WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1589 - Robby Hoffman
Episode Date: November 7, 2024Robby Hoffman knows she comes in too hot. But that kind of in-your-face enthusiasm helped her go from being one of ten kids in a Hasidic Jewish family to a burgeoning standup comic and television writ...er. Robby tells Marc about the challenges of her upbringing, including the socially hazardous way she was publicly outed as a teen. They also talk about her love of Uniqlo, Egg McMuffins, and her writing breakthrough on the children’s show Odd Squad. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Lost again! Alright, let's do this.
How are you what the fuckers?
What the fuck buddies?
What the fuck, Nicks?
I know what's happening.
I don't have to ask you what's happening.
I didn't want to be doing this today.
I didn't want to be doing anything today.
I didn't want to wake up today, but I'm not sure I slept that well
Just panic
Panic and terror. That's the vibe. That's the feeling that's the reality
I didn't get to watch much of what it unfolded last night because I was on set
And I got home and I chose not what not to watch it
Because I saw where it was going and I woke up and I looked not to watch it because I saw where it was going.
And I woke up and I looked, not unlike a lot of people,
and it's just fucking devastating.
It's annihilating.
It's all of the bad things.
When I heard what happened, when I saw what was coming,
my first instinct is to really,
like, I just want out, I don't want to talk to anybody, I don't want to talk to friends,
I don't want to talk to anybody.
It just, it felt personal.
And I imagine that it is personal,
but it's really much bigger than that, obviously.
But the first hit you take is like,
how could this have happened?
But I'm not surprised by that,
but I am horrified that it did happen.
There was a swiver of hope there for a while
that it wouldn't, but it happened in a bigger way
than we could ever imagine.
And now this is the reality that we're gonna be entering.
We're in the pre-horror reality now,
but I'm just terrified because with
the number of right wing people, senators, now president again, who knows what's
going to happen with the house.
It's just, they're going to do it all.
They're going to do, there is a full spectrum of horrible things that are
possible.
And because of this president, we don't know the extent of it.
Is he going to go the whole way?
Is he going to honor all the rhetoric that he's been spewing?
Is he going to deport millions of people?
Is he going gonna make it impossible
for women to get the healthcare that they need?
Is he gonna make it impossible
for people to live the way they wanna live in a free way
with their own choices?
Is he gonna break the entire federal government?
I imagine that's all possible.
It's all on the menu.
So I chose to continue talking.
I'm going to continue talking.
It's my job and it's what I do.
And I know people listen to me for whatever reason.
But I think the most profound thing that happened yesterday
is that I really did not wanna do anything.
Obviously, I was paralyzed
and your brain just starts running.
You just enter that cortisol driven trauma response
to four years of this fuck the first time,
where every day was a fucking new nightmare.
Every fucking moment that you were worried
about something being dismantled, something being unsafe,
something being unfair,
or something directly affecting your life,
your loved ones that was gonna make their life unbearable.
All that happened for four years, every day, every day of it.
And then we got this reprieve,
whatever you think of that, it was a reprieve,
and now we're re-entering this fucking shit show.
But we do have the muscle of what it was like,
we assume it's gonna be worse now.
I mean, there's part of me that just wants to you know scream and
Fucking you know weep
But there's another part of me that's sort of like look fuck that
Fuck that
We're half the country
half the country voted against this guy
So we're not alone. There's a lot of us and we are in it together, at least the people that have the beliefs that you have.
A belief in democracy, a belief in tolerance,
a belief in equal opportunity and fairness,
tolerant and proactive treatment of women,
minorities, LGBTQ people.
I mean, it's just like, fuck, LGBTQ people,
I mean it's just like, fuck, there are a lot of us. And not unlike the first time, I guess I'll do what I can
to talk to you in some way that, I don't know,
it's just fucking awful.
But oddly I've been rationalizing it in an odd way.
It's that most of the countries on this planet
are fucking authoritarian.
And somehow you gotta figure out,
we're gonna have to figure out how to live in it.
We don't know what it is yet,
but we know it's not gonna be good.
I don't know what America's gonna look like culturally.
It was already trending this way.
In terms of what I believe and how I feel
and what I've talked about in this show,
I've been this way for decades.
But in this moment, I am in the moment.
And your life is still your life.
And it will remain your life.
You know, I woke up this morning and I had to go to work.
I had to be in my car at 5.45 and on set by 6.30, 7 o'clock,
and an amazing thing happened.
The same thing that happened to me and to you
and to all of us happened to everybody.
And I got on set and there were a lot of like-minded people,
I would say almost all of them, I don't know.
I don't really know what people believe politically.
A lot of people don't flout it or wear the hat or double down on saying horrible
things. A lot of people just voted whatever the fuck their heart told them.
Whatever I think of that, that's, that's my business.
But the point being I was among people doing a job and showing up and just being professional, but also just checking
in, checking in with each other, got a few laughs, got some tension release, you know,
in terms of like, you know, making a joke, feeling the waters out and just engaging in
the work.
But being around other people was a fucking,
it's just a godsend, it's invaluable.
And I think if you're isolated or you're despairing,
I get it.
But the bottom line is, and I've said this before,
culturally and politically, we've been annihilated.
And that has an effect.
It's not just trauma, but it's a lot of trauma,
but it's also not understanding why people believe
the way they believe.
It's not a matter of like, why doesn't everyone believe
like me, but why can people believe in a movement
that is so awful to people and is so driven
by hurting others and payback
and just not giving a fuck.
I don't want to break all that down,
but all that is annihilating.
And I guess if I can say anything that may be helpful
is that if you're of a certain sensitivity
or you are brought up a certain way or you're fragile,
sometimes the only way to react to this type of trauma
and this type of all-consuming terror
is to take yourself out of it one way or another.
And I mean that full spectrum of that.
If you're not used to using drugs
or you don't use drugs anymore,
you might wanna get fucked up.
You might wanna get fucked up for the rest of it.
If you're already on the edge of self-harm,
you might wanna take yourself out.
But you don't have to give them that.
You don't have to give them that. You don't have to give them that.
These fuckers that are going to take away
an America of tolerance and fairness, equanimity.
You don't have to give them that.
You don't have to give them you.
You can keep you.
And I think people underestimate the amount of,
if you are of a certain type of person,
it can shatter your entire being
because your brain will tell you
you don't know how to exist in this world.
But we can't give them that.
You know, don't hurt yourself.
Get around other people.
Get around like-minded people.
I guess, you know, there is work ahead,
but you know, for right now, in this interim,
before, you know, the real shit show commences,
you know, kind of try to pull out a little bit
and understand there's plenty to be afraid of,
and there's plenty of unknowns,
and we're not handing into anything that's good
and we're gonna have to live on fucking scraps of good news
if they even come.
I don't really know the horror that's ahead.
But I do know that you owe it to yourself
not to surrender or harm yourself.
So look, I'm gonna do a regular show here. Okay, I'm going to do a regular show here.
I'm going to talk to a comedian, Robbie Hoffman.
It's a great conversation.
She's an interesting person.
She's funny.
She comes from a very interesting background.
She's a writer, comedian, and you know, I'd seen her around
and I didn't know what to make of her.
And then I watched her comedy.
I was like, oh my God, there's this,
this person's a unique person.'t know what to make of her. And then I watched her comedy and I was like, oh my God, this person's a unique person.
I'm gonna talk to her.
Because that's what I do here.
And I think that that's what we have to do.
Is that, you know, this is what this show is about.
It's what I've been doing.
And it's just, you know's it's just the entire show
I mean it's gonna be essential for those of us who still listen is that it's
predicated on two people who on the surface have lots of differences but
also can connect over their similarities you know just to have a talk get to know
each other I mean that that's about the extent of the optimism I'm capable of
right now that people can still connect with each other and stay in touch with
humanity. I mean we got to. I mean that's what happened on the set this morning.
Everybody was in the same boat. Everyone was you know shattered in shock. It's
fresh wound. But you know we had some laughs, we had some food, we made some, made a movie, making a movie,
everyone did their job, everyone felt safe in the moment
and connected.
That's gonna be important.
You know, cause they're, the instinct is they're gonna want
us to shut up, they're gonna want us to just, you know, cause they're the, the instinct is they're going to want us to shut up.
They're going to want us to just, you know, stop yelling, stop talking,
stop sharing beliefs or opinions.
Just keep your head down.
Sadly, that's easier to do with a phone, but, uh, you can't, we can't live there.
So hopefully we'll be able to navigate this.
Let's try to stay here. It's gonna be hard, but again there's a lot of us still. So I'll be back on tour
starting in January Sacramento. I'll be at the Crest Theater on, you know what,
I'm not, I don't need to do these dates right now, but I do need to do some ads.
So this might be good to hear right now. This might be the time.
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WTF. Look, if I was too somber or too on the level or just know
that I'm acting out of complete fucking fear and I'm just I'm
just dealing and look, I'm angry. I didn't sit there. I didn't sit it there
I wasn't sitting here at the top of this just like fuck this fuck it all fuck it all
these fucks I
Mean you fucking kidding me these fucks that voted for him all this they're gonna destroy the fucking government
It's over democracy Democracy is fucking over.
And now we got to deal with whatever fucking horrendous thing that this chaotic
fucking shit clown dumps on us and his minions and his armies and who the fuck
knows, but fuck it all.
If you didn't get enough of that, I mean, it's in me and it's, I don't know.
I've never really lived in an authoritarian country.
And you know, it's an experience we all get to have now.
Not one of the good ones!
Anyway, look, I don't know what to tell you.
I'm barely keeping it together and I've got to go shoot a scene of me dying of cancer.
Yeah. So look, Robbie Hoffman is an interesting character. Her life is very interesting,
very Jewish, very lesbian, very unique. You can find her tour dates on her social media
pages or at RobbieHoffman. dot com and this is me talking to
Robbie Hoffman a very unique character this person Robbie Hoffman.
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CBC News. What's our vibe?
I have no chill is the issue and you're the most chill.
I'm not chill at all.
I, you know, I just, I immediately mesh with whatever's coming at me.
No one has ever called me chill.
Well here's why you're chill.
You're not chill stage persona,
but you've been at this and famous for so long
that you're used to people coming at you.
I realized just the other day kind of at the store actually,
not to get too industry already,
but I come in, I'm not able to,
I brought people the wrong way because I'm not able to relax.
I have like still a kid-like curiosity.
I'm still so excited.
This is a big deal for me.
And my friend, Jamie Loftus, she did a set up in
the belly room and she spoke about how her father,
she just recently lost her father, very funny set.
Yeah, hilarious, yeah.
But she said that her father told her
to just be cool about everything,
that let life happen to you.
Just whatever happens to you, don't let on,
that kind of thing.
Never let it on, let life happen to you.
And I realized it made me sad
because I grew up without a father. And I realized it made me sad because I
grew up without a father. Maybe I would have learned this, you know,
because now I come in hot.
I'm always like, if I'm excited, like the first
time I was excited to see you.
Yeah.
I told you, I said, 10 years ago, you talked to
me at Just For Laughs.
I was trying to get the picture up, but the, I
have it now, but the, but, but, but, but, but my
phone wasn't where it was like just disastrous.
Only people I respect, I'm disastrous in front of.
It's kind of like how guys talk about
how they approach girls.
It's horrible for them.
They're totally normal with their friends.
All that stuff.
Soon as they have to talk to girls,
I'm like this with a few slug with you, Tim Dillon.
As many times as I see him been through his house,
I'm the same way just because I find him so funny.
It's just, it's disastrous.
I was trying to get this picture up of you and it rubs you,
it comes in too hot.
Yeah.
I don't think that, I don't,
I have dealt with a lot of people coming in hot.
And I don't think that, you know, having a father,
not having a father,
your father might've taught you a different lesson.
You might, you know, my father was a, a kind of like,
a bulldozing kind of bipolar asshole.
Yeah.
So I didn't learn anything.
I just have a, a natural, at the core,
I'll adapt to what's coming at me
and then I'll find a medium.
Good, yeah, well you're a professional.
I don't know if I'm, it's just the way I am.
I don't, like, and I didn't, you know,
it's weird because I would see you around
and you met me 10 years ago?
Yeah, I have a picture.
You wanna see the picture finally?
Cause this is full circle for me. I'm autistic beyond, I gotta close the link. Are you autistic? Yeah, I have a picture. You want to see the picture finally? Cause this is full circle for me.
I'm autistic beyond, I gotta close the link.
Are you autistic?
Yeah, oh yeah.
That something's, I mean something's off.
Yeah, you haven't, you've never been diagnosed?
Look at this.
Hold on.
You're like a different person.
You're like a different person.
Am I?
I think I look, yeah.
You got a mustache and you have a beard?
Well, no, this is for a role.
I got dykeier over time, there's no question.
Well, I mean dykeier, but you know, you've sort of...
This is the weird thing, it's like...
But you locked in on a look, you made a decision.
This is not like some standard dyke-y look.
It's weird because it happened...
I didn't lock in.
I don't even know when this started happening,
but I used to have a teacher in high school.
We had this teacher, Maura Regev, Hebrew teacher, crazy.
And she, through all the years in the hallways,
you could see like all the class photos,
all the graduating classes, the teachers included.
She always had this bouffant.
And I'm like, Ma, look at this lady, it's like 70s here,
she's got the bouffant.
When the 2000s, she's got the bouffant.
I became somebody who had the same hairstyle forever,
but I...
There's a consistency to it.
It's not a business decision.
You just, you decided at some point.
It just happened and then it was easy.
Because when I used to see you around the store,
I didn't know you and I had to watch your comedy recently
because, you know, I, people like you,
they think you're funny.
And, but I would see you walk around them like,
is she doing a bit?
No, you know what, it was the weirdest thing.
It's like, this is where it landed.
There's not so many places to go as a lesbian.
Like either I shave my head,
which I think about every single year.
Shave it?
Yeah, do I buzz it?
Why?
But then I think, I don't know
if I have the right head shape for that.
You have to have a good head.
I don't know what my head looks like.
But in that picture, you're doing this
sort of half spiky thing.
No, the picture I had like more like,
you know, the front was, I don't know.
It's just, it's only recently in time
that people have been gave a shit
what queer people look like.
Don't even look at me.
Like, I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm trying to, you know,
I'm wearing men's clothes that are small.
I shop at, you know, like, I'm trying to-
You shop where? At Uniqlo, you know, if you're- Uniglo? If you're a dyke and you like men's clothes that are small. I shop at, you know, like I'm trying to fit- You shop where?
Uniqlo, you know, if you're a dyke
and you like men's clothes and you want small sizes,
Uniqlo, which is a Japanese company,
they make very petite.
They go all the way from XXS to XXXL.
So they got the run of the gamut.
But at what point did you realize like that,
you know, your queer identity was going to be upfront?
I didn't realize at all.
I never even thought I was upfront.
You know what?
It's like you, actually it's really interesting
that you said that your dad, maybe there are lessens.
I grew up without a, my father is really like-
Is he around?
No, I don't, I'm estranged from my father,
but he's a religious guy,
ultra-orthodox Jewish religious guy, but he wore cowboy boots.
He was flashy in the ways that he could be.
I think I inherited some of that flash.
Growing up with my mother-
Finding a way to work within your established being to have a little originality.
He always wore cowboy boots.
Well, what does that come from?
I don't, is that something that happens in Ultra Orthodox?
No, there's nobody with flair really.
The idea is some Adjani, you know.
And he found-
What was his background?
Well, he grew up in San Diego.
He grew up not religious.
Well, there it is.
He became religious, yeah.
So he kept some of his flair.
And now as I get older, you saw the car.
It's like, I used to really be angry.
I don't have a father, this and that.
There's no relationship.
But I realized as I age, I'm more like him than
I am my mother anyways, because she's very
Canadian, docile, sweet as can be.
And he's aggressive and boisterous, funny.
And even the car, I have this 2007 Porsche Cayman, which needs a million things, catalytic
converters always out, I drive with an engine light on.
I mean, it just is what it is.
But my father always liked Porsche.
It's not like I'm a car person.
I just remember.
And then there's also the Jewish Porsche thing, which is crazy.
What is that? Porsche was a German company that was around
during Hitler and may have done some work.
Yeah, Volkswagen, Mercedes.
We love German shit.
Sure.
This is our Freudian whatever.
What do you make of that?
It's sexual.
It's it?
You know, it's something.
It's like we're fucking them.
They fuck.
I don't know what it is, but this helps me keep a relationship alive with my father
in the ways that I am him.
It's almost like I do get a relationship with him.
But is it begrudgingly?
I mean, you don't look at him.
No, I enjoy, I pick the things of him
that I now really enjoy.
You have to do that.
And I like that.
So you did have a relationship at one point.
You know the guy.
Yes, yes.
And he was really funny.
I knew him when I was a little, you know, and over the years he visit when he could
and things and he was always just, yeah, he was, he was like you said, front.
What did you describe him?
Up front?
Up front.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, but so how does that happen?
Like, so was he like a hippie Jew from San Diego?
Yeah, I think he was.
You know, I don't know too much about the background, but he...
Where did he meet your mother?
They both were becoming religious and they both met at these seminaries in New York.
The Jewish seminaries.
Yeah.
Yeah, the yeshivas.
Yeah, exactly.
So he, you know, he Yeah, the yeshivas. Yeah, exactly.
So he, you know, he actually, he went to Berkeley.
For what?
I think politics.
He was supposed to work for Bush One
or something like this.
And then he heard some rabbi speak.
This is the folklore of my family.
There's no way to verify any of this, by the way.
I don't even know how these stories,
but anyway, he heard some rabbi speak.
He moved to New York.
He never came back
He had ten kids with my mother. Ten kids? Yeah. Do you know them all? Yeah, of course
Yeah, how old did they know what's the oldest? Well, we're all the oldest like 42 and the oldest
We're ten kids in in in 12 years. We're all about a year apart. That's crazy. So they were close to some
I'm not with others. But they were so they were Hasididic Yeah, and that was part of the duty make more Jews
Well, the duty is, you know, you're fucking without contraception
Well, I get that but I mean isn't part of the agenda to sort of repopulate
Well, you know that that is what happens when you're not using yeah, but I mean, it's not like you're just being lazy
They want more kids. They all have a lot of kids
Yeah just being lazy, you want more kids, they all have a lot of kids. Yeah, we had a lot of kids.
And so you grew up in like one of these kind of cloistered, Hasidic situations?
Yeah, but then my mother's Canadian, we got out, we moved to Canada.
She left him.
She left, we left the community.
With 10 kids.
With 10 kids.
That must have been crazy.
It's crazy.
You know, we talked about Louzartorski for a minute.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because I've talked to Jews about... He grew up even crazier than me, if you can imagine. I mean, to you, it looks all crazy.er Torsky for a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I've talked to Jews about, you know.
He grew up even crazier than me, if you can imagine.
I mean, to you, it looks all crazy.
Yeah, of course.
No, he got out, he had a kid or something.
I don't know.
Well, he was about to get married.
He had a wife, I think.
I don't remember if he had a kid,
but like he was a grown person making a decision.
You at least were saved in a way.
Exactly, people like had you, I'm like, my mother took us.
Huh, all 10 of you?
All 10 of us.
To Canada. To Canada, Montreal. Where, Altenia? All 10 of us. To Canada.
To Canada, Montreal.
Where?
Montreal.
Mm-hmm, that's where I met you.
Plenty of Jews.
Because I was starting to find comedy then, and I got four minute spots at Just for Laughs,
and I came about four hours early, because again, I have no chill.
I was so excited to be there, And I was sitting on this open patio
that they had at the Hyatt there
where they hosted all the comics
that came in for the Montreal festival.
I know, in back.
Yeah, in back.
And the only other person outside was you.
And then I looked in the background of that picture,
I think Nick Brazile,
who's like a booker there or something
is also in the background of the picture.
But nobody was on the balcony. I saw you. Just sitting by myself something is also in the background of the picture, but nobody was on
the balcony.
I saw you.
Just sitting by myself out there.
Yeah.
I was immediately like, but I didn't want it, but
you could tell I wanted to talk.
Yeah.
And you talked to me for two or three hours.
We had, we were both there like retardedly early.
I don't know why.
We spoke for two or three hours.
You were.
Stop it.
Beyond generous.
I could ask whatever.
Yeah.
I was nosy. Was it helpful?
Not helpful, it was helpful in a way
that we had a conversation.
Yeah.
You weren't like, do this, do that.
No, I wouldn't have done that.
But then years later, I started making my own way.
Yeah.
And so I see you at the store, I come up hot,
I'm at, you know, which is, it's a code,
we don't really do that.
It's not like I do that all the time with lots of comics.
You I did it with, I did it with Sebastian,
who is just a doll, as you can imagine.
And Tim, who I'm friends with, same thing,
but lots of other, but Whitney,
there's so many people I go up to,
and it either hits or I rub them the wrong way.
I just had no sense of like,
cause my memory's not great and you look totally different
and I'm trying to piece it together, it's 10 years ago.
No, and why would you remember me?
Because you're so dewy.
Well, it happens.
That's, and I'm sure that's why I talk to you because-
Can we vape in here?
Yeah, I don't care.
So there's like, you know, there's something like,
cause I didn't know what you were doing on stage until
like a few weeks ago, I go,
I'm like, and I'm watching this weirdo.
Did you watch me?
Yeah.
And I was like, oh my God, she's like a legacy.
She's like, you know, a purely Jewish humorist.
But you know what?
And that's not, it's not, I'm not, that's not a put down.
That's a compliment.
And by the way, and by the way, it is what it's like,
I think like I, like I relate to people, like my friends,
grandparents or whatever.
I feel like I grew up like, like when you do hear it, like I shared a room, the
million siblings, it was bunk beds, you know, the bunk, the top bunk was always
like caving in, you could smash to death.
You know, we grew up, you know, with multiple generations in the house.
My great uncle Eddie was downstairs.
My baby was around.
It was like all old people, it was all,
so that's why it's like, it sounds like,
oh, this comedy died and now it's like
been reincarnated in me for some fucking reason.
Well, but what it is is because there's nobody
that generationally has that proximity
to that sort of Yiddish lilt of conversation that was in your house.
That was in my house.
So that most people, certainly your generation, but even mine, I can affect that because I
had grandparents that were once removed from that.
But to actually to realize that it still exists generationally in certain communities.
So it's really a way of talking and a way of delivering that you've heightened and it's just
your natural way of being.
But it's not a reinvention, it's just sort of like,
haven't seen that in a while,
because culturally it doesn't exist anymore comedically.
Back in the day, you had guys on stage in the Borsch Belt
that were doing, Myron Cohen was doing
half his act in Yiddish.
Lenny Bruce was Yiddish.
So it's a tone of comedy, which was the backbone
of American comedy for fucking decades.
Yeah, yeah.
No, you know, and I tried to change it.
It's funny, I have some siblings who don't,
who speak really anglicized or something like this,
and I have other siblings that my girlfriend,
Gabby, can't understand because it's so thick.
Do you speak Yiddish?
Like my brother, Shnare.
I don't. I can understand a bit now, but we did.
My mother does and my mother writes plays in Yiddish
and does a lot in Yiddish still.
But, I tried to, like, I remember in high school,
my best friend sat me down, shout out to Shani,
and she was like, you're bringing down the group.
Cause I went to still a religious, no, sorry,
a conservative Jewish high school, so pretty Jewish, but it bringing down the group. Cause I went to still a religious, no, sorry, a conservative Jewish high school.
So pretty Jewish, but it was cool.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Had a little looser.
It was much looser than how I grew up.
So, and she was like, you're bringing down the group.
And I would say, you know, like the color orange, I said orange, now I say orange.
And I switched so much that I started going crazy and not knowing what my voice was.
Too Jewy, buzz killed.
You about, you.
Yeah, like I would always have to think about
it kind of like being a dyke.
Yeah.
When I was like very masculine.
Yeah.
But I was presenting as female, as feminine,
as possible, I will always be conscious how
I'm sitting, how I'm doing stuff.
Yeah.
Like, is this too masculine?
I would put my hands in a certain way.
I would sit cross legged and all like this.
Like, it's the same thing with my voice to a
point that I didn't know how to move.
And I didn't know what I sounded like anyway.
And now it's always an amalgamation.
Like now I feel like some people say you sound
like you're from Montreal, sound like here,
you sound like there.
So, you know, it's landed here, but there's
certainly in my family of my siblings, there's
like a volume of some people have it way more and some people have it less my sister
Who's worked in the corporate world now for like over 15 years. She's really
has a nice voice, you know what I mean, very
business like professional and that sort of thing.
But your delivery but like the way you do comedy,
you come in hot immediately and the jokes are solid,
but you do definitely doing the thing.
Well, here's the thing.
In comedy, I'm almost, I get to be the most me.
Yeah.
I don't have to, I can go extreme.
I can be almost an exaggeration of who I am.
Whatever thoughts are the deep, I can go a thousand percent.
In life, you've toned it down a little.
It happens naturally for me now.
I'm just not a thousand percent me.
I have the filters.
I don't have enough filters.
I don't have enough filters.
I still go up to people like,
yo, I wish I had a father who was like, play it cool.
I don't, I still would like to play cool
and do these things.
It's just, but I'm still, you know,
but the more heated I get, the less I think about how I'm being, the and do these things. It's just, but I'm still, you know, but the more heated I get,
the less I think about how I'm being,
the more it comes out, if that makes sense.
And the more funny.
Yeah, the less guardrails there is
about like how I have to be.
Well, that's what's interesting about comedy.
You know, and for me too,
like I tell people like, what should I do?
I said, well, you can do whatever the fuck you want.
Yeah.
You know, when you're starting out,
it's harder now because everybody's recording You know, when you're starting out, it's harder now because everybody's recording everything,
but when you're starting out,
just figure out how to make that
your fucking territory up there.
Well, that was the thing I had first.
You know, when I first started,
and it was kind of, you know,
I had probably started a year and a half in Montreal
before I moved to Toronto, and that's where I really,
you know, that was my real stomping ground.
Before you get there though, like what is going on?
So your mother takes you all there, there's 10 of you,
you integrate into the Jewish community in Montreal.
Yeah, so we integrate, we're still the most Jewish.
So I go to this conservative private school
that we get on subsidy.
So your mother's still ultra-Orthodox?
She's not ultra, but we're kosher to kitchen.
She wearing a wig?
No.
But she's not wearing pants.
Yeah.
But she wasn't married too, so she wasn't wearing a wig.
Right, okay, right, okay.
But I don't know if she would have.
Yeah.
But we were still like black kosher.
We were still like, I was the religious kid at school,
even though it was a Jewish conservative school,
I was still the most fanatic.
And were you religious?
Yeah, yeah.
So like, as somebody who grows up in that,
what does that require of a woman?
It's so funny, because Gabby thinks,
my girlfriend thinks I'm the most religious person still.
Well, because I have a mezuzah on the door,
I'm not an animal.
I mean, like there's certain things that I,
you know, I don't have to like.
I don't even have one.
No, but you know, it was like, I don't need to like, I feel bad about it.
Yeah. There's things that I can come bring one, but, um, you know, there's things that, you know,
I, I just listen, I don't have to do. You say about candles. If, if no, but occasionally I'll have
like a Dikesator or something, you know, I picked it, but you know, yeah, I'm very informed by that
because even when I go to, I like traditions, I, you know, I'm not somebody who like, I but you know, yeah, I'm very informed by that because even when I go to,
I like traditions, you know, I'm not somebody who like, you know, most of Judaism, we really
don't know about God, the idea is like-
I know, I've been talking about that recently.
It's like we were never taught how to use God.
No, we were like, maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
This is what it is.
It's an ongoing conversation.
Yeah, it's like, so maybe it's energies now.
I think it's like, I don't know, I think it's
miraculous that a plant grows and it's not plugged into a wall and that water does it,
you know.
I get that.
But I mean, you were, as Orthodox, you brought up with a God.
More like rules, like we almost didn't talk about God so much.
Exactly.
It was almost like, well, there's kind of what you have to do.
And I did a lot of things you have to do.
I mean, I was kosher until 19.
I broke my kosherness on an Egg McMuffin from McDonald's.
Was it a ritual?
Were you like, I'm doing it?
What happened was I had exams.
I was at school.
In college?
Yeah, it's called CJUP.
Dawson College in Montreal.
It's after high school.
You graduate high school, grade 11.
Then you go to C-GEP, which is pre-college
for like two years, and then you do university,
which is three years, not a four year program.
So I'm in this two year, you know,
pre-college thing that is only mandatory in Quebec.
Nobody else, I think, in the world has it.
But anyway, I'm there,
and it was very segregated, the school.
Between what and what?
Basically, all the schools, all the schools,
there's like four C. gypsum on trial or something,
and all of the schools have to go to them for two years.
So they're massive schools.
But it was divided, there was a Jew calf.
Really?
Three E.
You ate.
That was a norm or was it, this is where Jews eat?
If you came from a Jewish school, you ate there.
You had to eat there.
There was an Italian cafe.
They put them there.
Not put, but that was the way it was.
It felt like prison there.
It was just a community thing.
It felt like prison there.
But it wasn't a rule you had to eat there,
but the Jews ate there.
Yeah, and you kind of couldn't,
Conrad's was only for black kids.
And if you were there, you could have a friend there,
but you would kind of like, at the entrance of the cafeteria,
you would say like, bye.
Yeah.
I gotta go with the Jews.
Cause I was dating an Italian girl
who was in the Italian cafe.
And we didn't hang out in the Italian cafe.
She would want to come and have lunch with me in a Jew cafe.
I'm like, I don't think that's a good idea.
But there wasn't like a queer cafe?
No, oh, gays, forget it.
Yeah, but it was okay to be out though?
Gays were in the hallways a lot,
just sitting along the fucking lockers,
if that makes sense.
But anyway, so we just had exams.
I maybe had an eight o'clock to 10 o'clock exam.
Nailed it.
I'm exhausted.
It's like 10 a.m. And I remember, first of all, it's Pesach, it's Passover.
Okay, so all the Jews, this is where all the,
this is where all the non-religious Jews
are suddenly keeping kosher for Passover.
All of my conservative Jewish friends are like,
oh, we're not eating bread.
Meanwhile, they eat traph, they eat whatever the fuck
they want all the time, they're telling me.
And there was an Alexis Neon, which was the mall across the street. eating bread, meanwhile they eat trach, they eat whatever the fuck they want all the time, they're telling me.
And there was an Alexis Neon,
which was the mall across the street,
and there was a McDonald's in there.
And I was like, breakfast is still open,
because I saw Big Daddy, we loved the movie Big Daddy,
and it was all McDonald's breakfast.
And even as a kid, after school,
I'd be walking home, all the non-Jewish kids had like,
McDonald's happy meals, I'm like, I wanna be happy.
Like, why can't I be happy?
I just, you smelling, all I wanted was a nugget.
Like if I could get a nugget.
And then McDonald's breakfast became this other big thing.
I'm like, big daddy, you gotta make breakfast.
And I realized it was served to 11 or something.
And I'm like, I'm doing it.
I don't know what, there was no kosher food around me.
I just finished this exam, I got no lunch on me.
There's nothing kosher on me.
I go and I get the Egg McMuffin,
which I heard about with the bacon.
Oh, you want full, full bore.
Yeah, the hash browns.
The latkes, yeah, the McDonald's latkes.
And then I bring it back to the jukebox and I eat it.
And I remember my friend Ron,
who's suddenly keeping kosher, ridiculous,
and shout out to Ron.
He goes, I can't believe you're gonna eat this
on Passover.
I said, how dare you?
How many times have I gone out with everybody,
ordered a fucking garden salad,
no dressing, cause I'm kosher.
I don't say fuck all about what you guys eat. And I literally had an Egg McMuffin every day have I gone out with everybody, ordered a fucking garden salad, no dressing, cause I'm kosher.
I don't say fuck all about what you guys eat.
And I literally had an Egg McMuffin every day
for like a month.
And I ended up working at McDonald's, legitimately.
I'm the only one who can prove that.
And I ate there twice a day the entire time we ate,
we worked there, my friend Shana.
Did you feel like working at McDonald's
was some sort of act of rebellion?
You know what?
They paid $11 an hour,
which is way more than the seven an hour you could get.
McDonald's had a shortage of workers,
so they were giving $11 an hour,
which at the time was insane.
But what was the feeling though?
I mean, after a lifetime of honoring these codes and rules.
No feelings, you know what I guess?
I guess I'm just like,
more people have something to say about it than me.
I'm like, well, you know what I mean?
It's like, I remember the first,
like when I started getting like dollar pizza
or whatever that was in kosher,
I had more of a feeling about it, maybe a little guilt.
But once I was like, and then once you're gay,
like people go, oh, do you care that you're,
you know, do you care about marrying a Jewish?
I go, what are we talking about?
What are we doing here?
I'm scissoring.
Like, what are you talking about?
Like it's over, we're not procreating.
And plus I feel like my mother procreated enough
for all of us.
We don't have to do nothing.
So when did you, like, when was the first conversations
you had with your mother about being gay?
Oh, yeah, so I was outed horribly.
How old?
I was like 17, 18.
And I was still at this college
dating this freaking Italian girl who was,
you know, really pressuring me.
She wanted to hold my hand in public and all this shit.
And I remember we were leaving school and we were like gonna take the subway, you know, really pressuring me. She wanted to hold my hand in public and all this shit. And I remember we were leaving school
and we were like gonna take the subway, you know,
the Metro and the platform.
She was like, hold my hand.
And this was the subway stop
that the whole school got out at.
So I'm like, there's no fucking way.
What am I fucking gay?
And she was like, if you don't hold my hand,
I'm getting on the train without you.
I waved the fuck to her. I was like, if you don't hold my hand, I'm getting on the train without you. I waved the fuck to her.
I was like, goodbye.
Not doing that.
And then I started going out.
We had a campus bar.
Wasn't on campus, but it was like, you know.
The place.
Yeah, it was called Mad Hatters in Montreal.
And we were, you know, it was the kind of place
where kids would go out, we would put our money together,
buy a pitcher.
And I was getting a little tipsy, you know,
early in like, you know.
And we go to the bathroom and she pulls me to the stall,
we're making out in the stall.
People are yelling for the bathroom because it's like,
there's like two stalls and it's, you know,
so we fling out of it, you know, our embrace kind of separating as the door opens.
And this bitch that I went to school with, Jewish
school with, saw me, which was my worst nightmare.
And so I'm like paranoid or whatever.
Sobered up pretty quick.
And literally it felt like, it felt like that
movie I walked to remember, I don't know if you've
seen Shane West and Mandy Moore, but where like
the whole cafeteria
like, you know, saw a nude of you or something. And it felt like I was walking in and I was
getting messages on MSN and-
Well, so what did she put it out into the world somehow? Or just-
Yeah, it spread like wildfire.
This is before Instagram and shit.
Yeah, yeah, just before. And it was like, but it's still the Jewish community
there was so, it spread like wildfire.
And I just remember like literally being,
at this point I'm 17, 18, I live on my own.
I grew up really poor.
It was either like, oh, I could maybe pay my mom rent
or get my own spot.
At one point I almost moved out with my brother Menachem
into a studio with like a curtain in between us.
But I was like, what if he masturbates?
I started thinking about that.
And then I was like, he was a year old,
he was like 18 and I was 17.
So I was like Menachem, we could get our own place.
And he was like really down with it.
And I was doing most of the groundwork,
like looking at these places in Montreal.
But it quickly became clear
that we couldn't afford a one bedroom.
We'll have to be in a studio.
Is he still religious, that one?
No. All right.
And then, yeah, it spread.
And what happened?
And my friends told me, you know,
I thought at that point, social life
was way more important than my family.
Yeah.
Because this'll go back.
At this point, social life was all I had.
Like my friends, college time, you know what I mean?
I'm living on my own. A. Like my friends, college time, you know what I mean?
I'm living on my own.
A lot of my friends are living at home
or they have dorms or something like this.
And I thought my life was falling apart.
I was like, I'm really lucky to be alive here
because I thought I was like losing.
Like I was just, I had no money.
I couldn't do school anymore.
I'm like, I don't even think I could afford this anymore.
So you were depressed, you mean?
Yeah, and I thought I was like, my life was over.
Cause you were gonna die, you're gonna kill yourself.
I guess so.
Like I just like wasn't sure how to even like
navigate one foot forward.
Because all my friends,
my friends were telling me things like,
you know, I can't be friends with you.
Like even though it was progressive,
but for religious reasons or just being. Yeah, we were was progressive, it was a 2000s. But for religious reasons
or just being- Yeah, we were still
in a conservative traditional Jewish community.
That was the thing.
It wasn't like, you know, it wasn't Orthodox,
but it was still traditional in a way
like an American traditional, you know.
So was it God's law kind of thing?
No, it was kind of like, that's weird, she lied.
It's like, I didn't lie.
I wasn't even gay to myself yet.
Like why do I have to tell you everything?
I don't even know everything. Like people expect they need to know everything. It's like, I't lie. I wasn't even gay to myself yet. Yeah, I have to tell you everything I don't even know everything like people expect they need to know everything. It's like I'm figuring I don't know I'm figuring it
I haven't even said I'm gay yet. Yeah, I'm kind of hoping this passes the scrolls crazy. I'm kind of hoping this goes away
Yeah, I think it's a face. I'm like
What are you crazy you already go already grown up with this deaf mother,
single mom of 10.
Funny mom about the train is like, what am I gay?
Yeah, no, I'm not gay, you're gay.
I'm not actually gay.
And I really just didn't want another thing.
Growing up so poor, being on my own,
my mother was hearing impaired and crazy,
we were on welfare, I was on subsidy at the school.
I didn't want another thing.
As soon as gay happened to me, I'm like, no, no, no.
So you're already stigmatized for being poor and having-
Poor was horrible.
Poor was the worst thing I've ever been through.
And then your whole life was like that
upon arriving in Canada?
Oh yeah, yeah.
It was just horrendous.
And I went to a rich school.
I went to a Jewish private school on subsidy. It was like maybe there was like five or six kids
in the whole class of 200 or 150
that were welfare cases.
And that highlighted how poor I was.
I guess as an early child, you're in the community,
everybody's kind of poor.
When you're yelling with a neighbor's family or something,
you're like, classic insults we have. It's like, well, you're fat, you're ugly. Well, you're poor, you're yelling with a neighbor's family or something, you're like, you know, classic insults we have.
It's like, well, you're fat, you're ugly.
Well, you're poor, you're poor too.
Like we all had, like, you know,
we went right for the gutter roll.
And then.
So what happened after you were outed?
I mean, how did that come together?
So I lost all my friends.
Totally.
Yeah, there was a couple friends, shout out to Allie in LA.
My friend, Allie, messaged me, she was like,
hey dog, hear what's happening, love you no matter what.
Same with my friend Ali, like, hey, if you wanna talk,
don't, but I had other friends saying,
I'm hearing sketchy things about you,
I don't know what's true, and they've all come around since,
but it was really devastating.
And how'd you handle it?
I can't even almost remember.
I just got through.
Yeah.
I just literally got through.
But did you feel like walking down the halls,
you were getting looks and all that shit?
Oh, it was horrible.
Oh, Christ.
Yeah, no, I didn't go into the juke half.
I didn't-
Just stayed in the hallway?
Yeah, like I just went to class and literally went home
and I probably lost so much weight.
Like I didn't eat a lot.
Yeah.
And I was really-
What happened to the Italian girl?
Yeah, she was, I can't remember even how I navigated that
with her.
Isn't that strange?
Like all that stuff is so blur.
Yeah, so then when I told my mother, so when I was outed,
I knew that one of my siblings might find out
and tell my mother. Yeah. So I felt like, and I had gone to my mother's for like Friday, I used to do homework
in the kitchen table there or whatever, eat her free food or whatever. And I said, hey, ma,
I just like barged in and I was like, hey ma, I got a girlfriend, she's blonde. And she was like,
does she want to come for Shabbos? I'm like, nobody wants to fucking come here. So she took it. My family took it great.
I mean, my sister Khai was like, what, you
don't think we've all made out with girls?
My sister Khai is like smoking a cigarette.
She's like changing a tampon in front of me.
She's got her foot up on the ledge.
Yeah.
She's like, you don't think just cause you make
out with girls, you're good.
I'm like, no, I think it's actually more than that.
I have a girlfriend.
She's like, we've all had girlfriends.
I'm like, what's going on?
So my family was great. It was the social shit at that age that was the No, I think it's actually more than that. I have a girlfriend, she's like, we've all had girlfriends. I'm like, what's going on?
So my family was great, it was the social shit at that age that was the hardest.
Well, that's interesting though,
that your mother somehow maintained a bit
of progressive sensibility, or was it just work for her kids?
Well, now she's Jews for Jesus.
So she's totally off again.
When the fuck did that happen?
No, my mother's addicted to cults.
Like people fall in love with people,
she falls in love with the community.
Basically, if you're at the end of an escalator,
one way to get my mother is just stand at the end
of an escalator, any subway station, if she comes up,
she will grab your pamphlet, she will read it,
she's considering it.
She is truly going to consider it.
What do you think that is?
She just likes, she's always searching for more,
she's vulnerable.
When I ask her, she goes, if you're asking if I had any
friends growing up, the answer is no.
I'm like, mom, what is going on?
But she, yeah, just community and a sense of, my mother always feels
like she's sinning, I guess, but she's never sinned.
Did she grow up Jewish?
Yeah, she's Jewish, but I think also she has a daddy thing.
That religion is very daddy. Yeah.
It's like my mother grew up a daddy's girl.
My grandfather, my Zadie, her father, who saved us,
quote unquote, from, from New York.
They were very, very, very close.
Yeah.
Okay.
Then she leaves his house.
She marries my father.
She's under the rule of my father.
She has no autonomy basically in her family.
She's like just, you know, bearing kids
and he says goes and whatever.
And then she divorces my father.
What was the, what drove that?
Very abusive.
They had a horrible abusive relationship.
And once you have Canada,
that's when it ended with him for you?
Yeah, well, there was like, you know,
he would try and visit, but it was very difficult.
He made me visit once a year,
and then that went to once every two years,
and we really...
And then her father dies,
and she comes back to Canada to her father,
and he's great, and we grew up with him.
And then he dies and then she's unsure of herself
without a man over her.
So Jesus becomes her new daddy.
Yeah, yeah, everybody's daddy.
The father, so she needs that.
And maybe I try and explain her that maybe I don't need that
because I grew up mostly with a single mom.
So.
So it's sort of fortuitous that you were kind of
able to get out from under, you know,
being a real kind of insulated religious fanatic
just by coincidence.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
And like, it seems like that being outed,
you know, kind of forced your hand,
but did sort of, I assume that like,
you coming to grips
or accepting yourself somehow coincided with comedy.
Yeah, I kind of heard about comedy in Montreal.
In college?
Yeah, probably around this whole time,
maybe a little bit later, maybe university.
I mean, I guess I had heard of it
and I knew my brothers knew something about it,
but I didn't really know it or what it was.
But they had the festival again in Montreal.
So that was also a great coincidence
because it was huge.
And as soon as I heard of it, I thought,
oh, I could do that.
You went and watched?
Yeah, so I don't know if we got tickets,
it was very expensive, but I knew of the festival.
I watched stuff like online or torrented, but
also I did it immediately as soon as I found out to do it.
Um, like as soon as I heard about it, I just looked up
like comment, I was like, where's the best place to bomb?
Yeah.
And I started doing it almost not knowing what it was,
which was also great because I had no stakes.
I had no, I really didn't know that it could be a big thing
or a not thing or a job or anything.
And I just-
And you had no, you weren't watching it.
No, I didn't know.
You had no heroes.
No, no, but my family was funny.
We were fine, I had shit to say.
And it's funny that you said early on,
you were talking about people who, comics who start and
whatever, and can't they use that or find their
voice.
The first thing older comics in Montreal always
tell me like, it takes 10 years to find you, you
know, like 10 years, you know, and, you know, 10
years to find your voice.
And the first comment I always got was my voice.
I have such a strong voice.
The content kind of came off,
I had it opposite to everyone.
Cause basically it was like,
my voice was the strongest thing right away.
Anything I said, even if it was something political
or in the zeitgeist or people were talking about it
on stage, if I said it, it sounded new, different,
it was a different perspective.
Well, yeah, and also you weren't cluttered with,
you know, heroes.
Yeah.
You're coming into it like clean slate somehow. Like you weren't like, you know, heroes. Yeah. You're coming into it like Queen Slate somehow.
Yeah.
Like you weren't like, you know, that guy's funny
or that woman's funny and I wanna be like her.
You were just sort of-
I was going back and like,
as I was falling in love with comedy,
I was also watching it.
Like I watched Eddie Murphy.
I was like, somebody should do something.
Like as if, you know, I'm 25 years late.
Well, I mean, when I got into comedy,
I always loved comedy, but I always,
I never saw it as some sort of,
I never saw myself as an entertainer.
I just knew that I had things to say,
and I had a way of saying it, and that I wanted to say it,
and I wanted to have the freedom to say
whatever the fuck I wanted.
And the only context was, well, it's gotta be funny.
So it was my way of finding myself, my voice, that was all.
I never thought I really wanna entertain people.
Yeah, no, I think I was always like a class clown type.
Yeah, me too.
There were hints of this happening,
but I guess I didn't know of it as a thing.
At the time, I was working as an auditor,
as an accountant, I got a good job from university.
They gave you an internship,
and they gave me a laptop for keeps, which got me in.
I was like, for keeps?
I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna work here. I was like. I can have this? Yeah, like it was just an internship.
And I was like, yeah, it's a good job.
For your computer.
This is good benefits.
This is good benefits.
So when you're first going on, are you just like,
are you doing what you do?
You're just sort of like, you're just going up there
and just like going?
Yeah.
You're writing jokes?
Yeah, I was like stuff about my family
and my mother was a very big inspiration
and growing up poor, I was starting to own more.
I was so ashamed to be poor and I hid it for so long.
I was somebody who like tried not to look poor or be poor.
And I don't know, I started owning it a little bit more.
And it was a way to bring less shame
to the things I could not control.
And what about the gay thing?
The gay, I was already, like I looked gay.
Like it's enough.
Like it was clear.
People knew.
Yeah, like it was like, I didn't have to like,
that is even more recent, that stuff,
because now there's a lot of like queer stuff
and gender stuff that I'm in a place
where I can comment about that.
Yeah.
But then no need to.
But then it's like, yeah, she's gay.
Yeah.
It's like my mother hated that I switched my name to Robbie,
you know, when I started comedy. But when I was doing it, when I was an accountant,
I went by my birth name, Rivka,
and I didn't want the firm to think I wasn't like
die hard for them, which I literally was.
Shout out to KPMG, gave me an internship and then a job.
But like, you have to like live for this company.
Like basically I was getting like-
So you're Rivka the accountant.
Yeah, so I was Rivka, and I really didn't know-
Was it a Jewish accounting firm?
No.
And I specifically didn't go,
like there was a Jewish partner
at another big accounting firm,
and Ernst & Young who was like,
hey, we stick with each other.
And I was like, I kinda don't want this vibe anymore.
And I went where they had like a lot of French people
actually, Montreal still, but.
You speak French?
Oui, je parle français.
Oh yeah?
Toi?
Yeah, no, it's mandatory there.
I had to like work in friendship.
Yeah.
But I, you know, used Robbie because I wanted,
I wanted to keep the R initial.
I wanted to feel like me.
I wanted it almost to be familial.
And my mom's brother's name was Robbie.
Yeah.
My uncle, Rob, never heard a bad thing about him
my whole life.
He lived in Vermont.
We thought he was like Ned Flounders.
He would come to New York and Montreal.
He'd be like, who wants to play ball?
And we'd be like, who's this faggot?
We just were so mean to him, but he was the greatest guy.
And over the years we got to acknowledge,
this was just a good dude.
And so I went with Robbie
because I never heard anything bad about my uncle Rob and
shout out to uncle Rob, my aunt Sheila, they're
wonderful people. And it felt like still home.
It felt like a name I knew and then I could keep
separate. But then I was, I was, it was going,
because I said, I'm doing this comedy thing six
months, doesn't work. I have the best job.
Yeah. Easy as hell. I don't know what I'm doing at work, six months. Doesn't work? I have the best job. Yeah.
Easy as hell.
I don't know what I'm doing at work, but you just pretend.
Yeah.
And they keep you around.
Right.
Like there's nothing to do.
So what happens after six months?
I was, there was a little write-up of me in the local paper.
Hmm.
That was enough.
So that was some, and they got the,
partners got the paper every morning in their office.
Yeah.
So a partner came to me, I thought I was in big trouble.
It's like, this is you, like it was Robbie Hoffman,
Rufka Hoffman, because I was like moonlining.
I had two suits from Jacob, which was,
shout out to Jacob in Montreal, which was,
and I would wear my suits and then I would go to the bathroom,
I would change into jeans and like a T-shirt
and I'd go do comedy.
Where?
In Montreal. In the works?
Yeah, the works, I did the open mic there.
Any mic that I could basically do, I was doing.
Yeah, and what did the partner say?
And he actually really liked it
and wanted me to do the Christmas party.
He thought it was great that I was doing that.
Did you do the Christmas party?
I think I left the company before that,
but they all did come to see me
do Four Minutes at Just For Laughs.
Because I promoted that, like,
hey guys, I'm in the festival.
I was very grandiose,
which I recently had a conversation with my friend
about how I was always braggadocious or grandiose
or I would exaggerate, but it's like,
when you don't have parents who believe in you
and tell you anything, like I was in fact encouraged,
I couldn't do anything.
And also you're like the youngest kid.
Yeah, but it's also like, I was like, I'm gonna give myself, I couldn't do anything. And also you like, you like the youngest kid. Yeah, but it's also like, I believe I was like, I'm going to give myself with my
parents, I'm going to become the father.
I didn't have the mother.
I'm going to like, you got this Rob, you are doing just last.
Fuck yeah.
I don't care that it's four minutes.
Look at you.
Yeah.
And I would, I would promote that shit, but it's annoying to people cause they're
like, but other people have parents and stuff.
So they learn to, oh, they were believed in, but other people have parents and stuff.
So they learned to know they were believed in, but I was never really believed in.
My mother was very like fine about us doing anything.
She was encouraging and really, you know, respected all her kids and thought we were
clever.
But there was no idea that you could do much.
I remember her telling my brothers like schools not for everyone.
But so do you find,, was it a battle against
a sort of insecurity or are you just second nature?
Like, I'm here, fuck off.
I just didn't even think about it.
I really believed in myself.
I didn't think about it.
I was like-
That's kind of a gift.
Yeah, I just didn't, I was just like, going in.
So what's the first gig you get?
When do you start working?
I started working pretty,
I mean, I started doing mics and shows.
I did that, the head of Just Flaps really liked me early
and I got those four minute spots.
Bruce, shout out to Bruce.
Bruce likes me, it was a guy Andy at the time.
And then I moved to Toronto.
What would happen, there was a lot of politics
in the Comedy Works, which was the main club, right?
What was that guy's name, Jimmy?
Yeah, there was a lot of politics.
I would win the best of open mic all the time,
but I wouldn't get to do the weekend.
They would keep people down that were funny.
They had that kind of power in the young club.
They would keep these guys like who were like,
I'm like, but I literally like the crowd vote,
it's a crowd based vote.
They were the gatekeepers though,
those club owners at that time.
It seemed like it should have been over by then.
It was the Bookers too.
It wasn't just the club owner
because the club owner really liked me
and he would say, I want you on the weekend,
but then the Booker would never put me on.
So I moved to Toronto and everybody,
they embraced me.
Yeah.
And I grew up in Montreal thinking,
Toronto sucks,
sucks, they have a rivalry versus Toronto.
They're not insecure, they don't,
Montreal's a great party town, you like to go there.
They're not thinking the same way.
And I grew up thinking it would be terrible, wonderful.
I got a bike, I rode around everywhere doing shows.
I like Toronto. Love it.
What are those clubs there?
The Comedy Bar, excellent.
With this guy like three rooms in it, right?
Yeah, it's great.
And they have a new one,
but it's just the whole scene in general
was fucking awesome.
So that's where you really kind of came into it.
Yes, that's when I really started building material.
Built the time. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then do you start touring?
Yeah, you know what?
Even now I barely say that I'm touring.
I put a few dates together and I guess that's a tour. But yeah, I guess I was, you know what? even now I barely say that I'm touring. I put a few dates together and I guess that's a tour.
But yeah, I guess I was, you know what,
it's funny that you asked that
because early memories I have, I was taking,
I didn't have a car or a license.
I got my license way late.
So I'd take the bus.
Like if I was working Montreal or Toronto,
like you could go to Ottawa two hours away.
You could go to like Waterloo,
all these weird towns nearby.
For one-nighters.
Yeah, or like literally I would go for like,
if it was a really good mic.
Yeah, oh yeah, sure.
Like I would go if it was just 10 minutes of a spot
at a club or something.
So, but I thought it was a big deal,
like, oh, we're playing this place.
Yeah.
So, but I remember being on the bus,
being on the Greyhound.
Yeah. And I'm listening to you.
I think, you know, I listened to you with,
I think you had Obama on, which was really cool.
Melissa Etheridge episode was unbelievable.
Wasn't she great?
She was, that episode was unbelievable.
And at first I'm like, ah, you're gay,
you're gonna listen to the gays?
I'm like, all right, I'll throw it on.
She's spectacular. And it was phenomenal.
Yeah, it's so funny, I saw her on the plane
with her whole family, her wife and everybody.
It was like really, it was just sort of like, ugh.
You know, she's-
Dykes on flights, it's brutal.
But it was cute to see her in that context.
Yeah, I was still day job, I was still working.
Okay.
I moved from accounting, then I got a sales job.
I was still like working crazy.
When do you start making money in show business?
Then I got my first job, I left for a kids show,
Odd Squad, as a writer's assistant.
What was that, is that was in Canada?
Yeah, it was in Toronto.
And it was half in LA, so I started coming to LA
cause it was a PBS show that shot in Canada.
Okay.
And so I knew it would get me in.
What was the angle?
It was like law and order for kids.
At the school?
No, they were real kids.
They were agents.
Okay. Yeah.
And they solved odd crimes.
So how many writers were in the room?
Nobody.
It was basically the head writer, Tim, who's amazing,
Mark, who's amazing.
This is another area I think I got very lucky in.
Me Too, when Me Too, like, Me Too's happening.
I'm only working for the greatest white dudes
I've ever met, unfortunately.
Okay, and if you count one of them's Italian,
I don't know what you're, but basically,
I look like a, I'm like a deck, like I'm like
spared from like, these guys are promoting me
at every, so I feel, but you know what I mean?
It's not a discount, it's just more of a funny note
that like I'm working for these two guys,
they're promoting me at every turn.
We're writing all the episodes, I'm a writer's
assistant, but they're giving me scripts too.
And the show grows, it balloons huge, I went in Emmy for it, daytime Emmy.
And you learned how to do it.
We learned that, that was my film school.
Yeah.
I'd never been to film, I didn't even know.
The scripts, it was like, it was literally
like script writing school because this,
yes, we couldn't swear and there was no, you know,
sexual innuendo or drama.
But structure, jokes.
Structure, jokes, trimming the fat, tight, tight, tight.
And we did 80 scripts a season.
What?
80 scripts.
For 22 minutes?
Each was 11 minutes.
Okay.
So 11, 11, 22.
Yeah, tell a whole story in 11 minutes.
But you tell a whole story.
Yeah.
With a B, so it was like boot camp.
And not only am I reading all these scripts,
I'm handing in a script every month.
Like it was, and I made like $200.
I left my like finance, accounting, sales type work,
and I make almost no money, but I'm working,
it's the first time that I'm not late to work.
Like when I was, I worked in accounting recruitment
at one point. Are you directing too?
Are you dealing with the kids?
Oh, no, no, I'm dealing with the kids.
I mean, I'm not directing.
They're like all around my desk.
Like I remember Brendan, he was like 12 at the time.
This kid is like, hey, we're seeing a movie
on the weekend, my birthday.
I'm like, Brendan, I'm not friends with a child.
Yeah.
I'm not going.
Why didn't you accept my friend request?
I am not friends with kids.
What am I fucking Drake?
I'm not doing it.
You know, but it was like these kids would come
and pitch you ideas and it was just tremendous.
It was such a fun time.
And I realized that when I was like in accounting
or I was working recruitment at one point,
I would come in like late at 10.
Like I had such a drudge going into work.
I had such a depression.
Every morning I wake up dread.
And also it's like dark out in Canada, it's freezing.
And you're going, you're getting on the subway.
And I would roll in at 10, I remember my boss,
he was like, Rob, you know, it's 10 o'clock,
we start work at 8.30, I'm like,
well, are you gonna fire me or not?
Because if you're not gonna fire me,
then it's already 10 o'clock, I got a lot of emails
to catch up on.
So it's like, I was like, I didn't give a shit.
When I was working for money enough to survive still,
definitely livable wage and benefits and everything.
I'm in Toronto and doing standup at night.
I was there early.
Yeah.
I would always watch my boss come in.
Hey, Tim, he was the greatest guy.
Yeah.
Mark come in.
I just was always on top of my shit.
I left late, I hung out.
I just loved the whole pace of it, the whole
getting scripts out, the F's were coming to me.
When are we getting these changes?
When are we getting these changes?
You know, cause their whole shit is fucked up.
Yeah, yeah.
And I'm learning all the departments, going
into art department, can you make it look like a duck?
Sometimes you ask art department for a duck,
they give you, we got a brown duck.
I'm like, no, you know what a duck looks like, it's white.
It's got an orange beak.
Like they're always like futzing around,
like that's not gonna read a duck.
Yeah.
It's a kid's show.
Like, so I'm learning all the departments
and then we start doing like, the show is getting huge.
It's the biggest live action show, I think,
since Sesame Street that PBS had.
So, you know, they're shooting like main thing
and then they're doing splinter units
and my boss is trusting me.
He's like, go, go to set on the splinter unit,
give them alts and stuff.
So I was working side by side with the director.
Giving kids lines.
Yeah, giving kids lines.
Could do it like this, could do it like this,
but it's really fun with kids, you know,
and they have their own shit and they're wild.
And these kids are brilliant.
Like shout out to kid actors.
I know they've come a long way in a lot of the regulation,
but the kids we had,
it was unusual show in the way that most kids on a set,
they're the only kid.
Our show was all kids.
We got 50 other kids on set.
How long did you do that for?
Three and a half years.
And then you moved here?
Yeah, then I moved to New York.
I was doing Gethird.
Oh yeah, Chris, yeah.
Which was-
A whole different thing.
A different kind of-
I moved from kids to total-
Weirdness.
And then I started really doing and selling my own work and that sort of thing and working
on other shows.
What does that mean?
But starting development, starting to write.
I mean, the first script I ever wrote truthfully
was when I started Stand Up.
I assumed that Stand Ups had shows
because the ones that I heard of to look up
were like Seinfeld, Ellen.
And I just didn't even know.
I thought, oh, well, Seinfeld does a show.
And I wrote a script, like I had an idea.
For you.
And I wrote it, yeah, and I wrote it in like a week.
But then I looked up the fucked up formatting it's in.
Like how does this script, and it was in that final draft.
It was like $400.
I'm like, are they out of their mind?
Yeah, so.
Who's got the money?
So I painstakingly in Word did all the spacing like that,
printed it in PDF and I traipsed that around.
Yeah, did it get any attention?
So it got a lot of attention.
I went basically, so I printed out PDF,
I found the exact font that scripts are written in,
I'm like, oh my God, the font's in Word.
I put it in PDF, I print it, okay, from all the accounting
job, I take all the vanilla envelopes,
they have good supplies and shit.
We had a supply room, I was getting highlighters,
I was getting my shit.
Yeah.
I just like traipsed it around like, wherever
in Canada, they had TV, like that we had HBO
Canada at the time, we had the movie network.
Like there was some Canadian offices in Toronto
and I just like drove them around.
And I was like, I remember like I got to HBO
Canada, I was like, or whoever owned it, it was like a huge building.
And I went to the secure, whoever's saying, I was like, the president has to read this.
Yeah.
And they're like, we don't have a president, like which office?
Like, and I didn't know, like, which office, I didn't know anything.
I thought they owned the whole building.
Yeah.
And I'm like, I don't know, I'm just a courier.
Yeah.
I have my bike outside.
I'm like, just a courier told to drop it off.
And I got an option from that.
Oh, gave you some money?
So they read it.
They, yeah.
I got a deal for a thousand dollars.
I called my friend Ron, who was in first year law school.
Yeah.
I said, Ron, they asked me if I have a lawyer,
if I have rep, I took a meeting with them.
I said, yeah, I got a lawyer.
And so Ronnie reads it and he's like, I'm in first year.
I'm doing the same classes,
we're doing core classes, like I haven't started
law specific classes, like we're all doing,
Econ 101, like we're all doing the same.
I'm like, Ron, you gotta get in now or do I sign this?
He says, it sounds like a thousand dollars,
they own you forever.
I'm like, great, let's do it.
And that was what it was?
Yeah. That was the deal?
I got a thousand, an option.
So the option was like, I thought it was like, first it was a thousand dollars. It was amazing at the time.
But that was like their option to sell.
I started learning the business part.
It means that I, you know.
And what happened with it?
Nothing happened with it.
It never went, but it got me a lot of recognition.
It got me an agent.
It got me some buzz around Toronto.
And that's how I got the Odd Squad job
as a writer's assistant.
They're like, there's this kid that.
Yeah.
And then how do you get hooked up with Chris Gether? I submitted a book how I got the Odd Squad job as a writer's assistant. They're like, there's this kid that.
Yeah.
And then how do you get hooked up with Chris Gaffer?
I submitted a blind packet.
There was a request for packets
and I just submitted a packet.
And he liked you.
And he said he read like 3000 packets.
Yeah.
And he was like, there's some dude in Toronto.
And it was me. And he was, fuck yeah,
because he said he had to hire women,
like their DEI was not good there,
it was all white guys from UCB,
and he's like, fuck.
Everything worked out.
How long did you write for him?
I did like two seasons.
And that puts you in New York,
and you're doing all the alt shows or what?
Yes, I'm getting, I'm really moving in New York now.
And then I moved back to LA, I'm getting work again,
like, you know, moving on to shows, writing my own stuff.
And yeah, that's how I start really,
I guess my full time from having a day job to into the business,
working TV and stand up, was Odd Squad.
That I never looked after that I went from job to job to job.
Like what other shows you write for?
Like Work and Moms.
Yeah, lots of things.
Lots of independent shit too.
So was that sort of,
that was what you were making a living doing, writing?
Yes, yes, writing and doing stand up.
Stand up was still,
I've been slow and steady wins the race.
Like it's been the weirdest thing,
like even this, like this meeting with you,
I'm probably talking a mile a minute
because I'm still so excited to be with you.
And I've already told you I have no chill,
so I don't have to pretend to have it.
But it feels like one step in a million mile journey.
Like literally, like it feels like that saying.
So I've been slow and steady, but I think to
me, the biggest luxury has always felt like,
wow, I, I never get over, like even I was
working like, yeah, third odds, whether it's
like, I get to do what I love for a living.
Like waking up without that dread, it's the biggest
luxury of my life.
And I'm so thankful that I get to enjoy what I do.
It's almost unheard of and it's becoming less
and less possible for many, many people.
And it's becoming more possible for some,
but I do find like, you know, there's a lot of people
where I come from and everything like that, you know,
it's just not an option.
Well, how did the special come along?
Didn't I watch the special?
Oh, the Crave?
Yeah.
That was after Gethird, I had, they said,
well, you know, Crave in Canada wants to do
an hour special with you,
produced by the Just For Laughs company.
And there was this idea like, oh, are we going to hold out for Netflix or this and
that?
And it's like, I'm like 25k.
We don't hold out for nothing.
Yeah.
A dollar today is worth more than a dollar
tomorrow.
This is my finance background coming in.
Yeah.
Say yes to the money in your hand right now.
So we did, I had six weeks and I had one take.
The, what you see then, I got my period that
morning and I remember eating a steak and rolls. I was trying to fill up
I'm like I gotta get as much iron or I don't even know what did you know whether or not you had the time? Oh
I did an hour and 20 we cut week. I did almost like
The original set I think was an hour and a half. They sent me 120
Well, how much of it like but you weren't out on the road doing an hour and 20.
Nothing.
I didn't even have, I only could get 10 minute spots.
I still wasn't doing,
I wasn't like quite headlining yet.
Sometimes I would headline
and that would be a 20 minute spot.
But the only time I ran it
was the night before at a bar with 12 people.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
That was the only time I ran it.
And I have never,
and some of it on the special is brand new that I added two jokes the night before. Yeah. That was the only time I ran it and I have never, and some of it on the special is brand
new that I added two jokes the night before.
Sure.
That I said, I'm going to let me just add, but I
had so much material and I just did what I wanted
to do and I was so nervous that I had to just lean
into being nervous and I just knew you're going
to be nervous.
This is what it is.
It's like when something sucks and people go,
how do I get through?
It's funny.
Yeah, and it was one take.
I remember there was another guy.
One show.
It was one show.
Usually you get two.
Yeah, usually I get two.
The other guy got two.
Yeah.
But he was more established than me.
Who was the other guy?
All right.
And so what happens then?
So do you have desire,
it seems like between writing and doing the standup,
do you want the tour?
Well, here's the whole thing, people always ask me,
what do you like more?
Writing, standup, to me, it's, they're different hats.
It's like, I feel grateful that I have so many avenues
to put shit.
So like, let's say you have an idea,
sometimes it's just a tweet.
Sometimes you have an idea, it's a bit.
So it's for standup.
Sometimes you have an idea, it's a script.
Sometimes you have an idea, it's a feature.
Sometimes you have an idea, it's for kids. It's animated, it's for staff. Some of us have an idea, it's a script. Some of us have an idea, it's a feature. Some of us have an idea, it's for kids. It's animated, it's some shit.
And I have now, I feel more confident in all these areas.
I don't have to lose an idea, I get to do it.
I get to put it somewhere.
So for me, what do I like more, stand up writing?
I didn't ask you that, I just asked what you.
If I do stand up the night before, in the room,
I feel 10 times sharper the next day in the writer's room.
Well, I think it just, what I'm asking is that,
are you building an audience?
Do you go out and do it?
Yeah, I'm doing it, but it's also very word of mouth.
Like I'm not 100% just building Robbie Hoffman shows.
I'm still on bills with other people,
but I'm doing it all the time.
So I guess indirectly I'm building an audience.
Listen, I'm not somebody, I don't post online. I don't, I'm not.
But do you go out, do you open for people
or any of that or are you going out and doing?
I barely got some, I got a couple opens.
I don't know.
No, I wasn't really asked to open.
So a few people that I opened for,
I opened for Rebecca Kohler, I opened for Dulce Sloan.
There's a few people that I like was opening for
that were, you know, coming up too. Rebecca Kohler, I opened for Dulce Sloan. There's a few people that I was opening for
that were coming up too.
But no, I never had a big,
but I was always killing to say it.
Not to be, but whatever.
Be my old.
But your drive is not to be like,
I wanna be a touring comic.
I wanna be a theater act.
I'd love to do arenas and theaters.
Arena's big, yeah.
I wanna do arenas.
I'm in the mood.
I'm very much in the mood.
I want that loudness, I want the wide stage.
Do you have a booking agent?
Yeah, of course.
So now we're doing like,
I just did my first little theater tour.
I brought it home to Toronto,
but it's all been like slow and steady wins the race.
So yes, I'm building an audience, but I just like,
just, I don't even know how almost unintentional,
just by doing it all the time.
I'm not really thinking so much of what you have to do.
I'm just doing it.
So the same thing with the online.
I'm not on TikTok, except I am on TikTok.
People throw me on TikTok.
And so that brings people.
You know, I'm just, that's just not what I do.
Now I have friends who make a lot of money
with clips and stuff like that, and that's their business
and I respect them for it.
It's just not my, I do stand up writing and acting.
Yeah, how's your mom feel about everything?
She's very proud and she's wonderful.
She clips things and she, you know, she's, you know,
she'll be like,
Shalom had the TV on and I said Robbie Hoffman,
I said Robbie and then he put it in,
it was Robbie Hoffman, that's my daughter.
And he put it on for me.
And he put on for her my Netflix set which like.
What'd you do for them?
I did 15 minutes for Netflix.
Yeah.
You know, because it's the kind of thing,
like late night, we're always getting like calls
that are like, oh, you know, like, could you,
like the guy at Fallon, the guy at Seth Meyers,
and I love, you know, I love Seth Meyers.
Yeah, could you do a set or whatever,
clean it like this and do this?
And I'm like, I'm always meaning to get it on tape
and sometimes it never quite happens.
And I'm like, I don't know if get it on tape and sometimes it never quite happens.
And I'm like, I don't know if it's gonna happen.
Yeah, it doesn't have the impact that you used to,
but it'd be nice to do it.
And if it did have the impact, I would make,
but I'm like, and then Netflix calls, no, I'm like, great.
This is my, this makes sense for me.
This is my first American night set.
And was on a show case, a showcase thing?
Yeah, it was Netflix, Netflix verified.
I am a first up on the second episode
and it was really good.
It was really fun.
People had all the people there.
People had like, you know,
this is the first time on Netflix we were in New York.
Just so fun and people, their family there,
different things and I had my friend Natalie from town.
I'm like, Natalie, will you come?
Yeah. And they're like, people in the green room, Natalie from town, I'm like, Natalie, well, you come.
And they're like, people in the green room,
some of you, I'm like, it's just Natalie.
I bring my family.
My family's fucking like, now I let my family go crazy.
How many at a time?
Well, it's like my brother Shmueli came to my first,
just for last thing, when I'm doing four minutes,
you're there.
And he's like, oh, Jeff Ross, can you get a picture with me?
I'm like, I'm not even there yet.
But.
Yeah.
First of all, my brother, Levy called me.
He goes, can I get 16 tickets?
Yeah.
16, that's a crazy, I want to bring my team at work.
Yeah.
I'm like, 16 tickets is an insane amount of tickets to ask.
Yeah.
I'm opening before the opener.
When they're filling the seats, I'm doing four minutes.
Yeah. It's ridiculous. Did he come filling the seats, I'm doing four minutes.
It's ridiculous.
No, so I said notice, but my brother comes, he goes,
he has a million picture of father from like him
just pointing at everyone.
Now I brought my little sister, Dvorah,
I think I saw you at the Largo,
it was like Jacqueline's release party or something.
And Jacqueline was so great on your podcast too,
Jacqueline Nova.
But, and I told myself,
you want to come to something, Hollywood?
There's nothing good happens to these people.
She's a social worker, she's working crazy.
I go, you get to take pictures with three, save them.
Whoever three people you like,
you go right the fuck up to them.
She goes up to the guy from Brett Goldstein.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, from Ted Lasso.
Ted Lasso, thinks he's so hot. Boom. Chris Rock, yeah, yeah, from Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso thinks he's so hot.
I'm like, boom.
You know, Chris Rock, I'm like, all right.
I wish it wasn't so big, but click.
I let them, it's just like, what do I care?
I'd rather my sister be happy than these people.
I don't give a shit.
Right.
Like, let her be excited.
Yeah, somebody's famous here.
Because then she calls home,
do you know who I saw?
Do you know?
It's like, that's the joy. Yeah, well good.
You have a good perspective on it.
So I've come around on it.
Used to embarrass me, but now I let them have fun.
So now you're just doing standup mostly?
I do a ton of standup.
I'm acting.
I have something coming out.
I got a big part in an FX thing coming out in the new year.
Then I just got something else that I can't talk about.
It feels very nice to say I can't talk about it.
It's also like a little bit of a,
and writing is going, you know, God willing, right?
And a ton of standup.
And I got my podcast, Too Far Pod.
Too Far.
Yeah, it's coming back November.
We're not very consistent with it.
So it's me and my buddy Rachel.
She's, you know, the angle is just nothing.
We're just talking.
Yeah.
But she's very afraid I'm gonna get her canceled
and all this stuff.
So I don't know if we'll come back together,
if I'll do it Patreon.
Yeah.
There's nothing I say that's so crazy, but.
Makes her nervous. You know, to certain people, I can make people nervous.
Well, I didn't feel nervous.
It was good talking to you.
I was very over the top though.
When?
The whole time.
Is there another frequency you wanna do?
There is another frequency, but it'll take you after,
like, so we've gone through this.
You'll see I'll calm down over time now.
Yeah.
Well, how's your relationship going?
Unbelievable. Madly in love.
Yeah.
You gotta be madly in love, guys.
I saw a press on that.
It seems like a very exciting thing.
It's just, we love to hang out and chill.
And you know what?
I'm not, you know, the first,
the only time my father has mentioned me being gay,
I got an email from him that he heard I was gay or whatever.
And he says,
permiscuous behavior, not befitting a daughter of Israel.
And I felt like, permiscuous, like I'm,
if anything, a serial monogamous.
I've only been, I'm really not that slutty.
I'm not that permiscuous.
I'm with one person type of person.
I'm never online dating and I don't do one night stands,
but not befitting a daughter of Israel, I'll give you that. Like, I'm like one person type of person. I'm never online dating and I don't do one night stands,
but not befitting a daughter of his.
I'll give you that.
Like, I'm like, okay.
I'll take it.
They should name your next special then.
Yeah, exactly.
Nice talking to you.
Thank you.
There you go.
I love her.
Don't you love her?
All her stuff is on her Instagram page
and at RobbieHoffman.com. Hang out for a minute, folks. There you go. I love her. Don't you love her? All her stuff is on her Instagram page
and at RobbieHoffman.com. Hang out for a minute, folks.
Hey, you've heard me talk about hosting your home on Airbnb to make some extra
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Hey listen, for full Marin listeners, we posted a collection of great behind the scenes movie
stories from some amazing past WTF guests, including Mel Brooks, my co-star on this film,
Michael Keaton, Mike Myers, and this story from Nick Cave
about his concept for Gladiator 2.
When you did something like that,
what did you bring to that?
I mean, what was the story for the second Gladiator?
Well, that's where it all went wrong.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, very briefly, it was Russell Crowe White, because he, I'm like, hey, Russell, didn't you die
in Gladiator One?
Sure.
He's going, yeah, you sort that out.
All right, so he goes to purgatory and is sent down by the gods who are dying in heaven
because there's this one god, there's this Christ character down on Earth who is gaining popularity and so the
many Gods are dying and so they send Gladiator back to kill Christ and all his followers.
And so this was always already getting, I wanted to call it Christ Killer.
And in the end, you find out that the main guy was his son, so he has to kill his son
and he's tricked by the gods and all of this sort of stuff.
So it ends with this, he becomes this eternal warrior and it ends with this 20 minute war
sequence that follows all the
wars of history right up to Vietnam and all that sort of stuff.
And it was, it was wild.
To get bonus episodes twice a week, sign up for the full Marin and just go to the link
in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF plus.
Once again, this episode is sponsored by better help.
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And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast.
And I don't think we're going to do any guitar, no guitar today.
Just here, I'll give you something else fuck
fuck
fuck
you fucks
Fuck this shit fucking
fuckers
fuck
Fuck it
God fucking damn. Are you fucking kidding me fuck?
fuck Fuck God fucking damn, are you fucking kidding me? Fuck! Fuck!
Fuck!
Boomer lives!
Monkey, LaFonda, cat angels everywhere.