Comedian Anthony Jeselnik: What You Can't Say at Roasts

you might remember him from The Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen Roseanne Barr and Donald Trump Don you've got a great sense of humor you've been so happy to embarrass yourself on Saturday Night Live in the casino business hi I'm Rebecca Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com today we're at the Just for Laughs festival where we're speaking with comedian Anthony Jeselnik about the limits of comedy first Jarvis year I was part of varieties ten comics to watch a huge deal the next year I came back here I did the nasty show and I co-headline to show another friend of mine pretty big deal now I'm here headlining my own show that means next year I don't come at all I want to talk about how you first got interested in comedy Saturday Night Live was was huge for me because it was when I was a kid my parents would watch it sometimes but it was kind of forbidden you know you had to stay up late I had to like sneak up to see it and I didn't understand what was going on but I knew it was it was I hate using this word but naughty do you know I mean I was like a bad thing that's that's what the comedy became for me was something that was a little little kind of off-limits who were you crafting your stuff around I liked the comedy I liked to everybody you know I would watch a lame Boosler the same way I would watch you know George Carlin or something every day were all comics but Steven Wright was so different so my birthday recently for my birthday i got a humidifier and in dehumidifier put him in the same room let him fight it out what was it about his act that really just that it was like it was so joke oriented like it was just these like 1 or 2 sentences that were just so hilarious and out of nowhere I I think my friend Jeff is gay I don't know I'm so bad with names Comedy Central roasts uh-huh are they as tough as they look well tonight Anthony Jeselnik is going to leave his stamp on the roast and tomorrow he's gonna use that stamp to buy food think about it like this like let's say like if you asked me what I did last night and I'm like oh I was raining so I was gonna stay in but then a supermodel called me and said please come over to my hotel and make love to me it's three blocks away just walk over here and you would look go well did you get wet in the rain you know like who cares about the rain like it doesn't matter I'm up there just to say these like horrible mean jokes that everyone can accept because it's a roast you know in these jokes I'll only tell once that I that I love I don't even think of myself as insulting people so much as just saying an awful like an awful mean brutally funny joke and since I don't want to tell you how to live your life man but these been half as much time reading books as you do chasing skanks you probably wouldn't have AIDS do you like mean humor is that like yeah I think it adds another level of tension to it you know like a lot of I talk a lot of about a lot of dark subjects in my act because it just adds that tension you know if you just think if you hear cancer you're just kind of like your shoulders come up a little bit you know and then you've got to release that tension so being mean it's just like oh I can't believe you said that to them to their face on top of the actual joke that is you can't do it anywhere else except on a roast and Donald I'm not even sure if you're aware of this but the only difference between you and Michael Douglas from the movie Wall Street is that no one's gonna be sad when you get cancer [Applause] is anything off limits in roasts or in comedy I don't think anything is off limits in comedy I mean you've gotta kind of you got to take your punishment you know if I if I tell a joke about rape then I've got it I've got to be also be willing to deal with the consequences of that during the show and afterwards but I'll never forget this date you know we meet up we go to a bar we start drinking were laughing together we're connecting it was great but then we left the bar we go back to her place and as soon as we walk in the front door she passes out cold on her couch now I went to college I knew I had a million options but I'm a gentleman I'm a gentleman so I did the smart thing I just got a blanket I talked her in and I left her a note that said you got raped I feel like any time a subject is off-limits it's like my job to make a joke about it or at least try but on a roast nothing is off-limits but people will have rules like Mike Tyson last year you weren't allowed to make a rape joke about him even though he went to jail for years for rape like and I thought that was pretty annoying and was like a you know Donald Trump said you can't say I have less money than I say I do Charlie Sheen was like don't talk about my mom well I guess your mom a joke oh did you know yet no one does okay that was kind of a joke okay not that she's like trying to be famous but then it was I was like you know your brother is Emilio Estevez I think you've read it I said you have a fascinating family your brothers Emilio Estevez your father's a Martin Sheen and your mom is some dumb but they were like each other's like no that's my mom what in your opinion is the most controversial controversial joke you've ever told I got in a lot of hot water I think last year here I was doing the nasty show and I don't really talk about sex that much but I have like a lot of really dark awful jokes and I had this joke about then my mom used to be a Holocaust denier but then we like we made her why Schindler's List and we made a like learn the history of the Jewish people like and now she can't believe it didn't happen twice and which is just like it's just like a you know it's it's a terrible job but people were really if people got really upset at the nasty show and then and I was like people like oh they're gonna talk about in the papers being anti-semitic I'm like I'm not anti-semitic at all I just made fun of like every different kind of thing and eventually kind of blew over people would come to the nasty show just to boo me for that joke I think one one show I think I told it twice just just to say I don't care this morning I was walking around I saw a baby locked inside a hot car so it's been a good day is your onstage persona a persona yeah I'm different I mean if you're talking to me you can tell that I'm a different person than I am on stage I just I think it's more fun to be that way I feel it almost like a like a bad guy professional wrestler you know he's that was really funny when guys would like walk into Madison Square Garden and say like New York City's the worst city in the world and people would like be screaming at and I think of course that the worst thing you could say I thought it was hilarious that I just thought just go with it and just be if you just like a total jerk then you can kind of get away with more that can almost of guys I'm a nice guy but here's some mean jokes it doesn't work it doesn't work fair enough thank you very much absolutely thank you for uh thank you for coming to my room [Music]

Channel: WatchMojo.com

Views: 3,592,046

Keywords: Anthony Jeselnik, Comedy Central Roasts, Charlie Sheen, Donald Trump, Roseanne Barr, Just for Laughs, Just for Laughs 2012, comedian, comedy, stand up comedy, Mike Tyson, rape jokes, The Situation, dark comedy, Elayne Boosler, Steven Wright, George Carlin

Id: 2MDLUGV8QFE

Length: 7min 14sec (434 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 07 2012