Comedian John Mulaney Was Always Weird - Speakeasy

welcome to speak ease with Paul F Tompkins I am still Paul F Tompkins a my guest this time out is it don't you were you gonna look in there no I was just trying to act natural by going like him what is a very natural so natural that I'd ask you what you were doing that's the proof II don't work human what I was doing was was that you a what the what the [ __ ] is that I became instantly curious because I'm a student of humanity that's right yeah my guess this time out is a writer a comedian actor yes it's official now his eponymous sitcom Mulaney starts October 5th on the Fox Network please say hello to John relator John it was an excellent in track thank you very much energy as if a band was about to kick in and I was about to walk out right instead under six consecutive old a little yeah yeah thank you for that lovely insurance not just lately as a child you love show business you were fascinated by it you you used to watch I Love Lucy yeah then you would see Desi Arnaz his life yeah and you would say well that's for me well he would be at home all day ah and then he would go to the club at night sure and then he would do what to us appeared to be three minutes work one song maybe alright and then the idea of just being at home all day and having one thing to do at night at a nightclub really appealed to me uh and I just liked his whole thing like I'd liked his hair I liked the way he dressed I didn't realize that that was like hair tonic and that they had a hair treatment back then so I would just stick my head in the sink in school I'd go in and you know like oh she would just wet your hair no one you see a slicked back hair as a kid I thought that was just wet hair cuz Desi Arnaz he had beautiful glossy yeah black hair and a lot of guys did back thick as a jar of peanut butter sure so you saw that and you were like I'm gonna hit that does he look yeah stick your head I would fill the sink at Saint Clement grammar school and then dip my head back like this and then we get water all the back down my of my shirt of course and we got in trouble once I got in trouble for were there other guys yeah yeah so love does your in Havana they didn't but I was like we should have slicked back hair you know and I was popular enough that some people followed the trend right off sticking their head in the sink and then I like any kid would I took conga drum lessons from from whom from a percussionist in like when Broadway shows would come to Chicago mm-hmm this was guy was in the orchestra pit he was a percussionist for a lot of different musicals so I took drum lessons on a drum kit and I took some conga drum lessons mm-hmm as an entree into show business I figured like desi I could be a mambo band leader you're you're a little kid you're old enough to know that this is entertainment it's fiction but that there there was like this is a real thing this music and everything but your Nike Ricarda was fiction Desi Arnaz was a real person yes of course I don't mean to give you a dressing-down no no all right I don't mean to take one how do you like that I won't stand for so is the is modeled on going how dialing yes how I worded the Mambo yes then a movie called Mambo Kings came out Armand de santé and at the end of the movie it was like and then the Mambo here ended and that's and I thought oh okay oh so a bit of a rude awakening for yeah I couldn't have been more excited to see Mambo Kings and at the end it was like and then Mambo in America was done and I thought oh I've been I've been placing a lot of bets on Mambo thank God I saw this movie thank God I saw Mambo Kings yeah I don't even know if I I just think that it was the first thing I saw where I didn't have to work that much right so I was like all right I'll hang out a conga tune you feel that stand up made that dream come true yeah when you were getting when you got to a point where you really did have nothing to do all day yeah you just had that one thing to do at night yeah it was more than three minutes yeah you go to ten minutes or something uh yes that was actually real when I was started doing stand-up that was a real moment of victory in realizing that I didn't have to do anything all day mmm I remember as a kid just all I wanted to do was to like sit in a diner and read a magazine like that to me was like the most glamorous adult life imaginable you you've always struck me as um as an old soul in that you seemed to have an appreciation for things that are beyond your years that you've always been one do I say the same thing about you well perhaps uh but I'm older than you yeah but not died not this much older than me well is I just like clothes yester all right you told me before he started you came in with a tie yeah and you tried the tie on you said well I took the tie off because it felt like I was wearing a costume that look two prophecies are you set you're saying that look how I'm dressed now how am I supposed to take that but you're Paula Tompkins that's right don't you yeah it seems like you were always glamorizing adulthood is fair so you were in a hurry to grow up did you feel like I can't wait until I don't know how you felt as a kid but I thought I was grown up I did not think that I was soaked like a tiny little person walking down the street right I remember going I'd go to the movies alone I'm never going to see that movie home for the holidays with the Holly Hunter movie was his home alone on a Saturday I was like twelve just walked and saw like a matinee and I went to a diner it's a little bit of magazine yeah a little newspaper a little kid I felt like a fully formed adult at that age I did not I thought that the world of adults was very glamorous and yeah like being um you know kind of sneaking around when there was a party going on and yeah just listening to the sound of drunk people laughing yeah that's insane yes same drinking the lattice noises in the world oh yeah laughing enough parents in your your parents and their friends drinking is the loudest thing that's never happened absolutely the most exciting were you guys paraded around like you come down in like your pajamas and like everyone would laugh and then you go back upstairs we were allowed to hang out for a little bit at the beginning of the party and then it was off to bed and then we would hang out at the top of the steps and listen yeah that's fun I would come down and try to do like adult talk which to me was I was trying to appear mature and to these people that was like you know and the funniest thing they'd ever seen is sure I remember telling a couple not to vote for Dukakis do you remember your reasons why like that's a Republicans I didn't you worked on SNL for many years yeah was that something that uh you had always dreamed of doing I think when I was younger yes I remember thinking you know I've been doing stand-up for like two years and I was like well my path is pretty well-defined nothing in show business ever changes people never change paths at all this is what I'm gonna do and I'll never be involved in Saturday Night Live and meanwhile I was doing like stand-up twice a week for no money right but you thought stand-up this is all I'm ever gonna do uh-huh cuz I had friends who were doing the like death getting their SNL audition ready all the time so it seemed like I was not on that track right but when you would think about it would you think about it in terms of being a performer on the show of course who dreams of being right weirdo no actually did No you know I remember when Conan O'Brien when the show came out I remember reading about him and like having been a writer for SNL in the Simpsons and that was about when I was 13 and I remember thinking like oh that is a cool path to write for those shows and then I wanted to write for the Harvard Lampoon but I couldn't get into Harvard universe city where they have the Lampoon because I was a poor student yeah they don't take outside people yeah sure yeah you have to be I think you have to be enrolled within the universities with women's all right Cowen's path is very unusual in that he was a writer for such a long time yeah before he got in front of the camera yeah yeah you know your path might not be set from the very beginning but there are people that sort of make a choice I know for me it was that I I wrote on a TV show for a couple years and I it was a great experience but it was long enough for me to know oh this is not the part of it that I enjoyed the most yeah I knew that I'd written for some things and I remember thinking to myself the summer I got hired I don't want to write for TV shows anymore I'm just gonna kind of focus on stuff I can do myself and then I auditioned for the show as a performer and they said no but they offered me a job as a writer and I thought I should do this here's what I honestly thought I should do this for one year because it's so valuable it'll be amazing to work there but I've read all these books about it and it's the worst meanest place in the world in the coldest angriest working environment or whatever you know and I just go in there I was trying to like steal myself before I started there and I went in and the place was run by Seth Meyers and Mike shoemaker and it was the friendliest writing staff like it was the complete antithesis of those oral histories that come out yeah that change took a long time that change in SNL from the way that it used to be to how it was by the time that you got there I wonder yeah I was i I thought cause I read those books too and it's like and I guess we're I guess we're assuming those books are accurate right that it was like a competitive okay seems like enough people backed them up yeah but nothing about the same story yes I guess it was a I guess it was a bit on are you personally a competitive person no no that's what worried me about it you know as I thought that will that doesn't motivate me writing competitive with people I thought like this may just be a hard year Ryan you'll get fired I remember talking my friend Dan Mintz we had just finished writing together at important things with Demetri martin noth we were on the phone and he was like yeah but even if you get fired you'll have the credit and I was kind of going into it with that uh with that goal ticket forget about it but have good obviously people maybe not at SNL but people you've been around people who thrive on competition um and it do you feel well there's I think there's a lot of it in stand-up you know I think there's a lot of comics who who see it as it's it's absolutely a race you know and it's all about like I need to be the Alpha here I need everyone to know that I do the best yeah that I destroy the most they don't I feel like I at least fairly quickly thought oh there's no the best mm-hmm like there's just so many different types of stand-ups oh yeah well absolutely but when you are if you're around that type of person yes does that do you tend to just kind of retreat from that does yes does it ever stir feelings of competition in you know I rarely get you know one time I was competitive uh I was in the DC Improv new talent competition of 2002 did you went to school in Georgetown yeah and I liked it you were got an animal national TV show yeah yes I'm in every man I'm spot we discussed before the taping that I am in every man we can take home yeah I worked my way up got a college degree first in my family it was you uh your buddies II turtle yeah and the Jersey Boys the Jersey Boys were there yeah Jerky Boys were there the jerk you are just a bunch of regular guys with the dream yeah at Georgetown University and a dad also went there and he was on the board but uh and that's how you got it but what were you talking about quick dude I was in the DC improv new town competition and no I'm never competitive but this guy backstage kept telling me like you got to see Jerry Seinfeld's documentary comedian you got to watch that you got to study it like before you can even hit that stage like watch that movie kid like that'll show you what it's really like blah blah blah and I beat that person and I was thrilled to win the competition I remember feeling that I was like oh this is what it feels like to feel happy that someone else lost but I do remember that when you actually got engaged when you actually got married like did it feel different to you because a lot of people say oh you know it's what's the difference really we're already living together you know we've been together for a while but for me I noticed my wife and I had been together for five years before we got engaged okay and it felt different to me right away yeah I felt like a definitely we stepped over a line wow this is a much more serious thing yeah engaged it engaged actually felt like a bigger change then married you know we've only been married like 90 days but engaged it'd feel like a line in the sand and after we got engaged it was great it's simplified everything to me and it simplifies it even more now that we're married cuz it's like oh that's my wife everyone understands what that means I have to go my wife etc everyone knows it then she's the perfect excuse not just the perfect excuse but you go like look that's your example I have to go my wife it's a I just find like then give my girlfriend come ha ha ha and yeah you don't have to say it that way but it's like yeah I'm wife has a lot of power mm my wife no when we got engaged I was like oh I remember we're leaving a restaurant and I was like oh that's like my queen and like I like that you'd have to take care of the Queen and it's just simple uh there's not like woods lutes woods going along with those I did ask her that that was part of my vows did you ask it like a part of the vow are we doing here what's going on with us yeah it's late in the game to be asking those questions it's important uh this is what I'm saying it's so important I think you should have been asking it earlier oh yes yeah we're agreeing you're well but you're giving me a little sass Oh yeah oh uh you with it um no it's simply yes it's wife is good cuz I like the word did you enjoy saying the word wife I love it wife my wife I'm priority access my wife isn't can she board with me of course she's not a priority like me to American airline this is tell you story about that one time my wife got selected for the random pre-check right TSA PreCheck yeah okay this is I have volumes to savor she gets it on her tickets like oh I can go through the pre check line what's Paul's ticket say just regular regular man yeah yeah I'm the regular humiliation yeah uh-huh yeah typical humiliation ticket she Lords it over me like it was the weirdest thing where she's like sorry he and Len yeah yeah yeah so I ain't never like every step of the way was like oh you gotta take your jacket off you gotta take your plate she so she followed you in line but still at one point the lantern a condition yes yes it's very awkward yeah I got she's like I'll see you I'll see you in 10 minutes I guess well you know the funny thing is is that they still have to wait for you to be done but they don't have to take off their shoes they don't have a humiliation they're not humiliated when we were first dating one of the first times Anna went on the road with me I got TSA PreCheck because I'm a major priority and I just thought oh I'm a pre-check so you go here and I go there as it was the most natural thing in the world and then I went through and then she snaked through a LaGuardia line for like a half-hour and she came out and she wasn't mad she was like okay I've got everything hey um never do that again we walked on your show you get to work with Martin Short yeah and Elliott Gould yeah who are heroes to you when you were a kid yes but that were generationally maybe a little older than people of your age probably would have been into well three amigos was like a huge movie for us when we were kids so I was a Martin Short fan from very early on with with Elliott Gould yeah I think yeah generationally some of the films that come up before I was born but I remember when Saturday Night Live's we're coming out on VHS the one that he hosted was like one of the ones I had so I was aware of him for a long time and then was really into mash and those films but yes I was I was a little kid also in Delhi that's what you're getting oh that's exactly I was always weird I'm saying here's me it was always weird in the same watching The Long Goodbye yes and then walking to a diner and sitting alone and blissful is it strange to have a show named your last name the notion that a show is about to come out that's called my name and therefore if one were to let's say I don't know criticize the show but who would ever criticize a new comedy that comes out I don't know surely not I if they were to they would be have to use my name as the name of show such as Mulaney isn't funny mm-hmm or I don't like Mulaney which is like what I've been trying to avoid my entire life I don't like Mulaney is what entire life did you haven't did you have different titles for the show that you would have preferred or were you okay with this from the gun there were varieties that all had my name in it uh John Mulaney the DA Mulaney show Mulaney don't drink was one of them mulaney's no fun the one I really liked was Mulaney can't hang now that you are getting to perform on camera a lot in addition to your show you you do stuff like Kroll show with Nick Kroll yeah um I've auditioned for maybe like since I started doing comedy have an audition for maybe a couple hundred things I've only been cast twice that's on my show and my best friend show it's the only two people who've ever cast me haha are me and my dad did you get close on anything that's a good question I don't think so I got a callback once for a Trident commercial Oh like or the second callback I think I had to get money does that make sense yeah are there ever so many callbacks that you get like 50 dollars or so I think with commercials there is some level where you get money and also if they keep you there yeah they held me for some time yeah yeah yeah so I got a little bit more detained yeah yeah um did I get close on anything else no I don't think so was that tough I mean at that let's say you're going to your you know 50th audition well not of it was in New York commercial auditions yeah and it was almost there's almost more fun to not get it because it was such a you'd go to these places these like little production houses and it'd be terrible copy and a billion people waiting and it was it almost felt just like something to do right like go into a doctor appointment or something um I think I was very confused and surprised when I had the try done callback I was like what again okay do I have to start chewing Trident gum yeah what is this me I'm a Wrigley's man since way back when should I stop renting should I buy um no I don't think I cared that much I had to take my shirt off for a starburst audition once I didn't care for that that seems weird yeah boy it wasn't surface it was one of those it was like and I know I'm not gonna get it and I remember just being like are you gonna do this and then I did and I was like you should have done why'd you do that some guys I got filming you walking around with you shared up and what was the upside that you would be shirtless under no sentry exactly right exactly right did you end it did you do commercial audition racket I had done it for a little bit and yeah I never got casting anything yeah and those commercial those auditions are humiliating they were EJ Lee returned early I am laughing out of it yeah they really because all pretense of art is removed yeah she's like this is business yeah you over the air yeah you you're all go away old you ever do a lineup and they go no no no no no no yeah yeah no no no yeah if it always felt like that but it was never literally well sometimes it was purely like there was a look that yeah the casting director hadn't been told about so you were just lined up and told to leave I had one where I was supposed to audition for the part in the commercial that had that was gonna be the ongoing face of this campaign yes and the casting people thought I was there for the part that was one word and so they said all the one where people go over here and I said oh actually I was told I was meeting for the other part again and she went well I'm telling you now that you go over there everybody laughed at me it felt like I was in school it was so weird like I'm a grown man you are you all laughing at me also I'm just like laughing from just lousy bitter Sarika like well I'm telling you the over there ah ha ha ha I was laughed at by a group of adults uh do you know there's a Canadian singer Justin Bieber do you know him what part counter do you know the provinces pretty well okay I have no idea where um Ottawa he lives in Calabasas now that's all you need to know oh okay yeah oh yes I know huge yes yes really nice guy he was the musical guest on Saturday live one a week when I was working there as a writer it was Friday at about 11:30 at night you know I'm exhausted I was walking down that hallway you know the the the hallway you see when they do a backstage II thing in it along with the checkered floor and stuff I'm walking on that hallway to give scripts to those throw scripts in a pile of garbage I don't know what I was doing walking in the hall and just like a like a melancholy little prince just like down so exhausted and all of a sudden someone jumps out and goes and I went yeah and and it was Justin Bieber and he laughed at me and he had a crew of about 10 people and they all laughed at me and then they walked and they got on an elevator and his manager was like Justin come on we gotta go and so he had he had somewhere to be but he took time out of his day to embarrass a depressed man uh Mulaney start yeah October 5th yeah on Fox yeah what uh what time uh what's your time slot 9:30 Eastern oh that's a good one it's a good one what times come on Western oh no how does Western work is it just the same time yeah Artie yeah 8:30 central you passed my test uh yeah oh oh yeah oh oh now you gotta look at mine that's right yeah otherwise I have to wash my hands 50 times John thank you so much for V here's to you Paul I hope to see you again very soon not just on the television in real life that does it for this round of speakeasy please join us again next time when my guest will be a different as we pan out I know my first SNL episode I thought I was gonna pass out I really did I remember I did that Al Pacino thing and I walked off and I had to go sit down my baby baby sit me down and I was just like hmm like shaking and I was like I get

Channel: Made Man

Views: 920,578

Keywords: John Mulaney (TV Writer), Comedian (Profession), Actor (Profession), Mulaney, Saturday Night Live (TV Program), Stand-up Comedy (TV Genre), Celebrity (Media Genre), Interview (TV Genre), Paul F. Tompkins (TV Writer), Speakeasy, Made Man, Mademan, Mademandotcom, Defy Media

Id: zZWKDqBJLLY

Length: 24min 56sec (1496 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 29 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/lukashima]

Wasn't aware Paul F Thompkins had this show. Thanks for sharing.

[u/UnivitedSam]

John Mulaney is my absolute favorite comedian right now, he's so relatable for me!