Extended Interview: John Mulaney on his Standup Persona

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Find a shoe for every you at your DSW store or DSW.com. I'm Jane Pauley. You're listening to an extended interview from the latest edition of Sunday Morning. There are some moments where I remember like getting big laughs from adults, but always interesting in these things because you don't want to sound egotistical, but I don't remember a time when I didn't think I was funny. Really? I remember learning what joking was. We were playing Monopoly and I was the youngest still at that point.

I was like two or three, so I was the dice roller. And either my brother or my sister landed in jail and my dad was walking through the room and he made a joke like, oh that's where John belongs. And I remember being like, what?

How dare you? And later I was sitting on the dock, we're up in Wisconsin, I was sitting on the dock with my mom and I said, why did dad say that? That I belong in jail? And my mom goes, he was kidding.

And that's when you like said, he didn't mean that, he was kidding. And I thought, oh that's interesting. It's wild that that's seared on your mind at that young age like, oh you can say something like that and it can be funny.

Yeah, and also you can say things that aren't so. Might have been the first time I realized that. I've noticed that with my son sometimes, like sometimes he wants to be Dr. Malcolm and he has a stethoscope, a toy stethoscope. And then later in the day I'll call him Dr. Malcolm and be like, I'm not Dr. Malcolm, my name is Malcolm. And I said, I know, I'm just pretending, you know, that you're still Dr. Malcolm.

Anyway, I do notice with kids that there's a, yeah, I've seen with my son there's times when I'll call him a different name. He came in the room once and I went, what's up Silvio? Because I was listening to this song called Silvio by Bob Dylan. I went, what's up Silvio? How you doing Silvio? And he goes, my name isn't Silvio, it's Malcolm. I went, I know, it's just a pretend name, like I know it's not your name.

And he went, my name is not Silvio. So he understood I was kidding but he still drew a hard boundary. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. Sometimes jokes just aren't funny.

No. Or he goes, that's not for me. You'll respect me. So we just saw you do stand-up not too long ago and watching you do stand-up or in your specials the audience is so with you. But I'd imagine, was there a time starting out when the audience wasn't always with you? Yeah, there were some early times where it wasn't so much that the audience wasn't with me, I didn't know what I was putting out there. You know, you grow up watching a ton of comedy.

And I'm sick but I'm not contagious by the way for all your viewers. You grow up watching comedy and there were so many styles I liked and so many comedians I liked from like early radio to Chris Rock, The Simpsons, Conan, everything. So I just had no sense of what I even wanted to do myself except that I wanted to be on stage doing stand-up. But I didn't know if that meant George Carlin or Steven Wright or George Wallace or what. So I remember kind of trying out ways of being and many of those falling flat.

How did you figure out what John Mulaney up on stage was? I'd say not to be corny but I'm obviously I'm still figuring that out. And it's a very kind of obvious lesson you just kind of a presenting some heightened version of your most authentic self is what works. And your most authentic self might be like strange cryptic one-liners. Like it's not like you have to be confessional or anecdotal about your life in order to be authentic. I know lots of totally authentic to who he is. There's nothing more authentic about being personal. I think sometimes that gets confused in the way we talk about comedy. The thing about you is that you're personal but it's like jazz hands personal. It is a bit yeah.

That was kind of the goal. At a certain point I thought I really like people like Spalding Gray. I really like Jean Shepherd. I really like storytellers and George Carlin had a lot of that too like his Irish Catholic boyhood and stuff. Like storytellers who get into the get into interesting personal details that are singular to them. They're not saying to the audience this is your life. They're saying like this is my life. And when presented in a certain candid way it's so disarming people really see their own lives in it. I liked that a lot but I also liked Bernie Mac. And Def Jam and big personality comedians and really forceful performers like Paul F. Tompkins who wore like he wears like three-piece suits and is still telling personal stories that way. So I wanted the presentation of a Def Jam comic with sort of the nuanced personal stuff of a Spalding Gray and I did I remember thinking that and setting out to do that and I think that has sort of worked.

Yeah it's really worked. Oh that's cool. Or that's when I'm happiest when I'm going this is a possibly unrelatable not flattering story but I'm telling it as if it's like a Vegas crowd-pleasing you know mother-in-law suit big energy and then revealing something just odd. Maybe humiliating.

Humiliating, unlikeable, whatever yeah. That's great. You started wearing suits in 2012?

Why? No I started in what year did I do that special? I did a special called New in Town in 2011 and I wore a suit for that and I started wearing a suit to get ready for that to see if I was comfortable on stage in the suit. Why did that make a difference to you wearing a suit on stage? Because I did a show at the Laughing Skull in Atlanta really fun club there and I was wearing a checkered button-down shirt and jeans and there were five opening comics because there's a great local scene there so five people were on the show before me they all were the same thing as me a checkered shirt and button-down jeans. Everyone in the audience was dressed like that and I remember thinking I'm 27 there's no reason I should have the microphone except that in this you know con job of entertainment I'm declaring that I'm the headliner and I thought I'd like to look like the headliner and I'd like to look like the entertainer for the night so no matter where you're going you've gotten a sitter you've paid the cover charge you've gotten your dog crated and medicated whatever you need to do to go out for the night and as silly as it may be and as sort of maybe corny as it may seem in you know 2011 like I'm gonna wear a suit because I'm the entertainer for the night and also it's a bit like I have to take charge of the room nothing I'm saying is important so I have to act like it is and the suit helps with that yeah I'm in charge right now yeah that's great and then I'm sure there's some psychological thing with my dad that we don't have time to get it oh sure no I also also liked dressing up was just kind of spoke to the some old-fashioned thing yeah no that makes sense yeah I get it speaking of your parents your parents are both lawyers yeah were they always supportive of the comedy career no no but they knew enough not to be that vocal about it it was like you know we were 90s kids so they knew enough pop psychology to say we're not gonna tell you don't become a comedian because then you'll do it and you'll resent us they were just confused my dad told me years later that he just didn't have any advice to give me and that kind of you know bothered him a little I'm sure they were scared too it's not an easy business don't you think it's like yeah but is anything I know but I think in the 90s we thought being a lawyer might be a straight road or being a doctor or yeah you know no I don't mean that facetiously like me you know if I had some radiology practice that could be struggling too that's very true no I I was a little naive I was a lot naive I just was like this is gonna have work I don't know on what level but I'm gonna be a comedian it's just gonna work you thought that all along yeah it's not that flattering to say that about yourself but I have kind of delusional high self-esteem when it comes to that I actually don't think that's a bad thing it's not a bad thing it's certainly helpful but you know you like to go on I doubted myself for with comedy I don't know since a very very young age I've just felt I've got that under control so in college you were doing improv and you kind of even though you weren't sure exactly where you were headed you knew it was in the comedy oh yeah I was choosing between writing you know I wanted to be a writer for late night with Conan O'Brien and a stand-up and liked improv I was I was choosing between shades of eggshell white you know Dove what it was there was nothing there was nothing that far afield about my choices they were all sort of New York comedy writing sketches doing stand-up and the truth is you don't have to choose between those that's kind of the beauty of the path that you've carved as you can really run and stand up and you can kind of a little bit of all and I'm happiest you know writing for other people too so it's really nice to still get to do that your happiest writing for other people oh the my favorite really like writing something for Fred Armisen or Bill Hader or writing when friends of mine have hosted award shows and I email them some jokes and they do one of them and I watch and see how it does and then if it does well I tell someone else in the room I wrote that joke that's my favorite feeling I really like that that's a better feeling than standing on stage and having the audience laugh at you delivering them I wouldn't say it's better it's just it gets to some it gets to some need or some kind of like I wrote something funny something like I got an A on the test or I wrote something funny and it it helped someone else that's nice it's it's nice I also please know I tell everyone in the room I wrote it it's not like altruistic I'm a giver yeah look how giving I am I wrote that joke and give it to him so I know you've said this before but I think people people assume that you audition for Saturday Night Live they offered you a writer job and to a lot of people I think looking at that they say oh that must have been so disappointing but oh no not at all not at all I don't know I didn't have any disappointment when I got the job and when I started the job any possibility of disappointment was gone being a writer there is the most interesting dynamic job in show business you have NBC for four to five minutes it's crazy it was so educational and fun we'll have more from our Sunday morning extended interview after this break I recently found out that you can see a personal dietitian covered by insurance there's this platform called nourish that will match you with a dietitian based on whatever your concerns are whether that's weight loss eating disorders 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visibility at indeed.com slash listen just go to indeed.com slash listen right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed.com slash listen terms and conditions apply hiring indeed is all you need forgive me if this is a naive question but it's sobriety something that you have to think about every day well that's a good question you know it's uh you know what I'm doing now I'm thinking about if someone's watching this and I say no they'll go oh be careful right so I'll acknowledge that I understand the vigilance I need I do not think about it every day I don't think about cocaine opioids and benzodiazepine every day I just I don't I do think about the ways that I can lead my life to perhaps never feel the kind of strain that that got me there so yeah sobriety maybe being like a bigger term than just abstaining from the chemicals I definitely think about that makes sense I have two very very special little people that I care about more than anything else so that means that as long as they're okay I'm okay which means that I do what I have to do to make it feel like I'm taking care of them that's kind of a clunky answer I would say that I you know it really is I go to bed good with myself every night because I it's no day is perfect at all and trying to treat the people in my work life with respect and pursue the things I really want to do because I'm lucky enough to get that chance and to make the show as good as it can be and not letting up on that you know wasn't like when I got sober I made a choice to be the best personal life person I can be and then everything else can fall aside I sort of expanded getting off drugs and having my son and now my daughter I just kind of grew like that sounds very cliche but I actually like I have the bandwidth now to do both and I found it's really important to do both and to feel like I did a good job at the show today and Malcolm and I went to a trampoline park and Mae Mae's tummy time was a big success and I also feel good about myself and you know that feeling of when I get off stage you know as I said I have my self-esteem about that I can sort of go to bed going okay that was good and that means a lot this huge did you not feel good about yourself before I didn't I didn't I wouldn't I was just so not present I was I mean I lived in my head completely so it was kind of a bad neighborhood and I felt bad about myself in a variety of ways yeah that no that makes total sense yeah so you touched on on fatherhood talk about cliches I'm gonna ask it anyway how do you think fatherhood changed how you look at the world how I look at the world I'm in the world now that I'm a father my head was my only home before that and I just I'm just there like I just it's both the absolute pleasure of being in the company of those two kids and I don't know I just it's like I met when my son was born the first thought I had was I went oh there you are and when my daughter was born I had this not to make sound woo or anything I'll be well but when she was born I went oh my this is my thought was like I was like oh we've met before I've collided with you some other time so it's like these people came in that just I don't know make me like the world a lot more and they're so and a billion other things I could say sometimes I'm nervous about summing up fatherhood because I don't I don't know I worry I don't sound I just articulate about it but that was incredibly art oh that's nice and yes and I'm sorry to put you on the spot like that but I expected it's clearly a big part of your story 100% another big part and not to get all fangirl but your wife Olivia yeah the way that she has handled this cancer journey is amazing I mean she's changed people's lives she saved people's lives does she it's incredible amaze you with how much she likes to keep private like the desire to come forward was really brave but it was also really specific it was really deliberate there's this lifetime risk assessment test that is the really the only reason her cancer was discovered and she thought it was absolutely paramount that other women know about it and get it done and seeing so many women publicly and privately come to her that they discovered how high their risk was from that it's it's very it's astonishing it's like I've never seen this is a weird way to talk about can I've never seen I've never seen someone set out to do something and kill it so hard it was just like I'm going to spread the word about this and she did and she did it in the midst of still going through her own treatment and yeah what's it been like for you to see her do all of this to go through this and then to share it with the world you know being sick is a full-time job from the day she was diagnosed the next day she had to meet with an oncologist meet with a surgical oncologist talked to a couple different doctors I mean you really have to find the doctor that you respond to communication with your oncologist is so so essential like being like I can text this person I can call my oncologist they will walk me through this you know it was it was like watching someone take on this full-time job there was such a present scramble with scheduling a double mastectomy and starting hormone therapy and then having an ophrectomy then we wanted to have another child so we were fertilizing eggs we were creating embryos before that I mean it was just like it was so full-time and then adding the outreach she did to it it's it's so cool it's so like it's so not intimidating it's a little intimidating no it's uh I have this feeling a lot of times I go I can't believe I know this person let alone and married to her and then I worry you know don't take on too much and so but I but her health is so important to her obviously and and with the amount she gives to our family it's again it's like watching someone who isn't isn't losing themselves in something they they've expanded to be like two people when you now I'm back to the work things when you have someone like David Letterman say you restored his faith in the art of stand-up and he said it straight-faced he did yeah yeah he he meant it I mean how does that even how do you wrap your mind around that I don't you know I I I watched that interview with Letterman and I was like good good for this young guy getting all these compliments there is a bit of like it's not me it's not that it's not me but I sort of go like I must have been nice you know the the actual there's a little disconnect with something that flattering and surreal it was great compliments are great you know you shouldn't let things go to your head but I've also learned this is a big sobriety thing is when someone tells you something very nice just take it a lot of people a lot of people tell you you're not a great person so when people say I love your work or you're great at this just take it I'm Jane Pauley thank you for listening and for more of our 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