saratoga, going to a Jesuit prep school while being Jewish, getting death threats on instagram, and how Alex ends confrontations with people who unapologetically bump into him on the street (a steely "lead with compassion.") We also play audio from one of my girlfriend's night terror episodes WHICH SHE SAID I COULD DO! Join The Downside Patreon for ad-free and bonus episodes on the 1st and 15th of every month. This month's bonus episodes explore the downsides of funerals and celebrity encounters. Fun and sad! Follow ALEX BRIGHTMAN on twitter Watch ALEX BRIGHTMAN's Tony Awards performance as Beetlejuice on youtube Follow GIANMARCO SORESI on twitter, instagram, tiktok, & youtube Check out GIANMARCO SORESI's special 'Shelf Life' on amazon & on spotify Subscribe to GIANMARCO SORESI's mailchimp Follow RUSSELL DANIELS on twitter & instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

all right welcome to episode i think this is four of the downside uh uh russell how are you how are you doing i'm great how are you i'm i'm actually okay today one two three you're listening to the downside with john mar Downside. With Gianmarco Cerezi. Welcome, welcome. I surprised you there, Russell. You expect me. I did. Sometimes it's shitty. Every once in a while, things are okay.

You seem relaxed today. Yeah, I figured that I was going to ask you how you were doing, and you were going to say shitty, because you got the second Moderna shot yesterday. Yes, I actually feel a lot. i feel way better than at my first dose um which is strange it is very weird i feel really good i i got a little chilly and a little uh like like um achy and tired uh last night and this morning but i feel right as rain i i got my second shot on on thursday and then when we booked this guest

you know it's a big guest and i was like what the fuck was i thinking we booked it right after the shot i was worried you were going to be incapacitated i was like i can't interview someone alone i'm very scared i'm very nervous so thank you for being here i appreciate it yeah of course i feel like we're both pretty relaxed yeah yeah we're you know for now for now well you know my girlfriend she got the second shot she's got there are two like bumps on her arm that that happened after the shot i don't know if it's the shot related but it's it's like a centimeter away from where the needle went in that she she posted on instagram asking you know for people you know all the doctors that follow her to weigh in on what these bumps might be. And I'm like, you know, don't post this. There's people out there

who are going to see this and go, okay, I guess I won't get the shot. Yeah. I perform it at LOL comedy club and we get a lot of people from Florida and you really don't understand. Like I always, you know, I knew there were people who were anti-vaxxers or who don't believe in coronavirus, but until you're in a room full of Floridians who like you talk about the vaccine, they're like, I'm not getting that fucking vaccine. You're like, this is really bad. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's interesting, too, is that we get so many vaccines that we don't that most people are like, whatever. That's just been around since I've existed.

So that's just been around since i've existed so that's fine um so it's interesting because i think i was talking to someone and they were saying there's a lot of legal precedent in terms of like like your kids going to school or going to college like that's gonna you have to do that so it'll be interesting to see what pops up from all that but we got it we got it we're good i'm happy comedy clubs are reopening again uh they opened yesterday 33 capacity so it's the first time some of these clubs can can claim that they're sold out it's very exciting for them i i get to finally witness you know how people are doing more shows than i am and feeling bitter again it really feels feels like good for you

beginning of 2020 yes very exciting very exciting. Very, very well. I had four shows today. Two just got canceled. So we really are back in business. But I'm good. We're healthy. I'm going to be grateful for that. I'm just, you know, I'm so excited.

I can finally stop washing my hands every time I shit. You know, normally we ramble a little bit more, but we're very excited to have this guest. You know, WTF with Marc Maron. I remember when he had Barack Obama on his podcast, and it was a very, very big deal for him. And I feel like what Barack is to Marc Maron, this next guest is to me. So I want to bring him on. Please welcome Alex Brightman. Welcome to The Downside. welcome alex brightman welcome to the downside thank you very much what that is and that to be right after you said washing your hands after you shit to write into that is is better than the barack thing um no it's very you're you're you're a pioneer one of the first straight white men to lead a broadway show i uh yeah definitely twice and get really rewarded for it really heavily very rewarded two time tony nominated yeah uh performer when when do you want to win one i would have liked to have

won the last one to be honest that was the one you thought like i thought that i put a lot of work into the show and i'd put a lot of work. I put five years into that show. And so, and I am not in this for the awards. I never have been. And I was validated in my own head after getting nominated going like, oh yeah, no, this doesn't matter. I get it. Got it. Okay, good. I'm here for the right reasons. But I did put a lot of work in and I think that, I don't know, I would like to have had one maybe. Did you have a speech ready to go? I did have a speech ready to go. I had it in my pocket. I folded it up. I don't know, I would like to have had one, maybe. Did you have a speech ready to go? I did have a speech ready to go. I had it in my pocket.

I folded it up. I don't remember what I did with it. It might still be in the jacket pocket, actually, to be honest. Did it end with love is love is love is love? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said love is love is love is love. Ooh, I like that. Progressive.

Russell was asking, who won that year? Santino Fontana from Tootsie. Okay, okay. Well, I'm really excited to have you because I went to college for musical theater, I was a musical theater kid, and you kind of had the life that I dreamed of. Yeah, and you're kind of had the the life that i i dreamed of um and you're jewish too right i'm jewish as well so everything and i really want to find out why it's not as good as i think um so i'm very happy to have you here just just talk uh but it's we we should we should first mention you we did a movie together um i don't know what we're allowed to say about the movie because...

We can say that we did it. We can say that we did it. We did a movie with Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish. Very excited, yes. I didn't do anything with Tiffany Haddish. Yeah, I didn't have any scenes either, but it didn't stop me from putting it

in all my bios. I might have said in one bio at one point really early on before I really looked at it again, I think I said, starring alongside Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish is what i put in mind and then i and then we saw a cut of the film and i was like i should take the word starring i think it was in it's in like the the the wikipedia page for the film it mentions your name oh that's that's exciting it was it

was a lot of fun didn't didn't star it, but it was really fun to do. We can talk about the extra, that one part with the saxophone player. Not only would we should talk about that, I will leave if we don't talk about that. Okay, so it's about like an SNL-type show. Billy Crystal's a writer on an SNL-type show. And there's a band like there is on sorry night live and uh the band doesn't have lines so you know to to save money it's extras um probably i would imagine they did an audition for this and i think it was more like

a central casting they kind of got it on look and they looked right for it for sure yeah definitely i actually really thought they were musicians which makes this even better like i really genuinely thought they were musicians so so there's there's some scene there's some some dramatic scene where the band needs to play and this one guy he was very friendly he really looked like great fresh out he leaves a look like a saxophone player and he had a saxophone and so he's he's he's he's jamming he's jamming on the saxophone he is indeed but he forgot to put his mouth on the piece that you oh no slowly but surely at each as each take happened we all sort of started noticing it and we kept going like when when when the band starts playing,

look at the guy with the saxophone. And then every time, as I, every time I mentioned it to somebody, I thought this would be the time where he figures it out. He never figured it out. And it was, and the,

and actually the more takes that happened, it kept moving slightly down, almost in a guitar like fashion by the end. Wait, now, did you guys alert anyone in control of this production? I wasn't hired to be a you know assistant director on this thing i sincerely i really i i was looking forward to

seeing it in the final cut i desperately wanted to be like looking for it and i think it's there i just don't i only have seen like a cut of it once and so i i'm looking forward to seeing if it is there as sort of an easter egg yeah we watched it we watched the premiere over zoom yeah um i mean i hope there's i hope it's i hope there's a big red carpet because i imagine billy chris so there's going to be like all the the comedy idols on that red carpet you can't do it you you can't get you know mel brooks until he's vaccinated on a red carpet you got to keep him him in a bubble. Wait, Mel Brooks is in the movie? No, he's just friends. I'm just saying like him and Billy Crystal, they're all pals.

I would like to do that premiere. I think the Zoom, I mean, like it was nice to see everybody, but it really was a very, very vivid reminder of, wow, this is not how you want to do shit. And I have these two pictures that you took, Alex, of me and a certain character that I'm just dying to post. Oh, yeah. I'm dying to post it. Now, you don't have even Instagram. Why is this, Alex?

I got a death threat on Instagram. And so you want to talk about some of the downsides of being a popular figure in a world. Please. I Instagram. I never liked Instagram. It was never for me so that was that to start it off like i even when it began i didn't know what to do with it it's not my medium twitter way more my thing more my speed i think and i didn't want to have if i needed

something to say i didn't want to have to accompany it with a picture like i didn't feel like it was like that was like the price of admission to my thoughts was a picture. I didn't have that. And so I just never posted. And so when I was in shows, there was like show publicists and stuff that'd be like, you have to post. And so that's when I would do it. Um, but I never felt any joy doing it. I never really scrolled it. Like, you know, well, I mean, taking a shit, I guess that's when you do it. Um, um, but I never really found much joy doing it anyway. And then when you're in a show that's popular and people post about it all the time, I get tagged in like playbill photos in the audience and I'm here and there's a million after every show you're tagged in dozens and dozens and dozens of posts, which is cool.

Cause a lot of them say like, it was great. We really liked it. And that's really lovely. And that's a lovely boost, especially if you're having not uh a great day you know that's a nice thing to look at however there are have you heard of trolls i have i actually used to be one nice um they exist and they're real and it doesn't matter how kind or or generous you are with your time and stuff like that they just just exist. They just are their own autonomous things. And it thankfully in my, in my sphere, meaning me, like as far as I deal with the like people that I would consider fans, 99.9% of them are extremely warm, which has been really great. And then there is that 0.1%, which is really makes up for the rest because it's just too familiar too soon um it's they think they you owe them something you don't and they treat you as if like you are their best friend and best friends don't

betray each other and so there was just one day where i was heading to a two-show day and i just checked my instagram and i had a message request and i and i said you know i'd like to like look what they are if there's a friend in the audience i like to know if the people are going to be there um and i just something caught my eye about i can't remember what it said but caught my eye clicked on it and it pops up and it's a picture with um the message and it's a picture of a young looking lady um with like i would say 20s okay and half the picture it's like half of her face stone-faced into the camera eyeball directly into the camera and says i'm warning you not to come out the stage door tonight oh my god this is at the top of a two-show day i'm in a car i'm in an uber heading

to my matinee and and then you kind of look at the picture and you realize she's standing in at like front of house like she's like in front of our theater oh my god she's not like at her own thing and so i immediately by the time i got to the theater i had like texted my stage manager and stuff like that and there was like the head of schubert security in my dressing room and they had like already sort of contacted counter terror and it was this whole thing i'm shaking to bits and and i absolutely like well i can't do my show anymore yeah like i just was like at all ever again like now and i never think about it like you don't think about there's 1200 people sitting there and you're like all it would take is one person like and you're standing there you're the only thing on stage sitting like you're

a sitting duck i never thought of myself as a sitting duck until that moment and then i did the show because they said that we they found her they like they sort of found sort of they did they did and it turned out it was a misunderstanding um wait what do you mean misunderstanding she was like i'm gonna give you a big hug you walk out that stage what what if i didn't what if i didn't clear that up i was like let's just move on um it was a misunderstanding and that's how we, and that's how I met my wife, you know? And so of course, beautiful story. I, what I believe what ended up happening, uh,

what I was told was that it was a person who was trying to warn me about the crazy people, the stage door. There's crazy people here today. They're going to like be like every day is they're like, and this was their way of doing it. That's what, that's the story i was fed and that's the story it makes it easier for me to believe um and it i did both shows and every time i was doing uh sort of a side or a monologue adjacent thing to the audience that day and night i was racked with fear like complete i have never i've never felt afraid in a very long time. I felt anxiety, I felt all that kind of stuff.

But I felt actual, like, I had, like, wincing. I was, like, just had those, like, wincing for two and a half hours because I was, like, waiting for somebody to pull a gun. Yeah, I've always thought that if I was on stage, that would be, I think it was, Eddie Murphy did a bit where this was before, speaking of Obama, before Obama, he was talking about the first black president giving a speech right and

how he'd be moving around and i always thought like if that thought got in my head that someone might try to shoot me on stage it would be really incapacitated i mean it was real now did she watch the show that day or no it was like i don't think i think they i think they were able to like i think they really they flagged it they tracked it down they like found that she had bought a ticket um which like was but i actually do from everything that i've heard after this do believe it was not intended to be followed through with anything malicious i do think it was like notice me she needed like a photo of her smiling and referencing the large crowd instead of just like,

I mean, dead cold, dead staring into my camera. But I just, you know, it's funny because that to me, I see a lot of that. That's the thing.

Like you see a lot of notice me people notice me is are like, and I'm one of those. I think like a lot of actors have that notice me gene in them, right? That's like the thing. And so when you're not an actor and you want to be friendly or near an actor sometimes you develop that gene but you just don't know how to cultivate it because you're not an actor so you're trying to do the thing you've seen me do but in real life and that's not what i do in real life everything i am on stage i am not off stage sure and i'm not saying

i'm like steve martin where it's like you, people are like, you know, do the Steve Martin thing. I'm like, I'm always gregarious and people find me in public. And because in Midtown, I'd say those 12 blocks, I would say that I am lowercase F famous in those 12 blocks because of the shows I've done. I'm always friendly with people. So I was so even more shocked when something so crazy came my way i was like wow like you can be nice and still have enemies with the stage door like i i mean it's such a you know for the when i was a little kid i saw wicked i don't know if i saw you in it i don't think so i think it was before you were uh depends on what year if you remember the year i could tell you i i don't even want to know alex i I'm already jealous enough. I don't want to have seen you.

I was in a show, right? But I was in a show before that on Broadway, too. Okay, keep going. Yeah, we're going to talk about glory days first. So I just remember that moment. Idina Menzel signed in my poster, and then she got in the car with Taye Diggs, her former husband. And she pointed at me and waved. And it meant so much.

But the stage door, I mean, it can be vicious. First of all, you got a lot of those fucking, you got these like 50 year old balding guys, like they're clearly getting signatures just so they can sell this shit on eBay. Absolutely. 100% every single performance. And they're there before the show. They're there. Now, Now they kind of vulture around before the show, and they do this thing, which I love, which is they go, they're so rude. They're never, ever, ever nice, which is so weird. Because it's like they're asking for something that clearly they're going to try to make money off of.

The least they could do is be nice. But I think they've done this for decades. And so they're just like, it's transactional at this point. They go, sign this. And it's a card. It's a white flash card. And it's clearly not memorabilia from the show it's like meant to be scammed it's like and like if they're like use this pen and i sign it and he goes can you do it clearer oh my god i can't and then so you so i did i did that for a little while

because i kind of didn't know i was like maybe this is like the optimism in my brain i was like maybe this is like for his scrapbook like he's like really wants to just log who he's met and these are there and then i got wise to it and then they're like now print your name on the bottom so i know who it is and it's like so filthy and that is why this by the hundreds they're gonna start getting you to do cameos no say happy birthday to susan over here uh i say happy birthday to susan but cover your mouth like so they so they can so then they can like pop in a name and sell it every video then a new name happy birthday to garrick you know whatever i just i just i remember uh i mean you know when when i was in high school i would do the stage door thing and i remember i saw christina applegate in um sweet

charity and as we leave she's going to her car and she's not signing that day you know she's she's busy and some guys some guy is like learn how to sing and i was like oh my god i would never come out again i would say well that's it we're done with the whole stage door practice that is that is one percent yeah that's interesting now there must be days where you're just like i'm gonna go right to the thing it's just right like i mean or do you you feel like you have to is there like do you set a day to do that kind of thing or you're just like whenever you're feeling overwhelmed or like i I typically, I mean, for the most part, except near the end of Beetlejuice, because things, I just like,

was working on other things beyond that show. So I needed, like, I wanted my time when I could have it. I typically do the stage door all the time. It's, I like doing it. I really enjoy meeting people. And I, that's why it sucked when like, when it goes wrong, it sucks, because I really like doing it.

It's like, I really enjoy seeing people, because I was that person person i loved going to the stage door and uh when i don't do it it is usually not met with any sort of vitriol but sometimes you get it on twitter that's like we waited for five hours after the show and at 2 a.m we i had to take my my 10 year old daughter and tell her that you weren't going to be there and i was like yeah and like you get these big threads and you're like yo like did you enjoy the show yeah like what i just did two and a half hours of that for you guys like i did that's what i had my little retort back when somebody's like can you take me backstage which is an way too often request sometimes which is weird because it's a liability and they go can you and i go i we can't i give them a spiel that's like nice and then they go

fine and you go i go but you know what i can do and they go what i go i could do a two and a half hour broadway musical for you two and a half hours ago yeah so you're commenting this on every single one of these threads going hey fucker i like you you do you still respond or did you get to a point you're like i just have to ignore all of this i don't really typically yeah that's not really i i don't typically respond for two reasons to that because one it gets to me and i don't want to speak off the cuff because i uh i i don't yell i've never i haven't yelled in 20 25 years but I hold up serious house you've never yelled seriously no seriously that's amazing for sure but in life I learned from my dad when you

yet when you when you scream at somebody they don't hear the words they just hear the screaming that's what I remember that you learned from your dad because he was always screaming at you or he taught you that lesson yeah between hitting yeah he was always really really really really insightful um no no he just he's it's a quote it's not his quote i don't think but he it was something i took pretty i was like that makes sense so i am much more vicious when i'm quiet and i know you can be very quiet on twitter because you're not speaking at all so i sometimes caught myself writing a tweet that was like insanely cutting in a way that i'd go well this is this is like, I shouldn't say this no matter what.

And I just stopped doing that because it could get, this was years ago. And I was like, this could get me in trouble. And now look at Twitter. Now, I mean, you,

you, you have, you could have a typo and your career. So it's like, sure. I don't typically respond anymore. We, well,

that's why I think it's funny that, you know, Instagram is the one for me, Twitter is the scarier one I think Twitter is the one that I'm like I gotta get to a place where I can leave this site it's just built in a way where things can exponentially spread around

in a way that's scary you read everything John Mark I read everything I respond to everything with a picture saying don't leave the stage door tonight I will say that when I left Instagram, and I was on Facebook as well. Facebook was my longest love affair. And I left Facebook, and it felt great.

And then when I left Instagram, it was instant. I had over 100,000 people that would follow me on there, right? I know. I say that very calculatingly knowing i'm talking to you but yeah that'd be great if you could pass that you could like pass them off like like points you have so many fans that there is an account on instagram because i remember because when we tried to tag you uh you for those listening you you were a guest on an uncle function show the sketch team i'm on with russell and there is an account on there i think it's

alex brightman and it's like this is not alex brightman he is not an instagram don't be scammed i think what's ironic about that i think that actually account is like real alex brightman and it goes actually not and the subreddit was like not actually real alex sure which is super fun but i think that's getting off instagram i i get a wash of like oh good that's like another thing i don't like I didn't need. And I felt really good until my at the time I had a publicist because of the show. And we were like around Tony season and instant like 30 seconds after I deleted the account, two phone calls, manager, publicist. There was like, what just happened?

And I said, I deleted my account. And they said, you just do you act it? You deactivated it or you deleted it? And I said, I deleted my account. And they said, you deactivated it or you deleted it? And I said, it's gone. And they were like, didn't know what to do. And I was like, look, if I don't get a role now because of my Instagram, then I don't want that role. That's not what I want.

That's not at all what I'm here for. Cut to five years from now, five years from now, you're ushering a Broadway show and you're like, I should have never deleted that instagram i know i uh that's that's uh a very noble of you let's let's go let's start because you know we're gonna get into theater stuff but let's talk about you grew up in in saratoga i did a little research because i had read i had read i remember before i met you i had read that new New York Times article where you talked about how, because I had gone to the CAP 21, the musical theater summer camp. And I read the article and you said, you know, essentially in the article, you were like, they weren't qualified to teach me.

And I read it at the time. It wasn't essentially, I said that. Oh, yes, yes. Did I get the quote right? These jackasses were not qualified to teach me jack shit. I mean, they really, you know know they that article it was a strong it was a strong one and i agree with you very strongly but i remember at the time doing that thing where i agreed with you but i was like yeah fuck this guy oh they weren't qualified to teach you motherfucker well i went for four years and now i'm like he was

right let me say this i know people that went there and are way better for it. And I went, my experience there from the jump was like, not good. And it just was like, they took way too many people my year. And so I felt really lost. And like, it was a lot of things that were said and not executed. Like doors always open. And like every door was closed. Sure.

Things like that. Like, and I just sort of like, didn't feel like i didn't want to waste not my money my parents money um very expensive school very expensive extremely expensive and and then you start to feel it that's why i didn't that's why you should never think about it i think and i started going like how much money did i just did my did my family just lose today for me to sit in the class for eight hours and not do a fucking thing and i was was like, I don't learn by watching. I sometimes do, but I learn by doing. I learn.

And so it just kept week after week after week. I was like, I'm doing my work. And every time I'd get up, I would do my work. So the work ethic shows, right? You do your work. You do a good job. And I would go up and I'd do my thing. And they'd go, great, sit down.

And I felt resented for like doing a good job and so then when the people went up that clearly didn't want to do their work or were still figuring themselves out or there for the social aspect um go up and they were like i just sort of learned this this morning the teacher was like now i can be this teacher ah yes and there's a lot of problems there's a lot of problems. There's a lot of problems with these. And then you also, I always resented the acting classes where they opened it up to the class. Like, oh, what did you think about it? So-and-so.

And I'm like, why are we fucking asking this freshman what they thought of my performance? I just, it's also so like, the whole thing is so subjective that like it's, even to do that kind of stuff sometimes I think is really,

I don't know, like to grade it is super weird to me. to compare to compare and contrast is super weird if it i criticism is cool if you get if you know how to move it forward but a criticism is terrible if it's just criticism keeps beating you into the ground and that's what it kind of started to feel like one of the funniest things i remember in my in my conservatory there was an acting class and there was this woman who had struggled with acting. And in one scene, she, like, had a sweater. Like, she was holding a sweater.

And she used to, like, gesture very strangely. And she was holding a sweater for this whole scene. And one of the students was like, I really love how the sweater and holding it, you know, made your gestures, like, it kind of fixed the weird gestures you do. It kind of prevented you from doing that. And the teacher was like, yeah, that's great's great i was like so what's the lesson here hold on to something for the rest of your fucking career so you stop how do you apply that like that's my that's a big one too how do you apply these weird theater games that you're playing in the class to do like you know you do a do a push-up when you have a big line it's like where am i doing that in the audition at all ever there's there's so many fucked up theater school things that you don't realize how fucked up they are until you're way

out of it i think of like conversations i would have with the teacher when i was in grad school teachers when i was in grad school i was 23 and they'd be like talking to me about like brian dennehy's career because he's big and i was like what are you talking about like like i'm one time a teacher was like you know i have a lot of larger actor friends that i could put you in touch with i was like what are you taught like you're like just weird things we were like like why is this a part of my our conversation has nothing to do with it's it's bizarre the things you don't realize how weird it is. Fat shaming disguised as notes. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I thought was the weirdest, and I've heard a lot about this in other schools, and I've talked about this with millions of friends of mine. I have millions of friends. And so that is retaliatory notes. Is when you give a note about somebody and then you go up and they go, I have something to say about your performance.

They didn't have the note before, but because you've noted them, it is only fair that they are now allowed to note you. And the note doesn't make any sense or whatever. And I found that to be way true. We did, because my conservatory was pretty small. We were 11 by the end. And our teacher did an acting class junior year

where we all went in a circle and each of us got to say one thing we really liked about the person and one thing we thought they couldn't prove about themselves. And it was chaos. No. It was chaos. That's a reality show. That's a reality show. I mean, that is a bad reality competition.

So you left when? After one semester? After two years. Oh, you were? After two years. Oh, you were there for two years? Yeah, freshman, sophomore year. And then going into my junior year, I had left CAP 21 to go to the Playwrights Horizons musical theater practicum

that was being sort of like developed from the ground up. And I was like, that's what I'm interested in. Like an acting-based musical theater program because the one at CAP was a little more dance-based. And I was like, that's not what I do. And I was like an acting based musical theater program. Because the one that cap was a little more dance based. And I was, that's not what I do. And I was like, this is going to be fun because I wanted to go.

That was one of the studios I wanted to go to anyway. I want to play rights horizons was where I was kind of looking towards. But because I sang and did musical theater and that was my resume, that's where they put me. And then I think a week in maybe, or not even, I had just kind of went and auditioned over the summer and then booked a play and I um left because it was in Los Angeles the history boys I'm here to the

history boys by Alan Bennett and it was with the national theater but and it was like everything I wanted to do and then when I did it it was like for me and I think this is in the article it's like it was better than the two years combined. Sure. Doing the three months of that show was everything I needed to know about being a professional, doing an eight show week, working like crazy, knowing that there's no means to an end when you're working on a show. The means are the end, that kind of stuff. And that's why I carry all that stuff today in shows that I do. I mean, that makes sense.

After my sophomore year, I was cast in a community theater production of Oklahoma and my experience was not the same as yours. No, but, uh, no, I, um,

did you guys do a cool one? You guys do like a cool, no, not a cool one. No, not where there were people get like shot willy nilly and it's a contemporary. No,

it was traditional. okay. So, so let's, let's go, go back to Saratoga. You, you grew up in Saratoga,

born there, born in mountain view and adjacent city. Yeahoga. You grew up in Saratoga. Born there? Born in Mountain View, an adjacent city. Yeah, and I grew up in Saratoga. What's the downside of living in Saratoga? The downside of living in Saratoga is, for me, it moved a little too slow. It sort of just didn't have—it's not L.A. It's not that part of California, so it's not showbiz and that kind of like kind of pace. Although I don't really know of L.A. very much, to be quite honest.

It's not a place I frequented. But Northern California is that stereotypical like everything's cool. Like it's very like everything is like surf free pothead type of Jews saying because you're Jewish. Right. Yeah. Were there a lot of jews you just sounded like the guys at 72nd street you jewish you do are you jewish excuse me they don't even have an accent really it's just when you ask are you jewish that many times it goes yeah it turns into j-o-o-s-h what do you say do you say yes to them i i usually fake a phone call about eight feet from them and then yeah uh pass them i go i go not right now i go not the time or so i just sort of do that i go i say i used to be until you

approached me i that's super fun i there's one vine do you remember vine i yes i do um so there was one vine that i loved and it was a guy who would seek those guys out and he would get sort of like have the face of like ask me and he'd have the camera under him so you're getting a shot of just like his like basically you get the whole interaction and he goes he goes i don't have a lot of time can you run with me and they run with him trying to talk to him about it and it's super funny it it bugs me man i there's something about like assumed camaraderie that i just don't like this idea like ah my brother ah yes here you go one of my pet peeves too familiar too soon no don't thank you also i don't i don't appreciate

sometimes feeling stereotyped like they're like you're jewish sure sure i don't think i would assume you were you were jewish uh i don't i don't know i i was i was called in high school i was one of my nicknames was jew so that was uh one so there weren't a lot of jews there if that was your nickname you must have been a one enough yeah i think that where i went i went to high school at a all boys jesuit sports prep high school um oh god so a lot of it was like conservative dudes and like it was a lot of like a lot of religious like a big religious kind of uh and jesuits are like gets the slap on the wrist type catholics and so it was um yeah i was known as the jew or jew seriously dead serious. The teachers too, or were they, was it just the kids?

Not the teachers. But it was sincerely my moniker for like almost the entire four years. And I sort of, in a way, because I didn't really, I was short and didn't play a lot of sports. And like, I just sort of like, I wanted to be friends with the popular kids, but I didn't know how to do it because i did theater before it was cool i did theater like like because i wanted

to do it not because i saw something on instagram or tiktok or any none of that existed when i wanted to do it i had a real deep love for it so i was called every slur in the book you know for doing it um and so well because it you know that's Kids, if you do theater, it's assumed you're gay. So was the theater, yeah, there is that. When you did theater, was it with, like, a sister high school? Was it community theater? Or what did the Jesuit school, were you doing Jesus Christ Superstar? And you were like, well, I should be Jesus, technically. I'm the only Jew here.

You know, what's great is I did most of the theater that I did at a community theater, and where there were zero downsides. That's the one part of my life that was consistent, that I went there more than I went anywhere else. Did like 40 shows growing up there before I left at 18. Wow. Yeah. Like, did show after show after show after show.

They cast everybody that auditioned, which sounds like a downside, but it's not a downside. And they were doing like but i mean it was funny how they did that it was like the 20th annual putnam county spelling bee which i would didn't do which has a cast of eight and had like to figure out like you know they like eliminated a hundred spellers in the first um and so but the high school thing was actually really interesting because they had a great theater department, which is why I wanted to go. And so they did really, they had a great couple of guys that taught theater and were some of the teachers as well. And one of them was the person that introduced me to improv, which is why I love it so much. So I like owe a lot of like what I do to like some of the people that work there.

But we did, when we did plays, I only did four plays there, one a year. And we did it with the sister schools. Any school around that had women were allowed to audition and we were the only ones that could audition for the roles that were men. I see. And were the, so are there a lot of priests there teaching?

Are there nuns there teaching? Yeah, both. Or I think mostly, like, some of your teachers were like, Father whoever the fuck, and, you know. And you call them Father. Yeah, yeah, yep. Did you have a religion class? We just had the one religion, though.

It was the, just, we didn't really talk about many of them. We talked about mainly just one how did you feel what okay why did your parents send you this to this place no i wanted to go i want i knew that if i went if i went here it was called bellarmine college preparatory saint robert bellarmine college preparatory and i wanted to go there because my grades were not at a place where i knew that if i wanted to go to New York and go to a good college, if I went to Bellarmine and did okay, that reputation of that school, I could pretty much in a way, write my own ticket to the college that I wanted to go to. If I, if I played it right was the idea. You were thinking of your, in eighth grade,

you were thinking about this in eighth grade. You're like, all right, I want to go to New York. I wanted to, yeah, I wanted to go to a theater school i wanted to i figured it out way too early i that was the other if you want to talk about downsides i i figured out what i wanted to do professionally at way too young of an age because then i started going things like math don't need it yeah i see sincerely in class i would be like i don't never going to use this i don't know if i buy that as a as a downside you don't need math because you're you're making so much money you can just throw it out there it doesn't matter you tip 100 it's fine it really is like a thing in high school where you're like you i remember thinking that too i don't need any of this i will never use it you know and like and like they would always say things like you know you need to balance your checkbook and you're

like no we don't like you know what i mean like like for a long time that was what they told me that was that was the thing someone goes well what if you what if you sincerely i think this is i'm probably conflating this with a million other quotes but the thing i always remember them being like well what if you're very famous one day and you have a lot of money and you need to pay your taxes and my response was like aren't there people for that like i don't know i'm not gonna do that well i would i mean i i've i have a tax guy luckily i met him on my birthright trip actually um and he's you know i i i don't know if i said this on the podcast i i once i did this i did a show and it was like a storytelling show and it was a story about birthright and i talked

about meeting my tax guy on there and they said ah this joke feels a little too stereotypical and i was like it's not a joke can i not say the real thing let's talk about your parents these they they seem good yeah yeah they were they were really nice people when they were alive and uh they you know they're still alive but um you son of a bitch you son of a bitch they're still alive good they're still. I just talked to them today. How dare you do that to me? They're still alive and married. I was like, oh. They love each other very much.

Yeah. I would have happily have talked about it, though. They live on the Upper East Side. They live right across the park from me. They seem to have been very supportive of your theater, of you doing theater. Yeah. I think they were just going to be supportive of whatever I wanted to do. They were very cool about, I wanted to be a baseball player for the

first number of years. And then I played baseball for up until high school. And then I just was like theater, theater, theater, but they're, yeah. I mean, I think if I decided to give it up now, they'd be like, okay, whatever you want to, you know, they're not really, I think they, they are a lot more, uh, we lived our life this is your thing now rather than we're they're invested and i think a little more now because it's way more real because like the broadway stuff and the tony nominations and like it's like the career thing started to pick up in a way that i don't know if i went to their credit i don't think anybody would have saw that coming, to be honest. Just like, who sees that coming? I mean, I don't think anybody sees that coming.

So it's just like, they're like, I know I'm their favorite son. I can say that. Oh, great. That's good. Well, I was going to say the one thing your parents and my parents have in common is if I said I was going to quit, you know, my profession, they'd be like, okay. So, well, you have a, you have a younger brother. Yeah. We're 14 months apart and he lives in New Jersey. That's pretty close. Uh, you guys, were you friends growing up? Any, any downsides having a little brother?

There's, we had the, all the same downsides that any, we didn't have any unique downsides of like, we were mainly just best buddies. And there was a time where he got super super fat and he was like like a circle like you know what i mean like when you see a person that's like that like that kind of like morbidly like and it was like a problem and he was made fun of like relentlessly at school like elementary school and it was it killed me inside because he also like wasn't very uh like outgoing so it was like i was popular and not fat and he was those two go together sometimes my dad always tells the story that i started a i started a gang in elementary school to uh to threaten people that would make fun of my brother and we go around

being like we heard you were calling my brother fat if you do it again we're gonna beat you up and they would stop doing it what was the name of your gang the the sharks or the jets we were the we were the jets i just i think it's very funny the the theater the main theater kid being like i'm in a gang too i'm gonna tap dance on your feet you snapped yeah yeah yeah have you ever been punched you ever punched someone we rolled cigarettes up in our sleeves sure sure uh I have been. I was suspended from school, middle school. I was suspended from middle school because Frank Garcia punched me in the back of the head,

kept walking and thinking I wouldn't do anything and I went at him. I am, I can be very, what's the word, like feisty is the, I mean, I'm not very, I am not afraid to sort of step up for myself a little bit. I don't want to.

So who won? You knocked him. How many hits did you get him? Knocked him into the locker, got a punch in, and then we were sort of at, like, we were sort of, you know, WWE sort of whatever that hold is, kind of like getting each other. And then we were pulled apart, and then we were sent to the principal's office, and I was suspended for the rest of the week, I think.

Was he suspended too? Yeah, I think so. Okay, good. I definitely don't like remember a ton about middle. I don't have a really great memory for like specific events in like middle school and stuff like that. My wife has an incredible memory

for like very specific events that happened in her life. Like seventh grade, first week of seventh grade i'm like what and i i remember vividly not only frank's name but what he looks like and i because i'm sure it's just hammered into my memory and i and to be honest i hope he's not doing well i know a guy named frank garcia there's no way it's him he's a comedy guy but it feels it feels like a really common name to me. Frank Garcia? Those two together? Sure.

I just feel like, yeah, I feel like Garcia's common. I feel like Frank is common. I feel like there must be more than one. And I do wish him well. That was for comedy. Okay, good, good, good. Have you gotten in a fight before? No.

You got punched once, remember oh yes i did get punched i did get punched uh i was crossing the street and a guy a guy said i was walking too close to him and he bought me in the nose um but it really it kind of grazed the side of my nose it wasn't you know scary though oh it was it was in new york it was very scary too which just seems scary every couple months in New York, I say to myself, Jamarco, you need to take a self-defense class. Let me tell you this. Talk about the downside of New York,

if you want to talk about that real quick. My first year in New York City and my second year in New York City, I was mugged in broad daylight. You've been mugged twice? I can't believe people still get mugged. It seems like such a throwback thing. This was 2005. Oh, okay.

It was 16 years ago. This is back when Times Square was just porn shops and sex stores. That's right, baby. Yeah, I was wearing my fedora and I got mugged. How did they mug you? Knife point. The second time was knife point oh first time for my first year in new york city i'm headed to a class and i don't know where i'm going i'm lost

and i've been like i just have no i'm like in totally the wrong place so i asked somebody for directions and the guy turned around and he was like i'm gonna need some money for those directions and i said and i was like so frustrated that i just sort of was like for fuck's sake and i like i turned away he turned me back around and clocked me in the face. Oh my God. I was knocked out unconscious. And he apparently, from what I heard, because the bystander's like, it was 12 o'clock in the afternoon.

It wasn't like, it was plenty of people around. It was Canal Street. And so he ran because people saw it and didn't take anything because all my stuff was in my bag. I had a messenger bag and not in my pockets pockets so apparently they said like he tried to like fish your pockets and there was there was nothing in there because i had my phone and my stuff just easily accessible in my bag and a good samaritan put me in a cab in the right it told me where i'm going and i walked into my writing the essay class which is the class you have to take freshman year

of nyu it's a global class that every freshman has to take called writing the essay and i i walked in and like their faces went white because i hadn't seen myself and i was totally swollen up and bleeding from the eye and like it was and they were like we have to go to hospital um and you sat down you're like no i gotta i gotta write this essay first i gotta write this fucking experience my first year in New York. I think what I said was, I didn't know there were, I think I said, I didn't know there were two canal streets. I think it was like, because there are, and that's where I was lost. I went down to like canal, canal street, and there's like another one. And like the canal street station doesn't really, you know what I mean? It's a whole thing.

And then the second time I was mugged at knife point and i was less scared because i was like you got to be kidding me uh this isn't my first rodeo buddy it was the knife in the moment the knife was out knife was out to your neck to your it was just out just here out to be no no just out just out in front of me uh-huh and he kept saying i don't want to have to hurt you i don't want to hurt you i don't want to hurt you. And I said, this was on 13th Street and First Avenue. That's not far from me. Between classes, I had gone home. I had a Razor scooter. And I, for a sec, I said, I don't have any money. And I didn't. I said, he's like, I don't want to have to hurt you. I said,

I don't have any money. I said, here's my wallet. I don't have any money. There's none on me. And he goes, and I said, and I i stupidly but i think not stupidly said there's a popeyes on the corner let's go to the atm because i had money in an account i had like and so he's my parents live right over there let's go over there my dad's got a lot of money in the safe you know that's right yeah yeah i like yeah i sort of said like i have there is money to be had i don't have it on me and i also don't want to go into my apartment with you and get killed so let's go to the corner where there are more people and you know and let's go into a restaurant where it's much harder to kill somebody and and get in the way with it and let's go to the atm and i walked

in and he was right behind me and he me. And he, I, he said, take out a hundred. And I said, I only have, I said, I think I only had like 40 bucks. I was like, I only have 40 bucks. And he said, yeah, that's fine. Took out 40 bucks, gave it to him. He ran away, ran out, ran outside of the Popeye's and ran. He was a kid looking for food or looking for money for his family. And I, it was was just that's the way it wasn't it never felt vicious you know it just felt desperate and i was like this is so weird after it was over i had a panic attack but during it though i was like cool and collected and i was like i might run away from you of course well my my girlfriend got mugged like two years ago and she's been

having night terrors ever since so i feel like it could be a very triggering would did you go to therapy no i do now but i i didn't then i it did trigger though i used to have a massive crippling stutter when i was growing up oh my god um like to the point of not being able to perform any words like to it really was like a chest stutter like i couldn't even get the top of a word out and it because it wasn't like the kind of stutter it was uh like like you can't even get the thing wow kind of stutter for all through elementary school was terrible times uh and when i experience high moments of stress in new york city and they have to be high like that like that kind of stuff yeah or the the the death threat thing you know like i remember like it comes back in like fits and starts because it just it's a emotional whatever trigger and it's horrible it's like it is it's a

really crippling type king speech kind of stutter thing that i've sort of figured my way around in life and then when i have nothing to perform for i'm like you know it's like and it's it's crazy what does it feel like what is it because it's so hard to you know it's like and it's it's crazy what does it feel like what is it because it's so hard to you know my when i get stressed i get shaky that's where my things go but like it feels like you did your mouth get stuck closed or it doesn't know what's supposed to come out or it does actually it does it feels like your jaw tightens up and it feels um it doesn't feel like you're choking but it feels like you can't like the regular stutter thing that everyone knows is like today junior right the thing sure and so uh mine was i couldn't even

get the tip of the t out like i couldn't it kind of feel it gets stuck like here or here and it would be and i can i can um you know turn it on and off a little bit now yeah for like character stuff if i need to which has never been useful but it's just something that i can access um but when i do it it sort of has like it does cost me a little because it does it goes oh we're back like we're doing this again yeah um that is funny i remember when we all at least like middle school it was like today junior like people with stutters yeah right horrible thing it's a real and i work you know i work with uh the say organization which is the uh uh stuttering association for

the youth and it's uh this organization that like is it it explains it it helps as a summer camp but explains like the disability that it really is because it is like it is people i mean i thought i had it bad and people have it way worse way worse i had i had a friend who developed one in his mid-20s and it was it was so i you know it was like one of those things he had like a very uh kind of very weirdly stressful thing happen at work and he like developed this stutter and he hadn't like for him it was like he had never had an issue with it but he had to go to speech therapy and you know now it once in a while will come out if he's drunk you know what i mean but like yeah it's for the most part like uh it's he's got i'm starting to develop a sibilant s and i'm really i'm really

troubled by it i had a voiceover audition recently and i'm recording it and i'm starting to develop a sibilant s and i'm really i'm really troubled by it i had a voice over audition recently and i'm recording it and i'm like and i don't know how to fix it really and i'm like do i have to do i have to fucking pay for someone to teach me how to get rid of this so i'm just it's fun to watch people decay you know it's like yeah to watch people kind of in ways okay well that's what i feel especially having you know done the full college curriculum i'm like fuck man this is what i went to school for um okay so two two other big things before we get to this guy's stuff i want to talk about so you you're you're almost broadway debut was a show called uh glory days and this was like right after spring awakening right this was around that time uh yeah i think so yeah think you're right. I think that's exactly right.

It was the time where producers were like, okay, hot teens singing pop songs. Yeah. Perfect. Yep. And Glory Days, it was at the Signature Theater, which is a prominent DC theater, and it was a new musical.

It's four guys just reminiscing. Four guys coming back from college on their first year, coming back to the football field where they first met because they were the four people cut from the football team. And that's how they became friends. And they are singing about it on the bleachers. They cast a bunch of theater kids who have never touched a football in their whole goddamn life.

Including me. Including you. And the songs were dynamite. The songs still are dynamite. And it was this kind of cool idea because it was like the first of its kind like this sort of jason mraz type score and it really kind of hit and it killed its signature because it was so new and stuff like that and so they brought it to broadway thinking like we could just leave it as it is and just put it on broadway but when you bring something to broadway it needs to be bigger it needs to get bigger and

because ticket prices are bigger and things like that and i just think that it didn't happen there was no real advertising there was it like the producers were super green and so they didn't know what they were like just hoping we'd be like a hit like they were in dc well i don't know if russell knows so how many performances did it run it ran one it was opening opening night opening night how quickly did you know opening night that you weren't doing it again tomorrow thankfully we didn't we actually got to enjoy opening night so we got to enjoy the whole evening they knew um they knew and so i was a i was an understudy i was a swing so i covered two roles in the show so i didn't even perform in opening.

I bowed on opening night because they called the company and the director. That's the whole thing. The big, like, we did it thing. Yeah. And the next day, they called us in for a company meeting, which doesn't happen. And I didn't know that because I was a child.

And I walked in, and there's five guys making their Broadway debuts out of six guys. And the sixth, the guy was like, we're closing. This doesn't happen. Like there's no,

it'd be like, either we're closing or we've just sold so many tickets that they don't know what to do. You know what I mean? Like the alternative was so wild that we're like, I think we are. And they walked in, we figured we'd be like,

you know, a month, it'd be closing a month, a couple of weeks, whatever. We had no clue about that part. And then the producers walked in and i will never forget this they said so we're closing and then somebody went when and they said last night and we were like what and they said we and not not only that because they're all business they're mortified they're not only they

were like well you have two weeks to clear out your dressing rooms you just you just moved into um and you your your vacation and your uh you know all the sick pay like kind of stuff that that kind of accumulates that is at the equity building for you to pick up right now you can go right now and pick it up your last checks all your money the stuff like the stuff you're going to get paid out. And thank you very much. And you really, in that moment, you go, oh, right. Theaters are never yours. You're just renting the space. You really feel like, wow, this is a fleeting type of career. Were you devastated?

I was not. I was, I had no time to be, I joined the company in and they there were like two weeks of rehearsal and then like a week and a half or something like that of preview so we did performances we did like 15 14 performances like preview performances for audiences that went well because they're all papered like you know they give them because you want word of mouth that's the whole point of previews but it felt good to show better it's all good yeah it did and good responses but the idea was that you need to sell tickets not just give them away and so we uh so it was too quick i felt like to me like i said this before it feels like it felt like a broadway uh like fantasy camp like you have to do two weeks

of rehearsal meet the cast be with the cast do opening night and then like you're like all right camp's over that's what it felt like for me and then i had to call my parents because i was like you guys should come out for opening night they're like we'll wait till the show's running a little bit and so yeah and so i called them that day and i was like uh you won't be able to see the show and they're not even on film they didn't even i mean that you have to run long enough for them to film it for like the lincoln center archives because that's where all the shows go. And there's no, I'm sure there's a little bit of B-roll here and there. But, yeah, it just, it faded. It was just, it went away very quickly. That, did the New York Times give it a review, or did they say, you know, we'll let this one slide. We're not going to tear it apart. remember and this is my memory so i can look this up but i think it was actually considering what happened it was a relatively kind review and i think it was less this is a bad show i think the

review was more like shame on these producers for taking it here so quickly sure sure is it is it the only show to have closed after opening night is it the record i i think we hold some sort of record i think there was a show because i think the i think the definition of closing is when you get your closing notice like when the notice is official and i think there was a show on broadway that closed at intermission i've heard about this i thought it was in london but maybe it was broadway but yeah oh maybe maybe but there was a show with ellen burston that i know that closed really fast called a confederate widow tells all i don't know how that could have closed a confederate widow tells all oh it feels like it feels like the the title gets more contemporary as it moves forward a confederate widow tells all

it's really a tmz thing um but yeah that was it was and now people affectionately refer to it as glory day glory day yes i i'm gonna go listen to that one i bet it's i bet it's good it's catchy it's very poppy they recorded the album before opening night yeah uh yes i think they did i can't remember i think they did either way i'm not on the album um i'm i'm i'm uh mentioned in the company but i'm not on the album. I'm mentioned in the company, but I'm not on the album. Because it was just the four guys. So since then, you've been in two shows now with extremely long runs. And I'm just curious, because now that I'm more of a stand-up comedian,

and I kind of get to mix it up every night to a certain extent, do you ever go crazy? Do you ever go crazy doing the same thing? I mean, how many performances of, which one was longer, the run of Beetlejuice or School of Rock? Wicked. Wicked.

I did Wicked for the longest. I did Wicked for two years. That's wild. I did Wicked for nearly 1,000 performances of Wicked. Wow. Because I didn't take a lot of time off because it was just like an easy sort of thankful role. I played Bach in Wicked for 2008, 2010.

And it was the time where like, it was like being in Hamilton now is what I say. It's like, it was still white hot. It was like, you could not get a zigzag. And because it opened 2004 and I was four years into like a mega juggernaut show. And so it was like doing the hottest show in the world. And so I did it because it was one, it was six months, I think, after Glory Days closed. I was so excited to just have a job that I was going to get to do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually make my stage debut. But also I kind of knew in the back of my head something I couldn't define, which was job security. Like, if I just stay in this show, I'm going to make money. You know what I mean? I can pay my rent.

I can do that. That didn't occur to me until later, but I was like was like wow this is why people stay in shows for this long because they can send people through college they can buy houses and you do the same show and after a year because I'm still young and so like this is the greatest thing in the world the last money I made was at like uno like I made like I was a server at Uno and I was like, this is horrible for the money. I, I, and this was easy and I was making more money than I ever had seen. And I was like, this is like crazy. And I didn't know what to do with it. I had no financial acumen. I was like spending it as I got it. It was terrible. Um, but yes, the answer to the question is sometimes you do, you know, when you like drive somewhere and you're like

i have not thought about driving for 40 minutes and here i am you're like did i kill anyone on the way did i run over somebody did i get all the words right all the same thoughts and i remember like there are times where you kind of bow and you do you and it's hard to not do a good job sometimes if you've done the show that many times. You have ways of just making it happen. Yeah. And is that like leave your baggage at the door thing? And so, but it is. It's scary. You get to the bow and you're like, did I have a show?

Like, I don't even know. Wait. And that's easy when you're kind of a featured thing. When it came like School of Rock and Beetlejuice, that was required more of my attention because both shows involved improv and listening because I had to break the fourth wall in beetlejuice and so i had to really deal with a different crowd every night sure so

that became more like what i imagine you deal with right the stand-up stuff yeah but i i basically i think where i really started pivot to stand up i did i did a play that i wrote and it was i was pretty much on stage for 90 minutes and I only did it for you know eight shows a week for a month and I just remember two weeks in I'd be you know getting ready to go on and I'd be filled with the sense of like oh my god once I go out there it's the same 90 minutes and thank god I had a little bit of stand-up in there if I was doing it now I would have fucked around too much I would have gotten notes every night being like please please stop doing this but i i went i hear about like the the last phantom on broadway did it for 15 years and i i honestly think i'm like i'd rather not be successful than do this

for 15 years no i'm with you i think that what i learned in wicked was that i have to cut it off at a certain point because i by the time it, that's what this article became. I mean, that was like, you know, you start to see past the matrix of all this, of like, that theater's the most miraculous place on the planet. It is. Like, it's the best, coolest job ever. And it is also the most finite. So that's the thing you're like, it is just not guaranteed. And so when it is guaranteed, that like breaks the whole cycle of things. You're like, wait, I could get stuck in this show and start being like that person or that person. And they're dead.

And I'm like, that's not why I got into this because I really, really love being here. And I started to really feel this like resentment. And I was like, that's not what I want. So now when I do a show in my head at least i'm like a year at the very most because i want to leave on a high i want to leave having done the thing or you know or or not but like having done it on my own terms and just that it becomes a little like you start to the show is secondary you start to like look for things all of a sudden you

start to look for things to like resent and that person's not on today as much as they should be it's like who gives a shit just do your show yeah yeah you can't you kind of get to that cranky larry david's like spot and the longest i ever did a show was a year and it was three shows in rep and it is a funny thing where after a while you when you catch yourself of you're like on autopilot and then every once in a while coming back in and being like oh what am i saying like you're like you wake up and you're like oh my god i was not even i'm just like doing this totally out of muscle and so worst jarring that you're like worst thing you can do is if you the worst thing you can do if you're doing that kind of long run and you're just sort of like, you know, in it and in it and in it is to

all of a sudden think about the lines you're saying, don't do that because then you go, wait, cause they're just sounds after a while. They're not even words. And you just, with a minute, you try to like, you know, I'm going to do, I'm going to reinvest. You will forget all of your lines because they do not words to you anymore. And at that point you just go, it's time to move on or not. And you have a family and you want to put you know and i get that too sure but i needed to leave and i think that that became sort of has become my more of my mo because i just want to lie i want to keep liking it because when it's good it's like so fucking good i think the family is a big one because it is in stand-up too there's cruise ship comedians there's there's certain

versions of this for stand-up comics and it's like well they need consistent money they can't go to 25 spot nights i have a luxury that like my only thing i'm taking care of is a dog you know it's like i have a wife who has a job and i have jobs here and there but like i don't have a kid i never will have a kid and so i know that money i make is mine. And so I'm cool. I don't need to like have that thought in the back of my head of like, it's for the kid. I'm staying six months more for the, I don't, I don't want that feeling. Yeah. So now your, your wife, this is a casting director, prominent casting director, uh, any, any, any downsides having a casting director as a partner is it all all great honestly i think it's all great because it actually she's awesome and then also she's a

director so like self-tapes which is something i really dislike doing it's the worst that is a doubt it's the worst and i and and there is no good thing about it to me because i think i shine in the room i am a joy and to be around you can slip the money you can do all sorts of things in the room it's always good well just yeah yeah yeah you can do all that stuff and all you're relying on in your self-tape is just the material and i'm like that's not fair that's not what you're casting on half the time you're casting a person for rehearsals you're casting a person for press you're casting the person you can't get to know that they're like what's that what's on the menu i saw a friend uh i saw their audition tape and they and their slate they made a joke during

their slate and made me so fucking mad i was like no no because then i needed to think of something funny hi i'm jim oka yeah the only time it's ever happened to me was i was doing a slate and my dog was like pawing at my thigh trying to go out. And they do the full body slate up and down. And it was like they, which was great because it was a natural moment. It wasn't planned. And I just said, you know, Alex Brightman, 5'8", New York City. It panned down.

I went, and that's my dog. And that was enough personality I think I would ever want to put in a slate because that's not your time to be. The only thing I do for commercials, if i have to show my hands i go i do a little jazz a little dancey just to let them know that i'm gay it's uh it's a good it's a good thing um okay well that's great i mean i i met your i i i i'd met your wife before at like a workshop thing and then then I auditioned and she gave some great notes in my audition. She gave one of the most devastating notes, which was a very good note, but it was just like,

make it real world. And I was like, I'm going to go kill myself after this. That's what I was going for. I wasn't going for, I wasn't going for cartoon world before. It was one of those notes. But I get the same,

the same type of note all the time though is that it's i am built for the stage that's where and so of course anything i do at its smallest looks like i'm doing a brian regan bit yeah yeah i agree my smallest i am doing robin williams and so i i need it's a muscle that i continue to have to flex and And then she reminds me of, and I'm so grateful for it because otherwise every self tape would be like, she died. You know, it's like, and like, it's supposed to be like, you know, some large front rear movie. And it's like, I'm not killing it. I would say this as a last thing is that like the only maybe downside is I do get in my head because it, in the same way,

like when your family is like do stand up for us, you know, like do like sing that song from the show at a family gathering. You're like, I feel much more comfortable doing it in front of 1200 strangers rather than like doing it for you guys, because it means more that you're here and you, I don't want to let you down because you're my family. That's the one thing is like, she's a cat.

It's her job and she's amazing at it. But it's also a person that when the camera goes off and I send it, it's like, then we sit on the couch and it's like was i was it good like do you think it was like and that's that's its own version of hell and anxiety but usually she's i mean not usually she's incredibly honest about it and so it only helps it's it's good i mean i'm i'm not good with well i'm i'm dating someone she's a a very successful comedy manager. But like when I ask her if something's funny, she'll, if she goes like,

yeah, I know it's not. And it, it hurts. It hurts. Yeah. And, uh,

it's helpful though. I think, I think it's good though. I'd rather, I'd rather that than, yes, you're great. You know,

I'd rather that I'd rather be taken down a little bit by myself, by the way, it's never meant to be. That's always how I, how I take it. It's like, oh, fuck, it was bad. And it's like, I just said it was good. It's like, yeah, but you didn't say it was really good. You know, it's like, you said it was good. And I want it to be really good. That's really it though. I think that it's more of a me thing. My, my girlfriend and I, we had to stop doing self-tapes. It was no good. It just,

it brought out the worst in, in both of us, you know, cause it's, it's a service. It's a service.'s a service exactly without you saying anything i know exactly what bad things have brought out of you because you there was a moment when we did a self-tape where i had to get like heated and be like kind of dark and broody and i just wasn't doing it because like my voice didn't fit the character this is my voice and it was like imagine like the guy from the road like that's who i had to play and i just was like yeah it's hard over here being this and like my voice doesn't do the thing i can't be down i don't have it yeah and i just tried to explain like no matter what i do no

matter what notes i have i still have this voice so i can't do the thing i can't be like we lost her in the war like my voice still sounds like that. And so finally I did this frustrating take. She was like, that was great. I was like, I was mad at you. There you go. It wasn't acting, but it was the perfect like Willy Wonka, like the test. You did it. Yeah, it's tough.

My girlfriend always like, oh, is this a cartoon that you're auditioning for? Because you're fucking put your eyes back in. All right, let's move on. Let's get to the next segment this is the i hope i need to learn these buttons still nope nope this has got to stop this has got to stop all right all right we're gonna blast through this this has got to stop we talk about things that that have to stop um alex let's go go with you first what has got to stop i was about this. It's hard to think about something without trying to be, like, inflammatory. It's hard to, like, try to, like, alienate. I really have found it hard.

It's really tough to not be, like, to say, like, the top five in my actual head. I was like, I actually shouldn't say these five things. Sure, sure. But the one, we were talking about this because we were walking, last night we were walking, and the thing that has to, for me, that's got to stop. That's a, this has got to stop. This has got to stop. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, great. Hashtag. This has got to stop. Is people that walk behind you and then brush past you and then say,

excuse me, I am a big manners person. I've always been a huge manners person. Please. And thank you. Hold the door. May I? All that kind of stuff. I say please a million times before before asking for something. And I profusely apologize. Say thank you. All that kind of stuff. I'm a manners driven person. people like if you're walking too slow for them rather than saying pardon me or excuse me when they're a couple feet away so you can get out of the way which is a normal thing to do for human beings they brush past you to show you that they're in a hurry and that you're blocking them and then they go excuse me as a as like the the the thing you say afterwards which is not excuse me the thing you're supposed to say there is sorry yeah uh all right i think it makes me crazy i feel similar about the manners thing what something that similarly drives me nuts is if you do bump into someone and then you apologize like i'll do like if i when i bump into someone i'll

be like i'm so sorry and if they're still mad after two sorries i give i do two sorries because because sometimes they're like oh and you're like i'm so sorry and if they're still mad after two sorrys. I do two sorrys. Because sometimes they're like, and you're like, I'm so sorry. And if they're still like, and then I'm like, I'm really, really sorry I ran into you. And if they're still looking at me, I've redacted it. I said, nope, I take it back. I think if I give two

genuine sorrys for bumping into you and you do not, like, you're still weird about it, I feel like I want to take that back. You've said that. You've said that out loud before you said, I take it back. I said one time to a person because I gave two real genuine ones and I said, nope, nevermind. And I, I just, I, I felt like redacting it.

I had one retort, one retort to an older lady who kind of had that thing that was like, she just didn't, it didn't matter what I was going to say. And she's kind of like kept the thing going, like saying like, you should be this and you should be more careful. And I just, I turned around and I was like, I bet you're the one person that people talk about when they are deciding to invite people to parties. I bet you're the topic of conversation. Oh my God. parties i bet you're the topic of conversation oh my god and then i left and i said i always say the same thing after before i leave any one of those situations and i have them a lot it's a problem that i'm working on but it is i have these moments more than i'd like and so i have to think i might be part of the problem is i i will say lead with compassion and then i will walk away yeah lead with compassion but i will say lead with compassion. But the subtitle, if you're watching the movie with the subtitles, it says, fuck you.

Yeah. That's but that's unique. Like, that's like a bless. Bless her heart. It's like it's a that's that's like unique to you. Lead with compassion. With compassion. And I because I think you kind of can't lose if you say that.

They can't be like you lead with compassion. You know, you can't really um all right well uh my this has got to stop is people walking in front of me going way too fucking slow and you sometimes you need to nudge them to say like we're we live in new york okay yeah and uh no mine is uh really you say after that then i i say I say, fuck you. But if the subtitles are lead with compassion, fuck you. Fuck you. No, my this has got to stop.

As you know, comedy clubs are reopening right now. Indoor indoor stuff is reopening. There were a lot of comedians that made a big brouhaha over the quarantine, how they were quitting stand up comedy, made a big Facebook post about it, got a bunch of likes. They're just posting the spots that they're doing i'm going no no no no no you retired quit and i think we need to start having when people quit for now on we need to have parties to shame them into it's like the same way you do with a wedding and you you maybe you know you you uh prevent a divorce for a year just because they're so ashamed to tell their friends hey you wasted

the trip to fucking florida for our wedding that's where russell got married uh and i think we need to have parties when people quit and at the end we go like it's over and if you're gonna come back i expect a card saying hey this is why do people do that with theaters go like i'm leaving oh yeah yeah yeah it's the same thing as like i'm leaving oh yeah i'm leaving the theater yeah it's the same thing as like i'm i'm leaving social media just leave just leave it's not it's in all these are in the art forms you're talking about it's like it is an art form that will not miss you to the fact that you are going i i am leaving you're like we don't need this we didn't need the first thing so to come back you're like we didn't think about you the day after so we weren't going like when when is he coming back no one's thinking about you that

much you fucking narcissist exactly all right russell this guy stopped mine very quick um uh this has got to stop uh the versus movies because whether it's batman versus superman godzilla king kong it doesn't feels, it feels strange because those things have their own like world. So we were seeing a Godzilla movie or seeing a King Kong movie. When you put it together, somehow it feels incomplete.

We don't know what to do. We don't know which one we're thinking. And it never makes sense why they're fighting. It never makes sense to put them against each other. So this has got to stop versus movies. I don't like it. It never works. I didn't realize until this moment that like, you're right. against each other so this is got top versus movies i i don't like it it never like it never works i didn't realize until this moment that like you're right i don't have a stake in either of

them i didn't have like a personal stake to begin with and so the fact that you're putting them together like i used to watch wrestling and i had a stake in the wrestlers because there was a story yeah i haven't watched enough of them or understood enough of them to be team whatever i always find that the villain though happens to be us a lot of the time why are we always the villain that is a little like you're like well it's it that's that's what's strange about it because they're like we're flipping it on our head but they always do that we're the villains and we're like how i now maybe everyone does that it doesn't feel different so um yeah i i i don't like the versus movies all right you hear that hollywood no more versus movies no more and i won't be in one i will i will i'd like but i'd like to put it

out there that i will be in one and i will promote it like crazy if i'm in one wonderful we'll put on a self-tape later today the final segment this is uh nope that's not it this is god you better count your blessings nope, that's not it. This has got to be it. God. You better count your blessings. Do you do the fake, I don't know which button this is, or are you really not? I really don't know. I reprogram.

I have these three buttons, because I was going to do a bit about my girlfriend has night terrors, and she gave me permission to play a recording of one of them. And. I have these three buttons because I was going to do a bit about, my girlfriend has night terrors and she gave me permission to play a recording of one of them. And so I have this button that's like, would have totally derailed this entire fucking conversation if I played it.

Next time. It's bone chilling. He played it for me. I want to hear it at some point. Okay, so, Blessing, we'll have you go at the end. We'll go this real quick.

My Blessing is is Glenn Greenwald. I don't know a lot about him. He founded The Intercept, and now he just tweets kind of just insane opinions. And he talks shit about Sarah Cooper. And I don't know Sarah Cooper very well, but she had a lot of success. And, you know, people shit on it because whenever someone gets successful fast. I mean, Alex, before I met you, I shit on you constantly. I had to delete 100 tweets before this interview.

And so he posted something about like, oh, you know, she went away fast. Since Trump lost, she went away faster than MSNBC's ratings. Ooh. And I tweeted, fuck you. She's developing a pilot for CBS right now. And I didn't tag her or anything, but she retweeted that, saying that I was now her official spokesman. I'm waiting for my check. But she said, follow this guy, he's funny.

And, you know, I know someday getting more Twitter followers, I'm going to get in trouble for something someday. But I try to enjoy getting some new followers. I'm sure a bunch of, you know, DNC shills following me that will unfollow me. You know, this morning I tweeted a pedophile joke. I'm sure they are gone already. But it was nice while it lasted, so I'm thankful for that. Russell, you got a blessing? Yes, my blessing is not as valiant as getting more Twitter followers, but I'm counting my blessings that I am vaccinated. Um, and, uh, I'm very excited. Thank you. Always with the nice generic blessings. Um, Alex, what's your blessing? Um, my blessing is that, um, I was able to work through this

pandemic and I've been able to make my own work and I'm happy about the stuff I'm making. It wasn't sort of secondary. It was that I got to work on stuff that I didn't have the time to work on. So finding the silver lining in a horrible year and letting them come to fruition has been my blessing. And that fact that I can pay my rent with the thing I like to do. Well, our sketch team was happy to help make that happen for you. So I can't wait to be back. All right. So let's, let's just play this out. This is...

Oh. Oh, my God. Okay, okay, okay. You okay? Oh, whoops, wrong button. That's the night terrors. Wait, keep it going. It's okay, it's okay.

No. Honey, it's okay. It's not. Honey, honey. It's not. Hey, hey, hey. You fuck. Come on, honey. Come here,. Hey, hey, hey. You fuck. Come on, honey. Come here, honey. Come here, baby. No.

Come here, come here. This is real. It's an app that she, whenever like a noise starts, it starts recording. And I guess it was because the window was open. We found out later. That's why she was having these night terrors. So she kept waking up and going like, no, it's not okay. And then she falls. out later that's why she was having these night terrors so she kept waking up and going like no

it's not okay and then she falls she has the night terror she has the night terrors and then she falls back asleep immediately and i'm up like oh oh my god oh my god why why was she she talks like beetlejuice i mean she does the voice it's it's um so good that is bananas i want a recording of that in my email immediately i want to listen to the whole thing i'll send it to you all right uh uh alex uh thank you so much we're gonna take a picture we're gonna play this out but here we go oh so exciting all right let's let's let's take this picture um do me a favor look uh disappointed yeah look that's perfect disappointed. Yeah, look, that's perfect. All right, I think we got it. Fading it out. Fading it out. Alex Brightman.