WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 736 - Gad Elmaleh
Episode Date: August 25, 2016Gad Elmaleh is a mega-successful international comedian and actor. Now he's basically starting from scratch to perfect his act in America, not in his native French but in English. Marc and Gad talk ab...out the challenge of doing comedy in another language and the universal truths about standup that cross all language barriers. 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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Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.
Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.
With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.
And I want to let you know
we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.
I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big
corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means.
I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising.
Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly.
This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. What the fuck, buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucking delics? What's happening? I am Mark Maron.
This is my show.
WTF.
Thank you for joining.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for wherever you may be.
I appreciate your patronage and allowing me to be in your head.
Right?
Just me and you.
Before I do forget to plug myself,
you can still get my special more later as a digital download for a special price.
It's available exclusively at WTFpod.com for another week,
and it's only $7.99 before it goes to iTunes next month.
Go to WTFpod.com.
There's a link right on the homepage under today's episode,
as well as in the merch section.
link right on the home page under today's episode as well as in the merch section also get tickets for my carnegie hall dates they're at you can go to ny comedy festival.com that's
the new york comedy festival november 4th i will be performing at carnegie hall i will be at the
albuquerque journal theater september 3rd There's not many tickets left for this hometown show,
but you can go to WTFpod.com slash tour
to check out where to get those tickets.
I'll be at the Comedy Club in Rochester, New York,
September 9th and September 10th.
You can get tickets for that.
Again, WTFpod.com slash tour for those Rochester dates.
The Wilbur in Boston, September 24th. The Vic Theater,
December 3rd in Chicago. Today on the show, Gad Amala. I hope I'm pronounced Gad Amala.
He's a French comic and he's a Moroccan Jew. And he's somebody that a lot of people in this
country have not heard of, but he's an international superstar.
It's one of those situations where it's like, what?
And I was happy to meet him.
I never know what to expect.
And he has been in the country here in the United States a couple of times in the recent past.
Actually, he's a native French speaker.
And he's doing his act in English. And it was very interesting to watch somebody, you know,
actually trying to do a completely English act
and not being an English speaker.
It was impressive because the sort of skills you have to rely on comedically
sort of shift from what you're used to.
And I had a lot of respect for the guy and had a great time talking to him my first time i ever met and that first time i've had a a french
person on the show and the first time i've met a moroccan jew uh so there was a lot of new a lot
of new uh things a lot of firsts yeah so i'd gotten estranged from my buddy Mike.
You know, there was, you know, it just, you know, sometimes things get difficult.
You know, he needed a couple bucks a while back.
I gave him a couple bucks and I didn't hear from him.
And then we got weird and then things got weirder.
And then you get to the point where you don't know what's really happening. And I didn't know where he was at or where I was at.
And then this was the fucking thing, man.
I didn't know where he was at or where I was at.
And then I,
this was the fucking thing,
man.
You know,
your life should never be at a point if possible, where you see somebody that you were friends with out in the world and you
avert your face and hope that you don't see him,
that he don't see you.
You don't see him or her or whoever that you don't want to you don't want to deal i mean life's too fucking short to have that shit out in the world
when sometimes you know all it takes all it takes is just to you know sit down and face the fire
you know what's up what is up where we at how can we make this right so that happened man a couple
weeks ago i saw him and i was like oh god and he didn't see me and I was relieved. But right after that,
I'm like, this is bullshit. You know, I didn't get sober to have fucking weird
bullshit out in the world with people. And as often as I talk to people here, you know,
face to face, I don't always know these people. And a lot of times when I work through problems
here, they're one-time things that just, you know, kind of stick in my craw or stick in their craw and they become like a dark,
dark pearl of resentment. Nothing shiny about the dark pearls of resentment that
kind of stick there under the fine emotional membrane of your heart. And over time, the membrane just keeps rubbing on it,
and it just takes on this weird kind of sucking luster, the black pearl of resentment.
The problem was that there was unresolved business between me and my buddy, and I said,
what the fuck is up? Which is not the best way. That's not a great opening salvo to what should be an apology or a resolution.
But I was like, you know, I was defensive.
So I was prickly and he was prickly
and we went back and forth
and it didn't seem like we were going to get closure.
And then it was finally like, fuck it, dude.
Let's get in it, man.
Let's just fucking have coffee and deal with this shit.
It was really simple.
It was fucking just misunderstandings,
misunderstanding and assumptions.
You know, he thought I was mad
that he wasn't paying me back a few bucks.
And I thought, you know, he was ignoring me
because he didn't want to.
And then there was other shit involved.
There were just layers of shit.
And all that got compounded by the fact
that neither one of us were talking to each other over a meaningless sum of money and it just was fucking stupid and
then when we got together within minutes it was like oh fuck what a relief and then we kind of
went point for point and worked through shit and you know we hugged it out and uh you know we're
back on track we're friends again and it was like my entire life became better.
You know, some things they just, you don't realize.
They take precedent, you know, over, you know, how you're looking at your world.
They buckle and constrict your perception because it's unresolved and it's hurting your fucking heart.
Fucking clear that shit up if you can
because now we're good
and it wasn't that hard
because we both thought things
that were untrue.
You make these decisions in your mind about people.
I do it all the fucking time.
99% of the time
when someone comes into this garage just to talk, I have an idea of who
they are. And I'm always amazed because it's always never that idea. And it's always much more.
And a lot of times when you got to beef with somebody, you've made a decision to sort of just
fuel your goddamn contempt or your resentment or your judgment. And the decision is based on nothing other than your own fucking anger.
Got no bearing on reality.
There is a reality there.
It may be, it may have started with something,
but what blossoms from that is just bullshit.
It's just malignant imagination, you know, running away with you.
And that will ruin your entire fucking day or week
or life okay so uh been exercising been doing what i gotta do to try to uh have a good uh last
part of my life i don't that sounds dark it's just just funny how we push ourselves and how in our mind,
and I've talked about this on stage before to some degree,
just that I don't really sense that I'm getting older.
I don't really sense in a real way.
I still think that I'm in the best shape I've ever been in, and I might be.
But I was in Phoenix a few days ago, as I told you,
and me and Ryan hiked up camelback you know it's
100 105 degrees out you can't you got to go up there before like seven in the morning and uh
you know i've done it many times before because i've been to phoenix my my first wife was from
there my brother lives there but camelback mountains a nice little hike it's about an hour
up about an hour down but it's
uh you go up and you get you know and it gets scary because people have been dropping dead up
there and they actually closed a mountain because there was three or four cases of extreme heat
stroke I had water and we got lucky wasn't that hot out but you know I I'm a 52 year old dude
and I'm fucking you know climbing up this mountain i gotta stop because
a couple of times because my heart was pounding out of my chest and it was hot and uh the sweat
started to come and uh you know we made it you know ryan and i made it up my brother made it up
his stepdaughter uh brooke made it up and uh you know there we were and i'm heading down and you know you start to you start to
realize your your age and you start to say like you know i gotta be a little more careful and
you know because we're we just think we can do things and there was just this weird beautiful
gross buddha moment where you know i saw a dude'm coming down, I saw a dude with some other dudes who look like he was about my age,
and he was on his knees, on the ground, puking his guts out.
And this was me, I'm not even halfway up the hill.
I felt bad for him, I hope he was all right.
But the other dudes were like, come on, let's just go back down.
He's like, no, no, no, he gets up, he wipes his mouth, I'm all right,
it's just all that fucking fish oil I've been taking in the morning.
up he wipes his mouth i'm all right it's just all that fucking fish oil i've been taking in the morning so i don't know why to me that was revelatory but it's just that you know this
weird you know desperate place we get at a certain age where you're like man i gotta take these
vitamins i gotta get that exercise in i gotta you know you just your whole life is built around
maintaining these performance levels or staying healthy.
And there he was, couldn't even make a quarter up the hill and he's puking up vitamins.
I don't know.
I don't know what that is.
I don't know if it means anything, but to me, it stood out as sort of like, hey, hey,
man, maybe we should take it easy.
Just, you know, let's not go too hard, man.
We've made it this far.
You know, let's not go too hard, man.
We we've made it this far.
Let's not hurt ourselves trying to be 25 or trying to think that, you know, we have to do this thing out of pride.
You know, this exercise is pushing ourselves to the limit. in shape the best we can without hurting ourselves and enjoy fucking life and not throw up fish oil vitamins a quarter of the way up a mountain maybe that's it not judging that guy i related to him
so uh god of mala all right he's got he's got a bunch of shows here this as i told you before
he's a french comic, internationally huge.
And I didn't know him until I met him here at Largo.
And he charmed me and I liked him.
And I was curious about his journey to do an act in English as a French speaker.
And I got a lot more.
I really had a nice conversation with the guy.
He's got about, he's got like eight big shows here in the U.S. andada starting next week in boston he'll be here in la on september 9th you can go to his website gotamala.com that's g-a-d-e-l-m-a-l-e-h.com for tour dates and tickets and this is me and god
uh you know having a good time having a nice nice talk. He's a charming, funny guy.
And he's a Moroccan Jew. I never met a Moroccan Jew before.
Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode
on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category.
And I want to let you know
we've produced a special bonus podcast episode
where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.
I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed,
how a cannabis company competes with big corporations,
how a cannabis company markets its products
in such a highly regulated category,
and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting
and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly.
This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.
The bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.
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Four.
four.
Gad.
Elmaleh.
Uh-huh, Elmaleh.
E-L-M-A-L-E-H, Elmaleh.
Elmaleh.
You know, every night the hosts in clubs,
they come in panic.
I'm sorry, how do you pronounce it? I don't know.
What's your first name?
What's your last name?
It's a problem, you know,
because we're not used to the strange names here yes yeah yeah but when trump is going to be
president you're gonna get even less of you yeah no no more more and more oh yeah we have a plan
oh you do good but i saw you uh i saw you a while ago you know you you know that you've got friends in the American comedy world, Godfrey, bothering me.
You got to get Gad on.
You got to get Gad on.
I'm like, I don't know who this guy is.
Gadfrey.
Gad.
Gadfrey.
So then, you know, I do a little research, and it's very fragmented, the research I do.
You know, I'm like, who is this guy?
He's like, well, you know, Jerry's his friend, and you brought him over.
And I'm like, what do you mean Jerry brought him over Seinfeld brought him over
like it was adopted yeah yeah it's like he decided well I knew what happened you know this happens
occasionally you know big uh big stars here they they go around the world and all of a sudden
they're like oh my god you know there's uh there's there, there's whole popular people that I know nothing about.
Yeah.
He seems to be a professional of some kind.
Maybe he'd enjoy America.
But you were here before?
No, no.
I just started to do stand-up in English.
But you know what?
This happens.
I talk about that in my show, but this happens really often.
Sometimes I'm with some American friends, and French people, they recognize me, you know.
Right.
On the street, in a bar, and they freak out
because French people get so excited.
And it's good for girls, you know.
Yeah, sure.
They're excited to see you because they know you.
I mean, that's happened, you know, we know,
we have Russell Peters, who none of us know
as an American star, but all we hear about
is Russell Peters, like, everywhere else in the world,
he's the biggest comedian
in the world.
But not here.
Also here, no?
I think, yeah,
people know him.
They know him,
but not like that.
They don't know me.
At all.
At all.
They can't even say my name.
Right, because now you,
like, well, you know,
there's a language barrier.
No, not anymore.
But this is new
is what I'm saying.
Yeah, because I worked
so hard to learn English.
I saw that.
And it was interesting when I saw you at Largo, because I know that you're now internationally you speak French, because in other countries people speak more than one language.
Yeah.
Especially in France.
But you go other places.
You're big in other places, correct?
Yeah.
In Europe and North Africa and Middle East.
North Africa.
Now you used to do French.
I was born in Morocco, raised in Morocco.
But it's still French.
First language is Arabic, obviously, Moroccan Arabic.
Do you speak Moroccan Arabic?
Oh, yeah, of course.
You say that like, you know, of course we speak nine languages.
No, I mean, I grew up there, you know,
and because I grew up in a Jewish Moroccan family,
I also speak hebrew
so you speak hebrew yeah arabic arabic french now english english was the last the final frontier
italian a little italian yeah but a little italian because it's also a romantic language
and it's some similarities you got it and but the arabic and english arabic and hebrew i imagine
some similarities very Very similar.
Very similar.
So once you get the knack for that, if you got the brain that was wired that way when you were a kid, you can't pick that shit up.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
But English is the hardest one, right?
English is hard.
You have no idea.
I can't imagine.
I barely speak.
I don't speak it well.
I know.
I have a hard time with it.
Yeah.
I don't know what a lot of things mean.
I use words wrong.
It's ridiculous.
I mean, expressions.
And sometimes you guys have things that you think are so logic and normal. For us, we learn.
Okay.
This weekend, I was talking to a girl by text.
I said, let's go for dinner.
She said, I'm down.
Yeah.
I swear, Mark.
I swear she was depressed i'm like okay so let's do
that uh some other i don't know another day she said no why i said if you're down i respect i'll
wait i said no no i'm told i mean i'm i swear she said i'm totally i mean i'm totally up i'm for it
yeah so now you think you've got a depressed girl that's
gonna be fighting her depression that you're gonna hang out yeah i don't know i'm gonna be
depressed girl who's totally down for it well you said something else in the act too about that the
i'm good thing which is very funny had a nice uh nice long english bit with a callback it was very
good it was impressive uh the you're excited about the word fuss i mean i i understood
all that but i found myself watching you thinking like i don't just see this guy in french because
i bet you it's just like crazy like just because when i saw you get animated i'm like well that's
he does a big act somewhere because like american stand-up is sort of specific and you know and
you're doing you're dealing with the language and you're dealing with the timing and it's going very
well but it seems like that you're a lot more mobile, you know.
In France, in Europe.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
You got it.
It's right.
But let's talk about how one comes up in comedy coming from Morocco.
See, I'd like to go to Morocco.
You should go.
I should take you to Morocco.
But is it okay?
By the way, the Morocco.
Is it okay?
My parents, everyone's very afraid.
Don't travel now.
You can't travel now.
It's safer than some places in Europe.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, no, no.
They really protect people who come visit.
And by the way, the stand-up scene in Morocco is getting very, very...
Isn't that what?
Good?
Good.
Great.
What do you mean?
People do comedy all around the world.
That's relatively new.
No.
Yes.
No.
Come on. Comedy has been, you know... Stand-up or some sort of weird. That's relatively new. No. Yes. No. Come on.
Comedy has been, you know.
Stand up or some sort of weird.
Not stand up.
Ah, see, different.
Sure.
Yeah.
There's been funny things for a long time.
You have this idea of us in Europe and Maghreb and North Africa doing comedy with, I don't
know, props.
Not props.
Just very broad.
Birds.
Broad.
Jerry always make fun of me.
He say, oh, I'm sure you do some mime things with a rope and you bring someone.
No, I don't think that.
But I think that there is a physicality.
No, you're right.
In other countries that is different.
You know, American stand-up is sort of a thinky, individual, you know, kind of like singular person.
Yeah, but I like it.
I like to mix those two things.
Weirdly.
kind of like singular person. Yeah, but I like it.
I like to mix those two things.
Weirdly, you're just...
Because the only dry standing up,
telling jokes, very serious, very...
Yeah.
Eh, it's not my thing.
And only moving around and dancing
and doing body language thing is not my thing.
Like, yeah, I just know that in Montreal,
they have, you know, for two weeks,
they have the French comedy thing.
And I'm like, what is that?
It's just a lot of people going...
People...
You know,
walking around
with their hands up
making funny faces.
You know what I'm like?
I want you to come to Paris
and say that.
I'm going to take you.
Why?
I'm going to hate you forever.
I want to take you.
Am I wrong?
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm judging.
Maybe I was being a little.
No.
Okay. By the way, because, no, now, it's a funny example. Yeah. Okay. I'm judging. Maybe I was being a little... No. Okay.
By the way, because...
No.
Now, it's a funny example.
Yeah.
For a bit.
I think you could do that as a bit.
That would be a funny bit.
Maybe you already have it in your act.
But if you take the very specific Montreal, Quebec example, they do stand-up in French
that looks really, really like English stand-up.
They're North American.
Right.
Only the language changes.
Right.
We, in France, do something more theatrical.
Yeah.
Right?
Very act out.
Yeah.
And the body language.
Yeah, I like it.
And the music.
Oh, music.
The lights.
Well, let's go back to your childhood.
Because what I learned and what made me interested in talking to you is that I found that backstage
at Largo, when we were talking, that you're just this insecure jewish guy from morocco who speaks french
and i'm like i understand that like that's a good start for comedy no yeah it is but i didn't know
that when i first saw you in new york i'm like who the hell does this guy think he is mr suave
and then like i was like i talked to you for five minutes i'm like oh he's a comedian the guy is a comedian a jewish comedian like me that's funny because that's when i heard about
you and i meet you today it's the opposite uh-huh all what i thought before is true oh yeah yeah
which is good i don't know the lonely man the garage thing the crazy everything that's true
it's true someone told you otherwise no surprise
they talk about it in france also oh really yes they talk about this yeah oh good but like how
do you like i don't understand see like it's new to me that i know there are persian jews i know
there are iraqi jews now i know they're what is rocky jews iraqi oh iraqi i heard rocky uh
they're you know moroccan jews like that community seems like
i don't you know all i understand from my life experience is sort of middle class jewish shit
like you know so you know american middle class jew stuff yeah third generation second generation
it's american but this fascinates me so because he did an it's funny because you did an impression
of your jewish mother on stage in English.
That was a little different than the classic Jewish mother here.
But the French understood it.
Yeah.
There's a French Jewish mother apparently.
But this is a new perspective that I want to bring here.
Yeah.
Because Sephardic Jew, which is so different than Ashkenaz and in Morocco, obviously, we're Sephardic.
Sephardic.
Which means Arabic based.
Kind of. I mean, the word Sephard
in Hebrew means Spain
because Sephardics
are from Spain,
obviously,
and they were
kicked out
by Isabel the Catholic.
Sure,
during the big thing.
Inquisition.
Yeah,
Inquisition,
yeah.
So Sephardic Jews,
it's a great story.
It's a great history
between the two communities by the way it's one of the only place on earth
where two people Muslims and Jews lived in in really good harmony for decades
where in Spain in Morocco and Casablanca they They had the Jewish neighborhood. It was very, very like a peace, you know.
Now, you brought something interesting
because the cliche that you guys have
and use in the American comedy
of the Jewish mother
has nothing to do with our Jewish mother,
which is so, I mean,
the Jewish mother here in America
is not sexy.
Our Jewish mother. You haven't met my mom. She's America is not sexy. Uh-huh.
Our Jewish mother.
You haven't met my mom.
She's very, very sexy.
I have a very specific.
Like, I did relate to the experiences.
Like, I almost bought you a cookie that day.
Yeah, but selfish.
Right, selfish.
There you go.
A little selfish.
Oh, no, that travels.
Oh, really?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, completely self-involved.
Like, it's my thing.
Oh, yeah.
And if I do something good for you, it's because it's me.
It's for me.
It's for me.
Look what, you know.
Look how great I am.
I did the good thing for you.
Like my mother with my son, the little one.
Yeah.
If there's no audience, family, friends, she would be okay with my little one.
No problem.
But as soon as there are people.
Yeah.
Like friends.
Yeah.
And then she puts on a show. Oh, she's the best grandma. Right. But alone, she's a people, like friends. Then she puts on a show?
Oh, she's the best grandma.
Right.
But alone, she's a little selfish.
Yeah.
Exactly.
When they leave the house, it's like, okay, I'm tired.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, my mom's a little more like that.
I guess the classic Jewish mother stereotype here is the overbearing, smothering, eat some more.
No.
No, my mom.
She doesn't cook.
My mother doesn't cook.
Mine neither.
She barely eats.
They should meet.
They should.
Completely vain and worried about her looks,
but doesn't eat much.
Terrible cook.
You know what she did?
She did something crazy.
My sister was traumatized.
The day of my sister's wedding wedding my sister was getting ready in
the hotel room yeah so my mom she knocked at the door my sister opened the
door and my mom looked at my sister and asked her how do I look yeah my sister
was traumatized really she talks about it every week. It's all about your mother.
Yeah.
The wedding day.
Yeah.
Then she divorced.
Did she?
The sister?
Not because of that.
Yeah.
But your parents are still together?
Yeah.
50 years.
Uh-huh.
I would not like to be with someone for 50 years.
How about your mother?
You stuck with her.
She said a great line last summer.
Very cute.
I took them to Capri in Italy.
Now I feel I have to explain.
Yeah, it's the beach, right?
Yeah.
It's the sea, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
By the ocean.
Flip-flops, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That kind of thing.
I see romantism and Mark sees flip-flops.
No, no, it's beautiful.
Everything in Europe is beautiful.
It's all, yeah.
So I take them to Capri, you know,
and we have this big party with all the family
and the grandkids and the kids and everyone.
We're in a club dancing and she looks at me
and she said, you know what?
Only for this moment that I'm having right now with you,
it was worth to stay 50 years with this man.
And I think.
They get an understanding.
You know, they get a pattern.
You know, these married couples that you think are crazy.
They're both crazy, but somehow or another.
They know.
They talk a lot about this or that, but they're still together.
You know what I mean?
But like, so how many people in this family of yours?
You got a sister.
Three kids.
My sister is a writer in Franceance she works for a tv my younger brother is an actor a pretty serious
actor oh yeah theater and plays all uh all uh all arts and my father was a mime which is a moroccan
mime i mean this is funny is funny. Was he really? I swear.
Because you know you're French, right?
Even that phrase, my father was a mime is a funny one.
If you add my father was a mime in Morocco, it's even funnier.
But here you were poo-pooing the idea that we have this weird judgment of French comedy.
Like Jerry's saying, do you do the rope?
Do you do the wind?
Are you in a box?
And then with all sincerity, you're telling me your father's a mime. And saying, do you do the rope? Do you do the wind? Are you in a box? And then with all sincerity,
you're telling me
your father's a mime.
And like,
we're the assholes?
You think we're going to,
it's obviously a job
and show business
that people do there.
You know,
no one ever in America
goes like,
I'm going to go into mime.
But clearly,
it's something
that happens over there.
It's not some weird stereotype.
Marcel Marceau.
Yeah.
Have you heard of Marcel Marceau?
Of course.
He's the one guy.
He's the one guy who teached to Michael Jackson how to moonwalk.
He did?
Yeah.
Oh.
And my father was a big fan of Marcel Marceau.
Yeah.
And he was a mime.
He did that as a hobby, right?
Yeah.
Like in private things.
As a hobby.
As a club.
Hobby.
Not a professional mime.
Nah. How could he be a
professional mime in morocco i mean i don't know i don't know the landscape there i don't know what
a night out is in morocco and i first time first time i went on stage in my life was with my father
i was presenting his um his routine you know with the with the board and doing oh you're the guy that
walked out that with that said uh no no no wind no talking
but just written yeah written on it did you uh what kind of two men in a restaurant yeah want
to kill each other i don't know oh yeah right got it so so that was your first experience in show
business carrying signs for your father so people would have some context for what he was about yeah
he would have some comedians should put that sometimes before a joke.
So you know at the beginning?
Yeah.
Doesn't take 10 minutes.
The setup.
Yeah, the setup.
Just a quick setup.
Please, get to the point.
Right, or a segue.
A segue.
I like that.
Yeah.
But that's interesting to me.
So he loved Marcel Marceau.
So I guess mine was actually very popular, and I think that Marcel Marceau popularized
it, like obviously over there.
And what is the...
So, but he didn't do it professionally.
No, it was a hobby.
I think he would have loved to be a professional mime, but it was hard.
Was he good at it?
Very good.
Yeah, he was the only one.
The only one in Morocco?
Yeah.
He had the market cornered.
I mean...
Looking for a mime? There was not another mime. He was the only one. The only one in Morocco? Yeah. He had the market cornered. I mean. Looking for a mime?
There was not another mime.
He was the mime.
The mime of Morocco.
Now we have a very important comedy festival in Marrakech.
It's funny.
I was just talking to this.
Did you play it?
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, because you're the guy.
Yeah.
You made it out.
Yeah, of course.
They're proud, you know.
What do they do?
What kind?
They bring all the French comedians
because obviously everyone talks French in Morocco
because Morocco was colonized by France, you know?
Right, right.
And also they bring Moroccan comedians, obviously,
and Jamel Debus, who is the biggest comedian.
He's Moroccan, but he's maybe the second biggest comedian in France.
Really?
What's his name?
Jamel Debbouze.
I think I've seen him.
Yeah.
I was talking this morning about what I was going to do here, and he says, but podcast.
We don't have this in France.
We don't care about podcast.
I think he might.
I guess not.
Well, you don't care about a lot of things, right? I don't care about podcast i think you probably might i guess not well you don't care about a lot of things right i don't care i don't care about that conversation yeah yeah i don't i don't know
it's very funny though like the way you characterize like i thought it was kind of
interesting that you know by doing your act in english you know you're speaking to there was a
like i guess probably about a third of the audience were French people living here.
And, you know, by choosing to do it in English, you kind of make it a more personal experience
for people who are French who live here because you're talking about being French, learning
English and dealing with America.
Yeah.
As opposed to just come out and do the French act, that would have made them all happy.
But I think you spoke directly to their experience as expatriates, right?
That's a very good point because it's true.
Obviously, I do the show in English
and a lot of Americans are in the room.
But the expats, as you say,
relate really strongly
to the frustration
they feel with Americans
and how with the language
and some habits.
And yeah, yeah, you're right.
I do this because it's a mixed crowd.
But when I go to like where we met at the Cellar,
for example, in New York City,
I do only bits that could be understood
only by Americans, obviously.
And that's a pretty international club in a weird way.
It used to be more so.
You know, like they get a lot of people
from all over the country.
Oh yeah, I feel so.
I like that.
I like that.
I saw comedians from South Africa, from Europe, from east yeah and it's great it's great so when you started out
in in in morocco yeah you're just a jewish kid from morocco and you got obviously parents that
are very supportive of of doing the arts yeah encourage it uh what is your father's business
outside of doing a mime? Nothing special.
He worked here and there
as an employee
in many things,
in restaurants,
real estate,
whatever.
He was just trying to...
Hustler.
To, you know,
how do you call it?
A hustler,
making his meat.
Yeah, yeah.
A lot of different things.
Hustler.
Yeah.
It's a store on Sunset.
Right,
but that's the,
yeah,
the skin mag,
that's a dirty magazine,
dirty, it's a dirty magazine.
Hustler Industries was built on Hustler Magazine,
which was pussies and tits. So my father was not working at that.
And Hustler is also, as a slang for a male prostitute.
But somebody who...
We're going to get to my real father's job.
But like a guy who's like, he does a lot of things,
and he's just figuring out the angle to's just, you know, he's figuring out the angle, you know, to make some money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He tries at the end of the month.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
And to bring food for the family.
Right.
That's it.
So that's a fine way to use it.
But I'd be careful using it in conversation.
No, I won't.
No, I understand.
Yeah.
Because if you were just with your broken English to say, my dad was a hustler, they'd
be like, really?
That sounds sad.
You know, so he had a, he was a male prostitute and you're like no no no no like the other guy
yeah but uh all right so you grow up in this environment but like i know from uh being an
american comic you know we we you know stand-up comedy is you know part of the fabric of our
entertainment industry and it's very specific and you there's a sort of a way to go about it like i
like richard pryor i like woody allen whatever you go how do i do that and then some people figure it out now it's a little easy
to figure it out but as a kid in morocco you know what what inspires you to do this thing
that's funny because i i have the same um um models i would say when you talk about role
models yeah role model woody allen and and richard prior and even the more recently
jerry seinfeld and you're seeing these guys yeah when you're younger not younger because i i didn't
speak uh english but i you know i've seen uh french comics moroccan comics when i was young
like on tv so we didn't have because in mor Morocco when I was young, we had just one channel.
As an American, you're like, oh my God, how did you survive?
We had one channel and didn't work during the day.
No, I'm not kidding.
I believe you.
We would come back from school, do the homework, blah, blah, blah, only the weekends. And we would watch Dallas, the series.
Right.
Dallas with the South Fork Ranch, Bobby Ewing.
Sure, yeah.
By the way, they would cut all the scenes where they kiss or touch or whatever.
So Dallas in Morocco was taking place basically in an office all the time.
Yeah.
No drinking, no.
Yeah, yeah. JR, you know when JR all the time. Yeah. No drinking, no. Yeah, yeah.
JR, you know when JR had his bottle?
Yeah.
He would go toward the bottle, cut, boom, he's in the office.
And that was why, religious reasons?
No, really, like his little censored, you know?
For what reason, the white censor?
You know, the kiss.
Oh, yeah.
You know, like, so it was really funny,
you know,
just to,
but I didn't know that.
Right,
sure.
You just thought
that these people.
I thought it was,
they were working
really hard
and never get
to the glass of the.
Never kiss anybody.
Never kiss anybody.
No one sleeps
with each other.
So then,
we didn't understand
why they would fight,
you know,
because they don't see
when they kiss
and they,
it was really interesting. But they kiss and they it was
really interesting but the business part of it was really really strong intense you know there's
oil right it was all so we were all about oil we were focused on it was a cereal about oil yeah
only oil and horses and people that never quite made it to the drink or the bedroom
never and horses they would ride horses and do business.
So you didn't really get the full experience.
The cleanest Siri on earth.
That was maybe a little peculiar because it didn't quite make sense.
Yeah.
And it was on Friday.
Right.
So it's a whole, you know, it's all messed up because Friday was Shabbat also.
Yeah.
In Morocco.
You live religious?
No, but tradition, we would do Shabbat at home.
And, you know.
Was it a Jewish neighborhood, a Jewish community, a Jewish area?
There's a Jewish community who get really along, as I told you, with the Muslims.
And, you know, they know about Jewish community.
We know about Muslims.
And we had a really, really great relationship.
So you watch it in Dallas.
Yeah, Dallas.
And you know what?
So the channel, the TV would start around, I think, 6 p.m.
Yeah.
Not before.
Right.
And then something happened crazy.
I was named B12.
And the private second channel came in.
Wow.
It was like the revolution.
Like cable?
Cable.
Not cable, but the second one, private.
Right, new.
But we had those-
Private as opposed to what?
State?
Like, or as opposed to, like-
Like-
One channel was run by the government?
Yeah, and the other one was more-
An entrepreneur, like some guy started a TV channel.
Okay.
But we would watch French shows, obviously,
entertainment show, talk shows from France on a cassette.
Video cassette?
Video cassette.
Yeah.
Like all the other cassettes from France, right?
Right.
So a family who moved to France many years before would send us by someone the talk show of this famous, I don't know, host and some comedians were on the show.
But because, you know, it was rare.
You know, we would get one cassette every two months.
And they'd be dated, old stuff.
Yeah, old material.
But also I would watch and watch and watch
the cassette every night.
With the comedians.
After school, because with comedians.
So this guy, Thierry de Luron,
big French comedian,
he would do only impressions of politicians and artists
and performers, singers.
I was amazed by that.
I was really impressed.
So I was watching this
and the first movie I've seen,
I was maybe six years old,
in the cinema with my father
was The Kid, Charlie Chaplin.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And people would smoke in the movie theater. with my father was the kid Charlie Chaplin oh really yeah yeah and people
would small smoke yeah in the movie theater and no kids I was there yeah
with my father and I saw the kid yeah it was a shock Oh Jackie Cooper yeah yeah
yeah oh yeah yeah the little kid big shot yeah why was it a shock because I
wanted to be that kid oh yeah and it was it was great Because I wanted to be that kid. Oh, yeah. And it was great.
You wanted to be in the movies.
Yeah, I wanted to be in a movie.
You know what they used to do in movie theaters in Morocco?
They would take the film.
Yeah.
And a guy with a bike would go and deliver the film.
The reel, yeah.
How do you call it?
The reel.
The reel to another movie theater.
Yeah. And one day I was To another movie theater. Yeah.
And one day I was in a movie theater and we were waiting for the film.
Yeah.
And the guy said, he come on the set, he said, I'm sorry.
The guy with the-
Real.
Real.
He fell with the bike.
Yeah.
The movie.
So we're just fixing now everything.
So you had to wait. Wait. Yeah. And we're going fixing now so you gotta wait
wait
and we're gonna bring
don't worry
we're gonna bring that
is that how you saw movies
when you were a kid
do you go to these theaters
I go
I went
well not a lot
because you know
we didn't have
enough money
to go all the time
how old are you
if you don't mind me asking
I'm now
45
I just turned 45
so you really
like so
in a way
it seems
just in relative to to what we're used to entertainment-wise, a little bit primitive.
Oh, totally.
And it's not that long ago.
No, totally.
And then I moved to Canada.
I stayed four years in Quebec and Montreal.
What, for school?
School, yeah.
I studied a little bit.
So your experience as a kid, so you liked the Charlielie chapel movie and you like this french impressionist so but you know as a child you did not see woody allen movie you
didn't see no i discovered woody allen i was maybe yeah yeah i was 15 16 you know yeah yeah but so
you saw it so but but you know you want to be an entertainer yeah and at this time more than an
actor right but you like the comedians oh yeah
because they yeah because they it's very specific job you know what i mean you gotta make them laugh
you gotta it's a very specific thing and you gotta get something from them right now and you
right and you can also be yourself to some degree yeah yeah so yeah you can tell your story and you
can be yourself which is better than, you know.
Pretending to be somebody.
I did movies in France.
I did also some movies here in America.
But to be very honest, I get really, sometimes I get bored.
Yeah.
I get, I don't know.
You're waiting around a lot when you do TV and movies.
And I don't know.
I don't want to play this guy named, I don't know, Frederick.
He's a dentist.
I don't believe. I don't want to play this guy named, I don't know, Frederick. He's a dentist. I don't believe.
I don't believe in that.
He's just divorced and he has a dog.
I don't like dogs and I have to deal with the dog.
It doesn't sound like acting is your thing.
No, no.
I like to kiss a very beautiful girl.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, that's probably because it was denied to you by Dallas when you were a young kid.
You're like, I just want to.
That's a good callback.
You got it.
Yeah.
But so what are you doing as a kid?
Are you playing instruments?
Yeah.
What do you play?
I play percussion and piano.
Moroccan drums?
Yeah, Moroccan drums called darbuka, but also drums, guitar, and piano.
Piano was my thing.
I thought, okay, when I was a kid, I would play music every day, and I thought I was
going to become a pianist.
Oh, yeah?
Like classical?
No, jazz music.
Oh, yeah?
I'm a very, very, very big jazz fan.
So was your dad into jazz?
Where did you start?
No, he plays a little piano, but I was listening to jazz all the time at home.
Back in the day, it was my father's stuff like Louis Armstrong
oh yeah
and you know
and Didi Bridgewater
yeah yeah
and the singers more
yeah
and then when I
you know
I traveled
and I played
and I went to concerts
and traveled
I discovered
the other
you know
from Brad Meldo
today
to Chick Corea
yeah
and Ahmad Jamal.
You like that stuff.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Jazz music.
I love to go to festivals.
I love jazz music.
This is the only thing that I can do all by myself.
I could go to a jazz concert in the city.
I don't know.
I can fly there.
Jazz and comedy.
Yeah.
I can go see comedy, stand up.
Yeah.
Like when I land, New York, LA, whatever, Boston.
Yeah. I go by myself i need a
beer yeah and the time yeah and watch some stand not even money they they let me yeah get in for
free yeah because you're you're a guy you're a comic yeah you're a comic yeah come on in you
want a soda yeah get your drink how much is down are you're a comic i like that just sit back there
i love it oh yeah me too you know the first time
they gave me money
in a club
in New York
it's
I felt something
very very
strange
because obviously
we make money
by doing movies
but I didn't feel
what I felt
I mean I didn't
when they wired me
money for a movie
yeah
I didn't feel
what I felt
right
when they pumped me those 30 bucks.
Yeah, here's the 30 bucks
for your 10 minutes.
I loved it.
I loved it.
And that was in New York?
Yeah.
But recently?
Recently.
But you get paid to do big shows,
but you got like a manager
and you don't see the money until later,
but just the sort of like,
you just went up there,
here's your $20.
Yeah.
You're like, I earned that.
I like that.
Oh yeah, it's great.
The first time you get paid
in a comedy club
the only thing is
they make me sign something
oh yeah
I would love to have
just the money
and the handshake
yeah right
it used to be that way
it used to be that way
then the clubs are sort of like
well the tax people
they need some proof
maybe I would even
even more
prefer more like
you know what
I'll pay you tomorrow
I can't tonight
that would make it so real.
Oh, you should have started here.
That would have happened a lot.
You should have struggled here.
Yeah, yeah.
You do gigs and the guy,
you do a week and the guy's like,
I'm a little short this week.
Have a drink.
Well, yeah, exactly.
I'll send you the check.
There are guys that have stories
about guys that didn't pay him 20 years ago.
Oh my God.
So how do you start doing shows? shows i mean do you start as a
like it's interesting about jazz is jazz has a much bigger life in europe yeah that that you know
that that's really where jazz uh lives as a popular medium like you know it just seems like a lot of
jazz musicians end up spend a lot of time in fr. They get it here. Saint-Germain, there's a whole school,
if I may say that, for jazz music.
But not for stand-up.
No, but what's the evolution of you as a performer?
Where do you start performing?
What do you start doing?
So I started to perform a little bit in Montreal
when I lived in Montreal.
Were you going to college?
The college, yeah.
I went to college.
In Montreal?
Yeah, in Montreal.
And I started to study at the University of montreal uh political science what was the plan comedy right there yeah yeah so they say
that's yeah you gotta tell your parents something that's the right place yeah and i was watching
those guys who you made fun of. The...
But those guys are great because they're from Montreal
and they do comedy, they do stand-up.
And I was watching them.
In French.
Yeah, this is where I said, oh, wow,
they do stand-up comedy like my idols,
like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock and this and that.
But in French, I'm going to bring that to Europe, to France.
So then I moved to France.
I went to the acting school.
After college.
After college.
And then I was 20 years old and I really quickly started to write some things.
And we don't have clubs in France.
We have one now, what we didn't have back in the day.
We didn't have clubs.
So here you can work out the
material 10 minutes by 10 minutes no there you had to have like one hour one hour 15 one hour 30 they
don't know you have to bring the family you have to bring tv you have to bring everyone and you do
an okay show and then the show becomes gets better by the time you know that's how it works in france
yeah but did you do but i prefer how it works works here. Sure. Because if you have an hour
or an hour and 30 minutes,
it's only good stuff.
That's right.
You got to do it in sections
and you go out every night.
It's like going to the gym.
Exactly.
Whereas in Europe,
you got to show up with the hour.
Yeah.
And it's okay
or if it's not great,
there's a little more,
they're a little more forgiving.
I noticed that even in,
they'll give you a little more leeway.
Oh, yeah.
Like if you go to Edinburgh.
Do you go to Edinburgh?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
So you see these performers, they come every year with a new hour, but it's not punchline.
No.
It's sort of like, wow, this is it?
I guess getting the laugh every 30, 40 seconds is not that important here.
But there are some guys, like some British comics, that are very punchline efficient.
But I noticed that, you know, you show up with the show,
there's different expectation.
Yeah.
They're in a kind of ambiance, right?
There's a whole...
Right.
When I go to the cellar, for example, again, the cellar.
Right, where we talked about the other night.
We talked about the other night.
You and I have been doing stand-up.
How long have you been doing it?
20 years?
20, 22.
I've been doing it like 25 years or more.
But yet you go to that club and somehow you can do a set and you get off.
You're like, holy, do I know how to do this?
I was so happy when I heard you said that because you're like, you know, you're who you are and you do stand-up for 25 years.
And when you said that, I was like, oh, man, that's great to hear that.
Like I can feel really, really like a beginner like what i was doing i've
been doing this for 20 years i think i bummed i just bummed and again because the seller they
they i mean this it's a very strange and radical i love it audience it's either you gotta laugh a Either you got a laugh, a real laugh. Yeah. Ha ha. You feel it. You hear it.
Or nothing.
Nothing.
Not even the, how you say, a little chuckle.
A chuckle.
Yeah, chuckle.
Nothing.
No.
Yeah.
We have chuckle in Europe.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, it's like, oh, I know what you want to say, but it's not funny.
Yeah.
No.
In New York, at the cellar. Oh, they'll just leave you hanging there. Ooh, nothing.
All alone up there.
No friends in the room.
So that's why when I go there, when I go up, I'm like, I'm going with my strong bits, you
know?
Oh, yeah.
You got it with the cellar.
It's not a workout room.
No, that's what I told you last night.
Like when someone was telling me, are you trying new things tonight?
No.
I'm doing old, great things to look good and feel like i'm good so when
you go from montreal and you get to france and you decide you're going to put together a show
yeah so you get where do you get booked for something like that small theaters okay very
small get a production taking care of everything going on tour so so really you know when you go
it's not just sort of like you show up and do the set you got it you got to get you got to book a theater yeah you gotta get a stage
manager yeah gotta get some producer and you stay there six months every night like five nights five
nights a week this is how we do it over there that's how you build your act yeah and then tv
guys come to see your radio guys and media and they get interested or not in your thing so it's
really more of a it's more like a theater production.
Oh yeah, exactly.
So what was the first show?
What did it include?
Now that you've watched your French, the French comedy in Montreal, so when you decide I'm
going to.
No, I was a little boo-boo-ba-ba in the beginning.
There's nothing wrong with it.
No, it's okay.
The boo-boo-ba-ba.
I'm sure you do a little bit of that now.
A little bit, a little bit, a little bit.
I don't do it at the cell. If you want to see me do the boo-boo-ba-ba. A little bit. A little bit. Sometimes. A little bit. I don't do it at the cellar.
If you want to see me do the ba-boo-ba-ba.
You got to see it in French.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I won't do the ba-boo-ba-ba like at Carnegie Hall.
No.
Right.
No.
No.
I will do only sharp, efficient, radical, straight.
But no, I'm just saying that I have nothing're like i have nothing against you know i'm not i'm not being dismissive but i'm just saying that the the actual theatricality yeah of of what i i notice in you know what i assume is you see it here too with latino television and
stuff that there is a broader performance style la la comics are more about sometimes in new york
there's a there's a variety, you got a little more room
on the stage here.
But,
yeah,
no,
it depends who it is,
but I'm just saying,
generally speaking,
the theatrical element
of comedy
in French comedy
is a big part of it.
It's just a tradition.
It's not,
you know,
it's not like some bad thing.
No,
no,
I understand that.
I understand that.
And also,
I think with Middle Eastern comedy,
when I see like,
you know,
Persian acts or people that come from an expressive yeah it's
not heady it's not thinky you know it's thinky but it's also like there's a guy
I really like Sebastian Maniscalco I love that guy yes Sebastian very funny
yes hilarious when I watch him he's very physical no no he's very physical it's
very specific but it's not boo boo bubba no no no no no no it's a character character yeah yeah yeah and he helps to yeah yeah he's got a very
weird way about him it's very unique yeah yeah i like that guy where'd you see him uh i saw him
live uh in boston and i watch his stuff on the internet i'm i'm i really like his because he's
la guy he calls a comedy store like yeah yeah i don't know where he's at. He's a good guy. He is a very specific thing.
Oh, yeah.
But it's his thing.
Yeah.
Sometimes he does things with your body language.
Yeah, it's very funny.
Yeah, it's very...
Yeah, yeah.
He does a thing.
Right.
I like it.
But I think that, you know, I guess generalizing the boo-boo-ba-ba is that there is a...
And you did it in your show.
Yeah.
And it's just by virtue of where you come from.
It's not a bad thing.
I get it.
It's just like,
you know,
even when you say,
when you do the bit about
when you ask a French person
for directions,
the singing thing,
that there is obviously
a type of French character
that's very familiar.
Yeah.
Not unlike, you know,
we have characters here.
You got your New York character,
you got your Southern character,
you know,
you got your hippie character,
whatever.
It's always a question of perspective, right right for example when we if you bring okay
when a comic goes on stage in france with holding a mic yeah and if he has a wire yeah we're gonna
be like this guy has no money the production is so poor they he has no manager they cannot even afford a headset or a
love thing on his clothes poor guy he's really struggling but here in america i show up with
the headset you're like who the fuck is this guy who's this guy is he a magician what is he is he
a vegas circuit du soleil some i don't know that's a
relatively new thing it's a new phenomenon the the the headsets within the last decade like but like
if i go on the road i prefer a wire i don't like wireless mics they're too big they don't fit in
the thing right you're always struggling to get them back in the goddamn holder and the lavalier
thing they i'm always worried about it and i fucking fucking, if I go on the road, I'm like, I want a fucking 58.
58.
With a wire.
Yeah.
A short 58.
The SM 58.
Yeah.
With a wire.
Why the wire?
Because I want to feel like I'm connected to something.
I don't like.
I think that's the best conversation between comedians is about the microphone.
No, a 58 on a stick with a wire that's what i want i want a
fucking stand like this thing yeah it's a dirty the stool right yeah no no just a mic stand i
want a straight straight with the round bass that's right no i need that no no no no no music
or the tripod the three no it's gonna fuck you up oh man if i see a tripod no no you can't oh you i
i don't go because you're going to wrestle with it.
It's going to cause you trouble.
At some point, it's going to be a problem.
But the wire, I don't get it.
Why the wire?
For me, the wire, like, it's just that they haven't made a cordless mic that feels right to me
because they're too fat and the clip is always fucked up.
Like, always getting it in and out of the clip is always a little more of a trouble
than you just slide it in with the wire.
You just slide it in. the wire you just slide it
in it's a nice little it's the right size and the mic would know the one and then i don't
trust it yeah yeah i don't trust it yeah yeah i think it sounds weird but this is you know this
is just the preference yeah but if you're going to be moving around on the stage and doing something
i get it i get it yeah yeah yeah you need uh you need you knowba-ba, yeah. I get it, I get it. The boo-boo-ba-ba thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You need, you know, wireless maybe.
No, I get it, I get it.
You're playing big rooms.
You don't have to rub it in.
You're playing big places.
Yeah, big places.
Yeah, okay, so let's talk about...
Big places in Europe and Middle East also.
Right.
I don't know.
Do you do the act in Hebrew?
I did.
I put some Hebrew stuff in my act
when I played my shows in theaters
in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in French.
Yeah.
Because there's a very big French community there.
So I've done shows.
And I put some Hebrew because I told you I speak Hebrew.
And also Europe, you know.
But also there's something interesting.
I did a lot of shows.
I started to do shows in America in French for the French community everywhere yeah this is how I started how many years ago like three years ago
and then I was putting here and there's some English to try you know and then it
was in the beginning it was hard and then you know I felt more confident and
now I do all in English you know I would I was not able to do what I'm doing
right now with you today yeah two years ago right I was not able to do what I'm doing right now with you today two years ago. Right.
I was studying English every day for two hours with a teacher.
Yeah.
This is very hard.
Yeah, I imagine.
But the first show, so you come from Montreal, you can do your six-month run to build the hour.
What is that hour?
It's about my story.
Born in Morocco and then going to the acting school, and I talk about my first experiences
on the theater.
It's a one man show.
What?
Exactly.
And is there music?
No stand up.
Is there music?
Music,
one man show.
So you play some piano?
No,
not at this.
No,
I play some guitar
on the second show.
Singing?
Singing.
Yeah.
Impression.
Totally boo boo ba ba.
Totally boo boo.
Ladies and gentlemen,
boo boo ba ba is.
Bee boo boo bee bee ba ba ba. gentlemen, boo-boo-ba-ba is... Bee-boo-boo-bee-ba-ba-ba.
Oh, the beach-a-boo-boo.
Yeah.
Ha.
Ha.
Yeah, yeah.
Woof, woof.
All right, stop.
No, but...
No, no, man.
But it's still a one-man show, which is, I think, the difference in, you know, American
stand-up really integrating into Europe.
That was the difference, that most of it early on like
edinburgh style you know you do an hour that has a theme that has a story and it's not you know it's
not about jokes necessarily it's about the story yeah yeah and then my second show so that was my
first show one man show second show was more characters and my third show i was watching
now this is a year you put in these shows you do do a show. You're in that show for a year.
No, for three years, for two years.
I go on tour and I travel.
And then I started to watch all those guys, and especially Jerry.
Yeah.
And I was like, wow, I'm connected.
This is what I want to do.
My observations, it's always.
I feel connected to this kind of writing and taking small things and making them big but
that's because once you establish not unlike a lot of us do in a different way you know you you're
comfortable with who you are on stage because you fucking talked about it so like you know you you
you now found where you live up there and now you have a point of view from telling your story now
you want to take that point of view and apply it to the world and not to yourself that's it yeah exactly right for example I do material
now in America about oh I'm from France but Bobby boo yeah but I hope in one two
years from now I will not talk anymore about oh because my French perspective
yeah you say that right I just want to be a comedian right just a funny guy
right oh yeah he's from France I don't care I just want to be a funny man right
right we are funny men okay you're already a funny man. Right. Oh, yeah, he's from France. I don't care. I just want to be a funny man. Right, right.
Well, you are a funny man.
Okay.
You're already a funny man.
All right.
But you've taken on this...
You give me the visa, right?
You need a visa?
For a funny man.
There's a stamp.
Boom, you're a funny man.
Yeah, funny visa.
Oh, you want to hear a very funny story, by the way.
I mean, not funny, but strange.
What?
With Jerry Seinfeld that happened in Cannes.
Yeah, in Cannes.
In Cannes Film Festival.
You were both at the Cannes Film Festival.
So wait,
before we get to the Jerry story,
which I'll make note of
because I'm a professional,
is that...
There's no assistant.
There's no people with cards
showing you what to do.
No, no.
No, no.
Just you and me.
I'm riding the knobs right here
with the levels.
I'm watching your voice.
This is how this works.
So you did go to acting school though.
Yeah. For how long? The whole thing? For two years. That is how this works. So you did go to acting school though? Yeah.
For how long?
The whole thing?
For two years.
That was the whole time?
They gave me a scholarship, by the way.
From the Montreal school?
No, from the Paris school.
Oh, you auditioned?
I auditioned, yeah.
Yeah.
And that was great
because I worked for the whole summer
in a hospital in Montreal
to pay my school and everything.
I got there
and I do the audition at school,
and they give me the scholarship.
So I have extra money.
Okay.
And what do you earn?
You earn all the basics?
Basics.
From Moliere to Shakespeare
and Alfred de Musset
and Tennessee Williams
and Eugène O'Neill
and New Guys
and Israel Horowitz.
Oh, yeah? You did Indian Wants the Bronx?
Oh, great.
Yeah, yeah.
I love this play.
Okay, so you're doing all that.
You're doing scenes, you're doing plays.
Plays, some little, you know, scenes from plays.
Mostly comedy.
I like comedy.
So, obviously, those teachers are like, no, we're going to give you.
But that was the template.
That's how you thought.
You thought when you entered your own show that you'd a theatrical show that makes sense yeah but you know i had no interest in
i don't know i just wanted to be funny and do funny things and do my shows you know yeah yeah
yeah but it helped right yeah they offered me to do movies so i did a lot of movies in france you
did a lot a lot yeah yeah are you a star in the movies in france i started movies yeah like a first lead role for
in i don't know 20 movies oh really yeah french movies yeah you're a big star yeah this is why
what what yeah boo-boo baba yeah yeah no but the movies they're not you know i know but
they're painful romantic comedies painful man yeah i it's very hard to do movies i don't i
don't want to do my i did i did movies
here in america small roles with very big directors it was great experiences you know
with woody allen with steven spielberg and what'd you do with woody allen um midnight in paris oh
yeah yeah i was playing a detective at the end of the movie very funny i gotta go back and look
awesome yeah yeah and what'd you do with the uhintin. Uh-huh. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tintin.
Yeah.
It was a great experience.
You know, here,
I was also in a movie
with Adam Sandler
and Al Pacino.
Obviously,
they gave me
the French chef
to play in Jack and Jill.
Oh, Jack and Jill.
Jack and Jill.
Yeah.
A crazy movie.
But I was, you know,
I was happy
to meet with Al Pacino
and he came to see my show in New York at Joe's Pub.
A new show?
This show right now that I'm doing now.
And I went to see his play.
But I'm not, I think movies are not for comedians.
You know, our pacing, our way of thinking,
that's not for us.
This is not the way we think and do away right right
but it's just i respect you know you can do it though the thing is is like if you separate it
this is not my thing this is me playing this character it's exciting i'm in the movies but
you're already tired of you do 20 movies you know in france on that yeah that's it and you're you
know you so here's the i guess here's where we're at now and we'll get to the jerry story is that
so you tour around the world.
You're very successful.
You probably live in a nice house.
I met your son, so you have a couple of sets of kids,
a couple of marriages, right?
And you're good.
You're good.
I mean, you're a fucking star.
But there's some part of you that somewhere in you,
you're like, oh, I've got America.
What the fuck is that about?
The fuck is?
I think there's two things.
There is the American thing, but there's also the personal and deep and very personal thing about challenging myself.
I say it as a joke in my show.
You do.
Because I make fun of Americans about challenge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Passion project.
Yeah, yeah.
passion project yeah yeah but it's not totally true that it's a joke because it's it's it's great to step out of this you know to go out of this comfort zone to take a risk if i but is there
some part of your brain that that no matter how big your success is internationally that if you
can't make it as a comedian in amer, you haven't made it. Yeah.
Oh, really?
This is what I think.
I'm sorry.
You create a hell of a challenge for yourself.
Yeah, this is a big challenge.
By the way, I, yeah.
So what is this Jerry story?
That's funny.
There's two stories about Jerry. The first one is he made fun of me.
He used to make fun of me.
Like, why do you want to come here to America to do comedy? Where'd you meet him? It's like, so in Cannes. Why is he made fun of me used to make fun of make fun of me like why why do you want to come here
to america to do comedy where'd you meet him it's like so in can why is he in can why are you in to
promote the b movie so animation animated movie okay he wrote and they produced with steven
spielberg and he did the the voice of this b thing there and then so we were supposed to be on the
same talk show yeah so i'm invited on the show and he's invited we're supposed to be on the same talk show. Yeah. So I'm invited on the show.
And he's invited.
And we're going to be on the same show.
And the producer of the show says, okay, you're a big fan.
Do you want to meet with him?
I say, yes, of course.
I want to meet with my, he's, you know.
Your idol.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm sitting there in a hotel room.
It's a mess.
It's a fuss.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
People running all around.
The publicists and Americans are loud. it's a big fuss about Jerry and then Jerry walks into
the room there are like 12 people sitting there yeah my friends blah blah
yeah and I swear and I'm not making that up and he said he was honest about that
he he never saw me before yeah so he point to me like that point at
me or point to me yeah he point at you he point at me yeah and he said oh you're the funny guy
yeah and he didn't know that never so i said what oh you googled me i said yeah he said no never
and i said so how do you know i'm the funny guy? He said, because in a room, you know who's the funny guy.
I said, what do you mean?
Because there's always one funny guy.
There's not two.
And you are the funny guy.
It's like when he said, I saw your material in French.
It's good.
I said, you don't speak French.
He said, funny is funny.
That's flattering.
So the story is one day we were sitting at the cellar.
But what happened in Cannes
did you guys talk
did you hang out
yeah of course
we did the show
and then
and then
he offered me to do this
the French version
of the B movie
so I made the French voice
of B movie
I did also
Despicable Me
right
the Steve Carell movie
I did it in France
so
then we
you know
I go I see his show on tour and he comes
to paris and you know one day we organized something where he performed in english in paris
and we become friends you know um and and he comes to see my shows in new york city and um and by the
way uh when he offered me to open i'm'm going to open for him. Oh, yeah.
And as a joke, I said, so you have to open for me too.
Yeah.
He said, yeah.
Oh.
I said, when?
He said, Thursday.
Do you have a show on Thursday?
I said, sure.
So there's this guy who is supposed to open for me every night, Harrison Greenbone.
Yeah.
New York comic.
Yeah.
I say, Harrison, you're going to do it, but you're going to do a two minute warm up. Yeah. I say, Harrison, you're going to do it,
but you're going to do
a two-minute warm-up.
Yeah.
And you're going to bring up
Jerry Seinfeld.
Yeah.
He said,
is this a joke or what?
No, no.
Yeah.
Because Jerry's going to open.
So then he said,
ladies and gentlemen,
Jerry Seinfeld.
The audience thought
it was like a joke.
Right.
They didn't even do like,
what?
And then when he showed up,
like,
right.
Bananas,
as you guys said,
right?
They went bananas.
Sure, yeah.
I like this expression.
Okay, yeah.
So,
and then I did my show.
How'd that go for you
after Jerry?
Bananas.
Yeah?
Oh, it was good.
No.
No good.
No, no, it was good.
It was good.
He made fun of me.
He said to the crowd,
oh,
because he said to someone, how do you know, where are you from?
You're French.
So the woman said, first of all, she said, no, I'm American.
Yeah.
So he says, so how did you hear about this guy?
What?
You just saw him on the top of the cabs because I had a whole ads.
And you said, oh, this guy is funny.
And this is Joe's pub?
Yeah. Yeah. Because he's on the And this is Joe's pub? Yeah.
Because he's on the top of a New York app.
She said, no, I read in the New York Times
something about him.
And he said, what did you read?
She said, I read,
here's the Jerry Seinfeld of France.
And then he said, oh, oh,
so you came to see a shitty version of me.
Oh, boy.
But it's okay.
He did 10 minutes?
Yeah.
And is that going to be the last time you have the biggest name in American comedy open for you?
It's not open for me.
Not now?
Not now.
It's not open.
It's just, you know, I love him.
You did a guest spot.
Yeah.
Oh, guest spot.
So not paid, right?
That's the whole difference. I guess that's true. No, probably true, right? You didn love him. You did a guest spot. Yeah, guest spot, so not paid, right? That's the whole difference.
I guess that's true.
No, probably true, right?
You didn't pay him, did you?
No.
That's nice of him.
But you didn't have any problem following?
No, ba-ba-boo-boo, no, during that night, right?
Right.
So those are your experiences with Jerry.
So Jerry's sort of like you become friends and he's supportive of you here
and that's a nice thing.
Yeah, I would talk a lot
and how does it go?
Because it went very,
how do you say that?
Organic.
Well, yeah.
The way I got here.
Well, you were here
and I'd heard about you
and Godfrey, who I like.
Because I have to say that.
It's not to,
we have an expression in France.
What is it?
It's called,
I don't want okay if i translate
literally i want to hear it in french
but okay
means i don't want to rub you with cream but let me tell you when i say i'm gonna go do
mark maron people are you know, they're like, oh,
well,
that's big.
That's really big.
That's huge.
That's huge.
Oh,
it's great.
Oh,
my God.
Okay.
And then some people,
they say it's even more
important than TV,
blah, blah, blah.
They have a whole thing.
Yeah.
So,
so,
so I don't know
why I'm telling you this.
Yeah.
So for me,
so,
oh,
the way it worked with us. I heard of you, with us, because we have a friend in common, right? Well, no, you know, a guy. you this. Yeah. So for me, so. Oh, the way it worked with us.
I heard of you, with us.
Right.
Because we have a friend in common, right?
Well, no.
We know a guy.
Well, you have a friend in common, but also like, you know, it seems like an interesting
story.
It's not a story that I've talked about.
But I'm glad that you get interested too, because if, I'm sorry to interrupt, but because
it's very good to do that because you could have said, ah, Ian, people don't know him.
Yeah.
Ah.
Well, it wasn't like my first impression to be
honest like like i said to you before like i didn't know what to make of you and and like you
know i heard about you and then i met you at the cellar and you know i'm judged to whatever based
on nothing but like until like when i went to see you at largo because i have a little time now
because i'm not shooting the tv show i'm like i should go you know like watch this guy that's
great yeah and then like when i talked to you afterwards like and then I realized like it's just it's a comedian you know so
like I like being able to do this I like you know like it's easy for me I live
down the street you're not here for that long and after I saw you I might just
come over and do I've never okay I've never done something that way you know
oh yeah no neither in France or you got the big but Jerry cause the posse no There's a lot of people. No, no, no, no.
Jerry, he's my friend.
It's easy.
I'm talking about...
He's making fun of you traveling with people.
Yeah, yeah, because the entourage.
Yeah, the entourage.
No, but if you go on a TV talk show here in America or in France, even radio or something,
it's going to be the whole...
You know, the publicist and the assistant.
I love that.
Yeah.
I still didn't believe when I came in front...
Of my house? Yeah. Yeah. I still didn't believe when I came in front. Of my house?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Came in front.
No.
Can I mean another thing?
Yeah.
No.
You didn't do that.
No.
When I came into your house.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah, it's fine.
It sounds a little bit sexual.
Yeah.
I don't like that.
You come into the house and be like, don't flatter yourself.
All over the house.
My large French cock.
I entered the house with my cock first.
Beep.
Beep.
No, there's no bleep.
There's no bleep.
So when I arrived, I was like, is this real?
Is this like this guy?
Is this real? The thing with the publicist and the
assistants and the being ushered in do you want coffee mr french guy all that shit that that
you're gonna ask if this is real i made the fucking coffee right there yeah i give you the
coffee the cat yeah the cat the lonely the the yeah the house yeah i know silence yeah it's nice
the neighbor yeah the neighbors over there. Nice guys.
Hello.
Yeah.
This is how show business works here.
No, this is the American dream.
It is the American dream.
American way of life.
Yeah.
But so this challenge that you've given yourself, so what's the hope that you build a following
here of not necessarily French expats?
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How's that going?
What's going on with the Joe's Pub show?
What do you find?
Yeah.
I get a lot of Americans now.
Because Joe's Pub is a very small venue.
I hang out after the show at the venue,
which I never do in Europe.
I cannot.
Right.
Because it's huge.
Because it's arena.
900 people.
I don't know.
It's 12,000 people arena in Belgium. You don't hang out in front of the venue. It's a 900 people it's i don't know it's 12 000 people arena in belgium
you don't hang out in front of the venue you know it's parking lot and see that's another difference
is that like now you're learning how to do intimate comedy i love it yeah well that's that's
where it happens i love it yeah so i hang out there and every night i'm surprised and i'm very
happy to meet with the americans who come to my show because they read something about me
because they've been brought by some French guys
who want them.
Or maybe there's a French guy dating American girls.
Sure.
So the French guy brings them
and the American likes the show
and the French guy goes,
you should see him in French.
No, and the French comedian goes with the girl,
with the American girl.
Oh yeah?
That's it, you get the girl.
No, I mean, it's a mixed ground.
A lot of expats from different countries also.
I'm always surprised because I have nothing to do,
maybe, or related to Armenia, Iran, Australia, Brits.
And they come to my show because they relate.
To the experience.
Yeah, the experience.
This is very funny.
I was talking to,
I think when you were here or the night before
with the girl from Argentina,
she was like,
oh, this is,
I feel like,
I feel everything you said,
I feel about
when I first moved to America,
they relate as a foreigner.
Right.
Yeah.
It's an immigrant experience.
Yeah, immigrant experience.
So obviously,
of course,
That's interesting
because that's a good angle. Yeah. So you're going to attract international audiences in America. Yeah, immigrant experience. So obviously, of course, I want- That's interesting because that's a good angle.
Yeah.
So you're going to attract international audiences in America.
Yeah, so I should perform in Times Square.
Sure.
Well, you do.
Close.
Close, yeah.
Down the street.
Down the street.
Not far, but that speaks a lot to the cultural landscape of America at this time.
You know, that there is, that you are being sought out by people that the immigrant experience or the transition into
becoming an American or living in America is something common with a lot
of people yeah but but let's not underestimate your job no no no how
Americans also hear that story as a new thing and perspective.
Right.
I was really amazed by some comments
they say about my,
they don't know maybe
about my story
about Morocco,
whatever,
friends, whatever,
but they're very,
they connect to the story
and it's,
I love that.
This is the best compliment
I can get when I,
What's the other side?
Walk out.
It's the other side,
you know,
Americans like they,
they have a,
not necessarily an arrogance, but they, they have a, it's not even entit out. It's the other side. You know, Americans, like they have a, not necessarily an arrogance, but they have a,
it's not even entitlement.
It's just that we assume a certain thing about America and that we, you know, we don't necessarily
empathize, you know, with what the immigrant experience is.
So like to hear your frustrations for an American, it's sort of like, oh my God, that guy was
going through that.
It's refreshing.
I just said, hi, how you doing?
And he looked like he was in panic.
And now I get why. It's because he didn't know how to react. You know, so you're giving guy was going through that. It's refreshing. I just said, hi, how you doing? And he looked like he was in panic. And now I get why.
It's because he didn't know how to react.
So you're giving the other side of that.
It helps us be more empathetic.
But also a culture with comedy and a sense of it that is very, very strong with Americans.
Really, I was surprised.
In the beginning, I was, oh, can I do that big I do?
The self-deprecating is in the American culture yeah it's very very present as a
comedian oh yeah yeah no even the general yeah I mean they know right they
know really well they know what this is they go to the club they sit there and
they know there are comedians they know how to know more than Europe yeah we
think about ourselves a lot here. Yeah. Yeah.
But the self-deprecating thing is well accepted by Americans. Sure, sure.
And I like that because-
The underdog.
Yeah, it's a culture.
It's a culture, you know?
Yeah.
So again, going back to your friend Jerry, when I told him I was going to do comedy,
he was like, why would you do this in English?
Okay, here is what-
Really, he said that?
Yeah, because he was making fun of me.
And this is a guy that can't understand
direct in French.
So all he knows is that you're a funny guy
and he likes you,
but he has no fucking idea.
No, but he saw my jokes in English
and he gave me the best advice on earth.
He said, why are you going to do this in English?
The best, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no he was like in the beginning was making fun of me but because i shot a documentary about doing stand-up
in english it was called 10 minutes in america i was building my 10 minutes and so i i did
interviews with sarah silverman woody allen and jerry and other comedians and jerry was as a joke
making fun of me.
He said, oh, you're going to come to America and do...
But this is America.
They know...
I mean, it's like...
Okay, here was...
It's like if I go to Germany
and I say I'm going to start to build cars
and then I go to Italy
and I'm going to do pasta factory.
I'm going to start a pasta factory.
Wow.
And then I go to France
and I'm going to start a new kind of baguette. Yeah. pasta factory wow and then i go to france and i'm gonna start a
new kind of baguette yeah and then i'm gonna go to america and do stand-up comedy yeah i think that's
i don't think that's right me too it was it's a little off as a metaphor because comedy humor
laughing is an international human thing yeah and it was just making fun of no his style because
style yeah it's an american thing like why
would you do that to yourself i guess the concern really and the concern for me too and watching it
is that you know your observations are good and your structure is good and your performance is
all good but i think what you're up against is that you know you have to have the point of view
that you have right now because that's showing you how to use English and do the jokes. But I think what Jerry might be saying is that,
like, you know, are you,
do you have more creative range in your own language?
Oh.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
That, like, you know, there's something challenging
and endearing about your struggle with English
and your struggle as somebody who is here.
But, like, you know, can you express yourself
to the best of
your ability better in french yeah yeah so that's the tricky thing yeah yeah but this is again part
of this crazy challenge right uh this is why i told you i would like in a few months few weeks
talk about different things not only you know not only and you will that was like because that
struck me in the show today like you know the way you're writing and the
joke structure because Jerry's very much a technician and you know like even when
you had the call back with the I'm down yeah I'm good I'm good I'm good right
it's very clever you know and I come back around now is that a device you use
in France as well no right exactly that's how I learned that right in America I noticed yeah really yeah I said well that that's
good that the you know he's understanding the structure funny
because I'm working now with the French comedian on a project in France I'm
gonna be doing in a few months and my vision it changed totally right about
writing yeah yeah they write me back oh why are you so uh uh
how you say um how you say exigent like very hard on on on what we're doing you know why don't you
just that's a good joke yeah i said no it could be better right we need to get it sharp and and
clear right and sweet right yeah yeah boom sharp and clear and sweet and boom.
And they're like, no, no, no, that's great.
It's very long setups.
Those emails are very long.
And I cut the fat.
I'm like, boom, boom, boom.
I cut all the fat and I send them back.
I say, that will work like this.
Boom.
Three lines, one setup, a joke.
Do they agree?
Yeah, but it's a little bit but we have
to mix those two cultures right sure the booboo baba can be can be fun you know
yeah but if you only do the booboo baba ah you could be better like the joke
could be better yeah you get away with I like a good joke sure because the booboo
baba you know it's a lot of charm.
It's a lot of charm.
Seduction.
Yes.
You can do boo-boo-ba-ba even with no jokes.
That's exactly right.
Just a little, ooh.
Nice suit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nice suit, music, good lighting.
Sure, it's character journey.
Boo-boo-ba-ba.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, come on.
Let's make a better joke.
Well, that's interesting.
You know, that's, yeah.
So you're going to change French stand-up.
A lot of guys that were getting away with it no i we brought not not only me but we brought we kind of brought this way
of doing comedy in france um stand-up talking directly to the audience not with an imaginary
third how you say that third wall no yeah fourth wall fourth wall we brought this with jamel this
other guy in france so um now we gotta go one step further we have to stand up we have to be
more efficient sometimes i go see some shows in europe not only in france and there are like
four minutes with no laughs set up and theatrical it's okay it's fun they
do it very well the thing moves the music the line yeah but now that I'm
here I don't know I can't fish change my yeah I want the joke I want to laugh
that's interesting to me that you're gonna like to integrate that into a
tradition of entertainment that it's what you're really up against. Also short sets.
Sometimes I go to Europe and I see shows,
two hours of comedy, two hours.
That's too much.
You cannot be funny for two hours.
It's impossible, even if you're a genius, you cannot.
Right, but that's interesting that you're really
up against uh you know uh different expectations
like you know like like maybe a french audience doesn't know that this could be better because
they've gotten so used to the here's the music here's the guy but it's exactly like the american
audience no i think it's good they they don't they don't know that maybe with a little physicality
would be crazy no that's when i do it sometimes even at the cellar sometimes or other clubs i put a little fake expressions they like it of course well it's
a natural thing it's it's not that's not necessarily french but there's a way of doing it
that you're used to that you're i think your muscle around physicality yeah is it has to do with you
know that you know that's what you do you know so like when you just when you when you
like temper or when you trim it when you make it more efficient because i noticed that right when
you started doing physical i'm like that like he you're very comfortable doing yeah you know what
i mean we're having a real conversation right now it's great right that's what That's what I do. Never happens. No?
On the radio.
Yeah.
Well, that's the podcast.
That's the podcast. That's different.
Yeah.
But I'm excited about that.
I like the idea of that, of working within this tradition of comedy in France, and then
you bringing this new skill set to it, and kind of changing the face of French comedy
while you learn how
to do American style.
Because you want me to go back there.
That's why.
I understand.
I'm not exactly saying that.
I love that you came here to take some great ideas and go back to your country to use them
over there.
Well, I think that was Jerry's point when he said, I don't go to Italy and make pasta.
Yeah.
I don't.
Yeah.
But, you know, he's, you know, he's indulging you.
And it's nice.
No, I mean, he's right when he talks about how New Yorkers are so aware of the, they
know this, the stand-up.
This is where stand-up was born, you know, in America, in New York City.
So, obviously, he's very sarcastic, but also it's true.
But he comes from that tradition.
But I think what you're doing,
it's not by me saying that I want to send you back to France.
I just think it's exciting that you take a form,
which is not unlike jazz, which has a lot of roots
and integrates a lot of things,
that you're conscious enough to know the difference
between what has become not necessarily stale,
but expected
in france and you say well why don't we integrate you know what i'm learning here into into trying
it there and seeing you know what happens you know making a different expectation like it might
be surprising like there's actually this opportunity to take a form that's very you know again i'll say
traditional in terms of how entertainment works,
but taking these new skills and just seeing like how that joke works now.
Have you seen the results yet?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's interesting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
And is it working?
Oh, it's great.
Oh, yeah.
But they don't know why.
They don't know.
Oh, it's great.
That's exciting.
That's a very exciting thing.
It's great, you know.
It's like, I don't know. I was thinking about analogy, but it's great. That's exciting. That's a very exciting thing. It's great, you know? It's like, I don't know.
I was thinking about analogy, but it's not a good one.
I was thinking about a sexual analogy.
Yeah.
Like you took something and you're very performant, but she doesn't know.
Right, right.
That you've been with another woman learning new things.
I get it.
Or having so many pills.
Yeah, yeah.
And she had no idea. Yeah, yeah. She's just thinking. Don't tell Or having so many pills. Yeah, yeah. And she had no idea.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She just think...
Don't tell her you took the pills.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What happened to you?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Just, it's you.
It's you, baby.
Yeah, yeah.
But my question to you is,
is the opposite would be true?
Like, would you go,
you or another comedian go to
booboo baba land i do more now i like and would watch something and and we have our own version
of that inspired no we have our own version of that and and it's not in it's like uh it's not
it's not the same in that you know whatever we're calling boo-boo-ba-ba is really just the way french comedy has worked for years that's all it's a and we have you know there there are certain
types of comedy that have existed here for years but lately for me i've become more a little more
light-hearted like i open up a little more and i'm very envious of of natural physical comedians
i do i know that i have the ability but i don't have the comfort. And I do it a little more now.
And that's something I'm consciously doing,
but I don't think of it as boo-boo-ba-ba.
But I think of it as like,
why not be a little more physical?
Try it.
You have the skill.
Yeah, but you have a character.
I saw you on stage.
You don't want, it's not,
we don't expect that from you.
Right, well, that's why I like to do it now.
Oh, you see?
You're challenging yourself. Sure. And I'm challenging you to take those risks. I mean, if you saw me in another environment, we don't expect that from you right well that's why i like to do it now like i see i do challenging
yourself sure and i'm challenging to take those risks and i mean if you saw me in another
environment like tonight i'm going to do the comedy store you know where i'm doing these these
newer bits where you know i do do physical stuff in my last special i'm a lot more physical but
i'm aware of it like i i know that's a instead of looking at it as something like uh that indicates
a certain side where you're sort of making fun of it it's just another way of looking at it as something like that indicates a certain side where you're
sort of making fun of it, it's just another way of another tool.
It's another way of doing what you do.
You integrate these different things and you know, you want to best be funny and make it
fun for you.
I'd like to hear that.
Yeah.
Oh no.
Yeah.
I, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm kind of a dick initially, but I get it.
Like, cause like for me to be watching you and actually be craving,
in a genuine way, to see you perform in all French,
just to experience that, to see what you're the most comfortable with,
was not to go like, look at this fucking clown.
It was to see you're a good comedian.
I'd love to see, because I never see French comedy.
I make fun of it.
I don't know anything about it.
But I want to go back.
Which is American. I want to go back on I'm a dick. You because I never see French comedy. I make fun of it. I don't know anything about it. But I want to go back. Which is American.
I want to go back on I'm a dick.
You said I'm a dick.
Because no one else than someone who doesn't speak English can picture better this expression.
Because what we do immediately is we translate.
But you guys, it's an expression, right?
Yeah.
Oh, he's a dick.
Yeah.
But because we know what the word dick means. Yeah. And we don't speak English. Oh, you don't's an expression right yeah oh he's a dick yeah but because we know what the
word dick means yeah and we don't speak english oh the expression what the oh we have to say oh
all right oh he's talking so we translate and we're like oh he's talking about penis and then
he's a penis and he's a penis it was never going to make sense so never gonna make sense how you
would have to translate it is that yeah how it would be more like he's a judgmental
ignorant American
that does not allow himself
to experience different things
because he's stubborn
because he's stubborn
that's a dick
to you it would be a dick
to me it would just be like
I'd be talking to a guy
I'd be like
I don't fucking like that shit either
that's a bit To me, it would just be like, I'd be talking to a guy, I'd be like, I don't fucking like that shit either.
That's a bit.
No, that's a bit for you.
That's a bit for your... You're probably right.
I need new bits.
I'll listen back to it.
Yeah, listen only that part.
Who signed this?
Hey, Mark.
Iggy Pop.
Oh, well, he came here.
Yeah.
Yeah, a lot of people come here.
All right, so let's wrap it up.
Wrap it up. We did good. We're let's wrap it up. Wrap it up.
We did good.
We're going to wrap it up.
Good expression also, because I see the-
How would that translate to French?
We don't have this.
What's the expression where you say-
C'est fini.
It's finished.
Oh, yeah, c'est fini.
C'est fini.
Right.
Merci beaucoup.
Yeah.
Ça m'a fait très plaisir d'être avec toi aujourd'hui.
You know what marron means in French?
Chestnut and brown.
No.
Okay.
Two things.
I hope they're good things.
There's one who's not a good thing.
Marron means brown.
Yeah.
But marron, if I say we are marron, means fucked up.
Yeah.
Like if someone says, oh, oh man, where's the car?
You didn't bring the car?
And it starts in two, three, we are marron.
We are marron means we're fucked up.
We're fucked.
That's more fitting.
Than brown?
Yeah.
Thank you, Mark.
Thank you.
That was lovely.
That guy's a lovely man.
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