The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Michelle Wolf

Episode Date: May 5, 2020

Comedian Michelle Wolf talks with Andy Richter about being encouraged to fart in her youth, writing for Late Night With Seth Meyers and The Daily Show, and the disproportionate response to her White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

So how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. For those listening in, which number one, creepy. What are you people doing? Don't you have your own lives? Why do you have to eavesdrop on our conversations uh this is the three questions i'm talking to michelle wolf who is who is incognito deep in in the country in the heartland hiding out i'm i'm all about the farm life right now are you really are you now i you you kind of got stranded right in the in the country right when this quarantine thing started i'm in ohio i was um i was supposed to do a charity gig out um uh in ohio and the kid the school that dave chapelle's kids have gone to i was supposed to do a charity gig there and i um it got canceled

but they were like come stay anyway we'd rather you be out of the city so here i am six weeks later nice still in ohio um at the chappelle cottage so oh nice nice now uh are you guys sick of each other yet um i don't think so i mean maybe they're really sick of me but everyone seems to be getting along well well do you at least have your own cable? Like you have your own TV? Oh, well, that's good. I have, you know, I have my own coffee maker. I can be, I can be completely self-sufficient with just those two things. So, um, and you know, I think everyone feels lucky right now that they have more than just their immediate family to talk to. Yes, yes. No, I know.

It is, honestly, it is kind of like nice to reserve a couple people that aren't immediate family who you trust to be quarantined to. So you can kind of have a slightly larger circle, you know? Yeah, this quarantine really makes the case for living in compounds. Yeah. Several different families. Well, it also, it also just, I mean, it's kind of a bummer,

but like, especially being in LA, when I do go somewhere, it's like, it's like, you know, it's like the 4th of July weekend or something, or it's, you know. Yeah, it's emptied out, right? Yeah. Or like, you know, Yom Kippur or something. It's just like, nobody's on the road. And there's part of it that's really great. And there's part of it that's creepy and scary and weird, you know?

Yeah. And apparently the air here hasn't been this good in like 40 years. It's crazy how like clear and beautiful it is yeah you don't have to worry about that anything uh the animals are taking over again which yes yes apparently in thailand they like elephants are back to crossing the streets and um yeah i saw a jellyfish in the canals of venice Well, they can die. I don't care about them. They're not cuddly. Yeah, they're gross.

They sting. I'm sure they have a purpose and a function. And some environmentalists would get mad at me for saying that, but jellyfish. So has this pretty much, I mean, were you just doing live dates? Were you developing? Is this kind of like just stopped you dead in your career tracks? Well, I was doing a lot of live dates, but luckily I do have some stuff that I'm supposed to be writing. I don't know how much I've actually gotten done, but I have other stuff to work on, which is nice. Yeah.

So very lucky in that sense. Everyone's like, you should write a, you know, everyone, all of my agents, I mean, are like, you should write a book. And I'm like, I've never wanted to do that less. I keep telling myself and I think that this is not unusual. Like, come on. You know, you've you've seen you've sat in front of cops for three hours before. Like, you've done that. Like, maybe you should do something a little more productive than three hours of cops.

But then it's like, yeah, but there's a lady with an SS tattoo that just shoved her boyfriend's cocaine in her vagina. And she had no idea what it was. He just said, put this up you. And she went, okay. Like get you a girl like that. Come on.

No shit. I mean, I mean, and and you know i'd have to overlook the ss tattoos right but you know we all have differences that we have to overcome you know take what you you know give and take a little i also feel like you've probably been you've worked for how many years straight i mean a gazillion yeah like this is probably the most time you've had off. And well, you know, it's weird because as the Conan show has gone on it, we have we at first, you know, when the TBS show started, it was pretty solid. But then as time has gone on, it's kind of the schedule gets looser. So I will have like a week off in the middle of March or in the middle of, you know, October when no one else has off. My kids aren't off school. Nobody's off work or anything. I'll just have like a weird free week. And those weeks have always been tough for me.

And they're they're easier now that I don't that I don't smoke weed anymore. Like because when I used to smoke weed, it would just be like, all right, I'm on vacation. I can just get high all day long. Right. And then after a few days of that, like, I don't feel so good about myself. But it's funny because I was kind of used to having those free floating, you know, like structure lists aimless. Oh, well, I didn't get anything done kind of weeks. And when this thing hit, I was like, all right, everybody has this now. Like, I don't have to feel guilty for being a fucking lazy slob.

I, you know, it's like everyone, it has to be a lazy slob. It's mandated. It's kind of, I mean, it's kind of refreshing. Like we get to, I feel like this is the most American we can be. Yeah. Veg out and, you know, eating. I mean, I spent the first several weeks just drinking at any time of the day that felt okay. And I've really, I've really put the brakes on that a little bit because i was like yeah noon is now it's starting to seem like a problem yeah i was like prior to

this i was trying like trying to be good about keeping carbs low and now i might as well have just like moved into a sour bread bowl you know and have put my stuff in there instead of a chowder because it's, I just can't stop eating bread and pancakes and pizza. It doesn't happen. Everyone is baking on Instagram. And I'm like, get this out of my face or send me some. Well, see now you're in a, you're, you should ask Dave, you, you know, like where, you know, to put in an oven. And man, Dave, though, I got to say, I didn't know this about him. He's a great cook. Oh, really?

Yeah. He's up there like frying fish and chicken and like like using a crock pot and lamb. It's like this guy can he's really he's forget, he's really, he's, forget comedy. He's got, he's really good at seasoning. Well, I imagine, you know, you live in a small town. So you're sort of limited restaurant wise. You got kids, you know, and he's, you know, he's had stretches where he hasn't really been touring much or doing other stuff. So you might as well get the crock pot out. Yeah.

Get that crock pot. Yeah. Now, how long have you been actually doing stand-up at this point? Stand-up, I'm just doing it nine years now. Nine years. Yeah. And you didn't, did you start up doing stand-up or no? You didn't, did you?

The first, I started in 2008 in improv. Yeah. So I did three years of that and then I moved into standup. I gently pushed into standup from improv. I think they were kind of trying to nicely say you're too selfish for this. Who's they? Just everybody? Everyone you perform with?

The improv community. Look, lady, get out of here. You don't share. Was that something that you felt yourself? Did you start to kind of feel that way? Yeah, you know, like I could see myself. I could also tell myself on stage. I started I started thinking of jokes to say rather than responding. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Is that the half lemonade spin drift? It sure is.

That's my favorite one. Yeah, it's like Arnold Palmer, weak, sparkling Arnold Palmer. Lightly flavored, sparkling Arnold Palmer. Exactly. It's like an Arnold. Good eye on the soft drinks there. I love a spin drift. Yeah.

Now, before, I should go back, because let's go back to the beginning. Okay. You're from somewhere Midwestern-y, right? I'm actually from Hershey, Pennsylvania. From Pennsylvania, okay. That's kind of Midwestern. Yeah, yeah. And my voice is very Midwestern. we're midwestern-y right i'm from actually from hershey pennsylvania from pennsylvania okay that's kind of midwestern yeah yeah very midwestern i get a midwestern playing every once in a while yeah yeah and um and what kind of what was your household made up of like what were you did you

have a lot of siblings i had two older brothers yeah um and we lived in a small house like kind of outside of town a little bit um like you had to go you went through like a farm and up a hill and and then our house was up there in a little neighborhood and yeah two older brothers who i desperately tried to hang out with all the time yeah yeah which essentially just meant right, you can hang out with us if you do whatever, whatever, like we need you to do. So like if you're playing like street hockey or something, they'd be like, well, you can play if you play goalie, which meant I would wear all the winter coats and they put me in front of the goal. And any face protection at all? I think I wore like a it's like a jason

uh is who's the guy is that jason no i think that is jason myers i don't know oh no michael myers wears the rubber mask oh okay yeah then jason yeah yeah i was wearing it i think yeah yeah jason's the one with the hockey mask yeah some yeah and it was very smelly and plasticky. But, you know, was it was it was it just a Halloween mask? It was. I don't know where they had gotten it. My brothers actually played ice hockey, too, but they never volunteered to let me wear their pads. They're protective. You're right. You'll get cooties on. Yeah. Yeah. And what did your folks do? Yeah. And what did your folks do? My mom worked in, like, in insurance claims.

She has one of those jobs that if you ask me, still if you ask me now, I'm like, oh, she's some sort of claim. Yeah, yeah. Some office thing. Yeah. My dad worked in a bunch of retail stuff. Uh-huh. Just odd retail stores. Anyway, John Wanamaker to Toys R Us. Oh, really?

Yeah, but Toys R Us when I was too old for it to be fun for me yeah Toys R Us was always where the stoners worked yeah well my dad was just not that but also an assistant manager oh boy let's move on um what was it a funny house were you was it a funny house growing up or um i always thought my brothers were fun and funny you know like i was uh my brother used to do this this is i don't know if this is even a good story to tell but when i was little my brother that's what you're in the right place if you're not sure whether it's a good story you know like farting was always very funny in my house so my brother would be like if like he had friends over he'd be like come if you have to fart you have really

funny farts so fart in front of us I would like come downstairs where they were having a sleepover. I'd fart and then I'd run upstairs. I guess you can say I've always been a performer. Yes, yes. With special skills, the special skills column on your resume, ready made. I almost made it to Juilliard. And then going, you were pretty sporty, though, right? It was it was it kind of a jockey family. Yeah, I mean, my brothers played ice hockey and I was probably the sportiest of all of us.

Oh, really? Yeah, I played. I played everything. I played, you know, like early, you know, when you're young, you play everything. But I remember I played baseball. Me and three other girls were the only girls left in the baseball league and then they were like you guys got to move to softball it's boys only now and we were like well we don't want to play softball no really but then you know I played soccer and then and I got pretty serious about field hockey and track and then I ended up running track in college too oh really yeah I also danced I did

I did a dance tap jazz and ballet um although competitively or just like like recitally yeah yeah um and was all this stuff was all this stuff that was sort of like motivated from inside or or were you kind of yeah I really liked all this stuff. You know, like I think, you know, the fact that I gravitated towards track the most, I mean, I was also, that was my best sport, but also it's individual, you know, I was, uh, my best event was high jump. And I think high jump explains everything you need to know about me which is yeah you jump until even if you win the meet they still raise the bar until you get out uh so you always leave on like a loss being like so even if you won you'd still be like yeah but i didn't get the last one i guess i could be better you know it's like

never good enough event yeah yeah there yeah. There's necessary failure. Yeah, yeah. Like you have to fail at some point. Yeah, you have to fail to end. Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, I don't know. I feel like that's kind of, it just says a lot about who I am today.

Yeah, but you're not failing. I mean, you know, I guess that's coming. That's down the road. It's never good enough. You know, that funnel. Yeah, yeah. High jump head. Yeah. But, you know, it's good. It's motivating. It's helped me a lot. Does it lessen as time goes on? Um, I mean, I think it's like always like wanting the next thing kind of, you know. Yeah. Working towards the next thing, which is good for stand up, you know, because.

Yeah. You do a special and then you go back out on the road you're like okay time to raise the bar yeah and it is the stand-up is very much like a shark kind of life of you got to keep moving and there's always got to be because you can't you can't sit on old material you can't like be a band and play the hits you know yeah yeah and like i remember um one time rock told me he goes um he was like well you know your special is just an advertisement for your tour and i was like yeah and it's just like it's just like yeah you have to do a special so you can tour but then you have to get new material so you can tour yeah yeah then you do another special and then it's just a hamster wheel right right well you're on it i'm on it enjoy your nuggets um so uh you would then you went to college uh what did you study where'd you go again i know i read it, but okay. I went to William & Mary in Virginia and I studied kinesiology, which is the study of how the body moves.

I wanted to be like an exercise physiologist. Remember those old Gatorade commercials where they'd have people running on a treadmill, like hooked up to all those things? I wanted to be the guy running that experiment. With the clipboard. Yeah, I wanted to be the clipboard guy testing the athletes. And, uh, I loved clipboards. Big clip head over here. Oh my God. Well, you could, you still could use one in your act.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I wanted to do that. And, uh, so kinesiology is kind of like the, the major that gets you into that kind of stuff, which is really cool. Like, I mean, I took anatomy. I dissected a human. Wow. Which was really cool.

With permission. With permission. Yeah, with permission. The first time we did. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, and that was really cool and also gross. Yeah. Because, you know, you're cutting up a human. Yeah. But I remember my my anatomy teacher, he was so used to it. Like it definitely smells of formaldehyde when you're in there. Yes. And my anatomy teacher was so used to it that he would eat subs while he like checked our work.

And I was like, is there really no other time of the day you could be eating you could be dropping shredded lettuce into a body cavity i'm like there's this is only an hour of your day like yeah yeah you're set dinner time or something that's got to be like a fucking power move or something or some weird kink or you know yeah something weird uh yeah but did you each get your own your own body or did you have to share we shared there was like yeah like two groups of five and uh we each had our own bodies each yeah five um i had a guy and in high school i had a an anatomy and physiology class and we had uh rabbits no no we had cats cats uh and yeah they we had formaldehyde cats they came in plastic bags

and uh and we it was one cat per two students. And I, um, like we all got our cats and we had to start, like the first step was to skin the cat and I skinned ours. Like my partner, uh, the young woman that I was partners with was just like, you go ahead, you do it all. And I was pretty fascinated by all of it, but I skinned it really fast like within like three minutes taking off the fur or taking off yeah no no skin

like take off the fur yeah yeah yeah you know like you remove the pelt yeah you know basically um so i did it really fast and everyone else was kind of just starting and having no, and there was no sort of instruction. It was just like, and now remove the pelt. And everybody had me go around and I, I removed the pelts of all the kids, maybe 12 cats. I like spent that whole day just going or that whole class going around and skinning everyone's cat. Did you have some previous training or was this a new, I grew up in the country and my family, you know, like my grandpa was a

hunter, but I never had really, I had never skinned anything, you know? I mean, it just, I think it's in your bone, I guess, you know? And I, well, and I, you know, I, from a little, as a little kid, I could cook. So it was like, it's very similar to like breaking down a chicken, I, from a little, as a little kid, I could cook. So it was like, it's very similar to like breaking down a chicken, you know, it's all kind of intuitive, you know? But I, yeah. So I was like, I became, that was like a sort of, it was, kids were sort of impressed by it, but then also kind of like off put by how good I was at skinning.

Yeah. Were you like a little shocked to find out that was a skill you had? Or you were like, Oh, this is worrisome. Or were you just like. No, I was more kind of. No, I. Listen, if I'm competent in anything, I'm happy. Like there's so many things I'm incompetent that if I find one thing, you know, I'm thrilled, you know. I. So.

This says a lot about, I think, again, my personality and also why I'm often single is that, um, when we got, and sorry, if this is going to gross you out, when we got to the penis, all the guys in my group were like, cause you have to cut it and you were supposed to cut it long ways. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and well, of course you're not going to cut it into, into steaks. Little discs.

Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Put it in the macaroni so all the guys in my group were like no way i don't want to do it i go i'll do it no yeah i mean when i looked another guy in the eye i was like and now the balls you never crossed my line now but you didn't end up in kinesiology no i am i was uh class a nerd in college one of those people who i just didn't not not only did i want an a i wanted to get the best

in the class yeah i studied all of the time i even like i was on the track team i lived in the girls track house and we had we'd have parties there and i would on like saturday wait how you lived in there you mean literally so the there was well there was a house on campus that we called the track house oh i see oh the track girls lived and i lived in that house and like sometimes you know we'd have parties but on saturday nights if i had a test on like monday or even tuesday i'd sit in my room while there was a party in the house and i'd study like a real nerd and i get yeah like i get a very high a if not a perfect score on the test and yeah um so I was kind of burnt out from school and I did like a thesis.

It was really obnoxious. I was insufferable. I still am, but in a different way. And but I. What was insufferable about the thesis? Just the fact that I wanted like you didn't have to do a thesis. It's just like if you wanted to graduate with high honors, you to do a thesis. It's just like, if you wanted to graduate with high honors, you could do a thesis.

You could write the biggest term paper of your life. And you did it voluntarily. Oh God. What a, what a, what a, you're not a nerd. You're a dick.

Yeah. Really just like, why, why did I do that? It was such a, looking back, I'm like, what was I? What, whatever I'm wearing.'m wearing yeah yeah it all worked out but um I was really burnt out after school I didn't I didn't want to

go to graduate school right away I was like I can't take any more of this studying so um my friends that the other girls on the track team a couple of them had gotten jobs on Wall Street and they were like get a job on Wall Street while I live in track team, a couple of them had gotten jobs on wall street and they were like, get a job on wall street while I live in New York for a couple of years. And I had never taken a business class and they were like, well, that doesn't matter. Wall street loves people that are smart and we'll do any art. Like they love smart athletes because they think athletes will do anything to

win. Yeah. I think says a lot about the mentality of wall street yeah um and i think also athletes are using to used to being used to doing what they're told yeah they're used to having a coach that says this is how you have to live and this is what you have to do and following that routine yeah it's almost military complaining about it yeah yeah yeah they would give me tasks and i would just do that i wouldn't even question it that routine. Yeah. It's almost military. Complaining about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They would give me tasks and I would just do that. I wouldn't even question it. But yeah, they I so I

went and I interviewed and I got a job at Bear Stearns and I got it. I got the job like a couple weeks before graduation. And I started at Bear Stearns in July of 2007. If you don't remember Bear Stearns, it collapsed in March of 2008. I do remember that. It was the first bank to fail. It was just the right size to fail, apparently. The other ones were too big. Yeah, just right. It was cute. It was a cute, snuggly size. So it could fail. Yeah, not too big. Yeah, it got bought by JP Morgan. And this is a little fun gossip about the building that Bear Stearns was in was originally supposed to be a JP Morgan building. It was 383 Madison Avenue. But it's this building that has this hexagonal top and it's the Chase logo. If

you look at it, it was originally supposed to be a Chase building, but somehow Bear Stearns got it. And then JP Morgan bought Bear Stearns and immediately turned it back into a JP Morgan building. They moved all the Bear Stearns people out of it immediately. Just like, no, it's our building. Get out. But yeah, I worked at Bear Stearns. It was, before it collapsed, it was like, I wore a suit, you know, like. Yeah, yeah.

I was really into this Wall Street life for like a couple months. And then I realized I hated it. Excuse me. What was your title? Well, I started as, I actually started as the assistant to the CFO of private client services, which is private wealth management. And then I moved up into, I became an analyst in the due diligence department of the same part of the bank. So that's like double checking on details of acquisitions and basically looking into like they did a lot of mutual fund investing in mutual funds and separately managed accounts.

on all of those mutual funds and separately managed accounts and making sure that they were still all in good standing and doing what they should be doing and that everyone was in the right share of classes. Yeah. All that stuff, which I barely had a grasp on. I mean. Yeah. Like, I got my Series 7 and my Series 63,

which are, like, the tests you have to do. I don't even know what those are. Oh, they're, like, tests. They're they're like trading like wall street trading and licensing tests um but yeah i mean even now i'm still like i don't know they kept giving me more and more responsibility and i was like please stop it yeah like when i eventually moved to jp morgan um first of all there was like a year where i got to see uh everyone people get fired every thursday because jp morgan they didn't do like a mass firing in the beginning they were like seeing who they needed and then like or also like getting people to do the work they needed to do and then get rid of them.

Yeah. Yeah. And so like every Thursday people would get fired and I was young and cheap enough that they kept me on. Yeah. And I also developed a program through Microsoft access that only I knew how to use, which was helpful.

What did it do? It basically just categorized like if someone, if we, it categorized all the separately managed accounts and mutual funds that we had and put them out onto a sheet, the brokers used, but I was the only one who knew how to do the inputs and stuff. It would have been very easy to teach someone else how to do it or someone could come up with a better program but it seemed yeah but when they start when they start the calls every

thursday yeah they can be like oh she knows but um but then um my my immediate boss she ended up having a premature baby so she ended up having a baby at five months and no one they hadn't picked anyone for her to to do her job yet so her boss was like michelle you're gonna do her job and i was like i really would not like to do that i don't want to be in charge of that much stuff i don't want to be that responsible because at this point i'm already doing improv and a little standup. Oh really? So like, I'm, I know comedy is what I want to do at this point. I just, and they're like, they're like, no, you have to do it. And I was like, I don't want to do it.

Please don't make me do it. They're like, you're doing it. So then I just ended up taking this lady's role and, um, really hating the amount of stuff that I had to do. Like, I just like, I didn't want to screw up people's money. Yeah. But here we are. And how long, and did you leave from that point?

So at this point, I started doing improv. In March of 2008, as Bear Stearnss collapsing i signed up for my first improv class not because it was collapsing um i just i had gone to see a taping of snl and i wanted to i was like how do these guys get here and they all signed up for improv or they all started in improv so i just signed up for an improv class and that's how it kind of i was just after my first improv class i was just like oh yeah more, I was just after my first improv class, I was just like, Oh yeah, more of this. So I started doing more and more improv and then eventually I started doing

standup and now I have this lady's job. That's way more responsibility than I want because I'm out trying to do standup every night. And I ended up quitting JP Morgan and going to this computational biochemistry research lab. Sure. That's always a step in an improv career. And basically I worked as a recruiter for them and they were looking for someone who had an alternative agenda, which essentially means they hire you, they hire someone overqualified for this position who's pursuing something outside of work with the

notion that we know you're overqualified, but if you do a really good job at work, we'll support whatever you're doing outside of work and be flexible with you. Oh, wow. So it's kind of the perfect job for someone that's pursuing something. But does it involve them underpaying you to? No, overpay. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. It's a great company. Really great company. Yeah. Until the other guy who had my job left to go to medical school. And they were like, Michelle, you can just do both jobs. Oh boy. So it went from, you know,

enough work to fill a day to, and, and let me go do standup every night. Yeah. Too much work. Too much work. I started doing less and less work. I decided I wanted, I wanted them to fire me so that I would get severance.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I started doing less and less work until they did fire me. And it took nine months. Wow. And was one of the hardest things I've ever done because I don't like to disappoint. That would be rough for I would have a hard time getting fired, too. That would suck. When I got got the warning i almost gave i almost was like no i'll do better i decided i don't like this well now were you the funniest person at bear stearns i mean were you funny in the office or did you kind of i was kind of quiet in the office because like you know offices like that where they're like if they know you're into comedy they really try to like be like tell me a joke and like yeah yeah like it was really kind of that environment so I kind of tried to be quiet and keep to myself yeah my main boss there was like a really cool guy

who like liked comedy and was like nice and supportive. Um, uh, he actually came to my first improv show. Oh, wow. Which was really nice. Uh, but, uh, yeah, I tried to, I didn't really talk much at work cause I, I didn't really, everyone was yelling at you all the time anyway. So it was really not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At the, uh, at the tech company, the computational biochemistry research lab they i don't know if i was the funniest one there because there was a bunch of characters there

yeah like this one guy was um this he was this chinese biochemist and he came over from china and didn't know any english when he came over. And he learned English by watching Seinfeld. So his cadence of speech had Jerry's cadence of speech. That's better than George's, I guess. And he also opened doors in a less exaggerated but a kramer kind of way he just thought that's how you open that's how americans do it yeah so he'd always open the door to obviously be like hey there was another guy there who um is also one of the chemists he was also a magician on the side so

he'd come into my office and show me his new magic tricks um there was one guy sounds like it sounds like an hr problem yeah have you seen my penis this is called the uh this is called the growing wand yeah you want to see me juggle use something else yeah yeah you can't drop those yeah that's cheating yeah anyone can do that yeah uh so there was like really weird, interesting people there. But they're all, you know, they're all that kind of like. And everyone who worked there that actually like was like working in the tech and science area were like legit geniuses. So they were all bizarre.

They were all people that were like, you know, those people that are too smart to like be any semblance of normal yeah yeah they can't even exist in the outside world because they're just yeah yeah like their brains are just better they're they're better and like they they can only really talk to one another and hopefully they're out solving whatever problem this virus is creating right now yeah yeah my sister works in a a big it's an acceleration lab in and she's a biologist yeah and in in illinois it's a fermi lab they like you know accelerate atoms and knock them into each other and i don't even fully understand it but it's like a you know like a three mile three miles around ring that they just do like physics in and she said that there are people that she works with who are like the most brilliant people on earth who are almost non-verbal like outside of being able to talk about physics yeah. And they can talk all day about that, but anything else they're like, I remember when you said people, cause I was a recruiter, we used to have people

come into interview for jobs. And at first I tried to make conversation with them. And then I realized these aren't the kind of people that like conversation. So I then started playing a game of who can not talk for the longest and I would just sit silently with them and maybe yeah coffee that's so funny because that's that's like that's like something that I learned early on in the Conan show and it was usually with the biggies, you know, like the like the people that were really hot shit. And it was unbelievable their threshold of discomfort with silence. Oh, yeah. Like you could sit next to them for 10, 15 minutes and not say a word and and they would be fine with it. Yeah. There's there's kind of a famous story about somebody at SNL, one of the higher-up writers, and De Niro was doing the show.

Uh-huh. And just in waiting for a meeting, De Niro was waiting in this guy's office, just like sitting in this guy's office in a chair, and this guy's at his desk. And, you know, a few minutes go by, and De Niro's reading the paper, and this guy's office in a chair and this guy's at his desk and you know in like a few minutes go by and De Niro's reading the paper and this guy goes so how many kids do you have and De Niro just puts the paper down for a second goes like we don't have to do small talk okay all right I appreciate

that though yeah it's like the nicest way to say, hey, shut the fuck up. Yeah. You know. Can't you tell my love's a-crowing? Now, when you start, were you nervous when you were doing stand-up? I mean, when you made the leap from a day job to, or was there something that happened where you felt like, you know, like, did you score some kind of gig that made you feel like you were safe to move on?

Um, well, so I got, I was working to get fired. Um, and I knew that with the severance and the money I had saved, I had a year where I could not have a job and be okay. Yeah. So I took that. I got fired in January of 2013. And I worked really hard that year. I was terrified. It was like, I think I needed to be scared, though. Because, you know, like I needed to know I didn't have anything to fall back on and to really like put it all out there. And I did as many mics, as many shows as I possibly could,

you know, like I started going to like, that's when I started going to stand up New York and I would, I would get check spots there, but I'd hang out there on the weekend in case no one showed up. So if I could hop on and do a spot, I would. And how old are you at this point? If I may ask? hop on and do a spot, I would. And how old are you at this point, if I may ask? At 2013, I am, let's see, 27. So I'm not particularly young. Yeah, but you're not, you're also like,

you're still within an age that it's not as scary to take a, you know, to take a risk. I don't own a property. I don't have any family to take care of. I don't even have a pet, you know to take a risk i don't own a property i don't have any family to take care of i don't even have a pet you know like no car payment i have nothing you know like other than rent i'm like rent and my student loans was really the only thing yeah um but i uh yeah i like i that was the year where i was like i gotta make it work this year. And then I started submitting packets for stuff. And then in December of that year, I got an interview with late night with Seth Meyers. And this is before the show even launched. This is when they're still, um, putting the show together. And, um, and I interviewed in December and I got hired in January of 2014, almost exactly a year later.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So you were writing there? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you got hired as a writer there before you ever performed there as a stand-up? Yeah. Oh, okay.

I was hired as a writer just like a month before the show premiered. I retired as a writer before just like a month before the show premiered. And then, and then I did stand up there for the first time in July of that same year. Oh, cool. Which is also really nerve wracking. Cause it was like, you just stand up on another show. Yeah. I can go bad or good, but like you do stand up at the place you work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, yeah, but I'm, you know, I don't know. At least it's like a friendly atmosphere. You know what I mean? Like people are going to be rooting for you. You know, it's like whenever, whenever we've had one of our people do stand up on the show, it's it's, it feels like, you know, everybody's like, Oh, we're like a family.

And it's kind of, I always am like, no, it's not. It's not. Like, for A, we're nicer to each other than a family would be. But that is one of the times when it really does feel, like, exciting. You know, people do bits on the show all the time. But when they, like, are doing, like, their own little, like, little, I mean, you know. Yeah. Just a short period of time that's just them and what they do.

It feels that I, you know, if you feel like, you know, like your sisters out there or something, you know? Well, I mean, it was really, I mean, it ended up going really well, but it was really, it, the whole thing was really special to me. Like I remember seeing, like, I said one punchline and I remember seeing Seth like double over laughing. And I was like, Oh, like, you know, like, cause I always like, you know, if he's going to give me a chance, I want to make sure I do well, you know, like all that. So it was, it all was really nice. It was, you know,

I get Wally's doing my cue cards, you know, like, yeah. Yeah. And, and how long were you there um i was there until i think just over two years i left i'm thinking like march of 2016 and i went over to the daily show okay um and i stayed there until december of 2017. Now, were you, did those shows make you more topical or did you already have kind of a taste for topicality? I got my taste for topical on Twitter because I would really just sit and I'd look at news stories and I'd, you know, try to write jokes about them.

Seth's show really taught me, because it was the first time I had a writing job, but it also taught me to like just be able to write even when you didn't want to. Yeah. Because, I mean, you know, there's plenty of times when you just have to get the job done. Right. You got to put something in the sausage. Yeah. And get it in a pun. Yeah. And sometimes the jokes that come out are like a huge batch of them might be terrible,

but you might get one good one and that's really all you needed anyway. Yeah. So that like really helped me a lot. But the Daily Show is really what I got. We were doing some political stuff on set. You know, we were we had already started doing the closer looks and stuff like that. But, yeah, the Daily Show is really when I was immersed day to day in like the political environment. Which I'm not sad to be out of. which I'm not sad to be out of.

Yeah, no, I... Now, were you still working on The Daily Show when you got the Correspondents Dinner? No, I stopped The Daily Show in December of 2017. My HBO special came out that same month, and then I had stopped because I was just going to do stand-up full-time. Yeah, yeah. And you wanted to sleep in a little more yeah yeah yeah I wanted to just live the nightlife instead of living both

lives because right right since 2014 I've been writing all day and then doing stand-up at night yeah yeah still go to the club every night I'd still you know be on the road as much as I could on the weekend so I was like really kind of burning it at both ends um but then yeah I really I just wanted to do stand-up by itself for the first time um and then I ended up in January I went on this world tour with Chris Rock, um, where we went everywhere. I mean, we went to like Copenhagen and Norway and Sweden and, um, all over the UK and, um, like a million different places in, in Europe that I'd never been to or even newer towns. into or even newer towns and um and um so i got to do that for a lot of january which was really fun um and also very i just put out a special so i was like trying to work on new jokes in sweden you know right right right right where i'm like i don't know if this is any, like Sweden in an arena, you know, like it wasn't the best way to try out new stuff.

You guys ever see the Empire carpet commercial? Yeah. 588 Empire, you know that? But I had also gotten the show on Netflix at this point, and I knew I was going to start working on that in March. And then in like February, I think I got the call for the correspondence dinner. Oh, really? Yeah. And I was like, yeah, sure.

I'll do it. And I knew what I was going to do going into it. Yeah. Like I knew exactly how I wanted to do it and the kind of jokes I wanted to tell. I worked that set out starting in the beginning of, I think it was, I guess I did it the dinner at the end of April.

So I think I started doing it in the beginning of April. I started working on the set at the comedy cellar. I would just work on the set every night and I'm so shocked. None of it got leaked. Oh, really? Yeah. Like I would. And some of the jokes at some point were like, even, even like my, you know, Keith Robinson,

he's a comic. He's, uh, even Keith who would He's a comic. Even Keith, who would say anything to anybody, he was like, I don't think you should do that one. And he's like, as a friend, I don't think you should do that one. Do you want to say any of those?

No, I don't remember. I'd have to look them up. I don't remember some of them. At some point, I might't remember. I don't I don't I'd have to look them up. I don't remember some of them I wanted to do. And yeah, I'm like, I really I'm so surprised no one leaked anything. Yeah. Now, I would think, too, that you would be surprised by. I mean, I'm sure that you knew that it would like get a reaction, but the level of reaction was just fucking ridiculous. get a reaction but the level of reaction was just fucking ridiculous yeah i mean i was like well it's also the stuff they got mad at i was like let's just not pretend that you're actually offended by that right exactly like the things about eye makeup yeah the things you guys do on a day-to-day basis are far worse just like yeah yeah not even in the trump administration just as government officials

yeah you know like the decisions you make on a day-to-day basis are far worse than anything i said yeah yeah you've all authorized drone strikes let's not for let's not pretend you haven't um but uh you know the the thing is we the is, two days before the correspondence dinner, a couple people that had been looking at the set were like, I did have a few looks-based jokes. And a couple people were like, I think you should take those out because I think that's what the story would be about if you told them. A woman telling jokes about another woman's looks. And I was like, you know what? You're right. I really love like you know what you're right i really love those jokes but you're right and um um so i took them out and then they still got they still were able to be like oh you're making fun of her looks and i was

like i'm not also if you're gonna get mad at me for that i'm so sad i left out the jokes where i was actually making fun of their looks oh yeah that is true i would yeah it is like yeah you might as well if you're gonna you know like now i just know from now on i'm like all right well we're gonna get mad i might as well keep in the stuff so you can actually get mad at something yeah yeah um there was a there's a i was i don't know why it stuck with me but there's this charles manson quote that i just think of where he says like if they're gonna call you a thief and a queer you might as well be a thief and a queer you know it's like hey you know all right that that's one mansonism that i can go along with. Sure, why not? Good point, Charles Manson. Yeah, yeah.

You make a lot of sense. I will start it. I found myself agreeing with the Unabomber, too. Oh, I know. Oh, that fucking Unabomber. It's like you have to stop after a while sometimes. I mean, I didn't read his manifesto or anything, but like reading articles

about him, it's like, well, he's not exactly wrong. He's not wrong. I mean, he shouldn't have sent bombs, but he's, it's like, yeah, well, he's not exactly wrong. I mean, he shouldn't have sent bombs, but he's not wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sending bombs to people that's fucked up, but yeah, things probably were simpler back in the old days. He's not wrong about society. Yeah. Yeah. Well now, um, Well, now, what do you have going on right now besides hiding out in Ohio? I've got a couple of projects I'm working on. I'm working on a miniseries that I'm really excited about and potentially two miniseries, actually, which is my favorite.

Are they fictional kind of? Yeah. One is actually based on a true story and the other one's fictional and um they're but i mean not they're not they're not like a talk show or not a standard yeah yeah they're narrative um yeah um yeah i mean they're really i love a mini series because i love a beginning and an end yeah no kidding um i do too i don't you know Fargo. I love, you know, even though they keep doing different seasons, it's like completely enclosed. Yeah, yeah. No, and there have been so many good series that end up getting fucked up

because they realize like, oh shit, they got to, you know, they're heading towards a good end, especially like, you know, crime ones. They're heading towards a good end. And then they realize, oh, we got to leave it open for next year and then i'll just like the fall i don't know if you've watched the fall it's like a british crime show crime drama it's just one season and it's terrific yeah i don't need it to be longer and i'm glad yeah yeah make it longer and i is that the jamie dornan one yeah yeah yeah really creepy in that one yeah yeah he's he's great in that yeah he's really good well is there what do you what do you have what are your long-term plans

for like the future i mean what do you what do you what's your place i mean and and it doesn't it doesn't have to be work too it's like you know personal life and i mean i'd always i stand up i always want to be my backbone i love stand stand-up more than anything in the world. It's my favorite thing to do. And I hope I just get to keep doing it and evolving and getting better and better at it. But, you know, eventually, I wouldn't mind, you know, maybe living out in the country somewhere. Maybe getting some animals. Yeah.

You know, know like just having I love living in New York but like also having a place that I can kind of just chill out and have friends and you know be a little bit more connected to the land yeah yeah sure

grow your own food everybody wants to grow their own food or you know hire someone to work the land to grow my own food right exactly like oprah does yeah like you know like oh it's time to pick the carrots do you follow martha stewart on instagram i don't martha stewart has one of my favorite instagram accounts not because she's trying to have it she just unintentionally is the most the funniest person on Instagram. I don't know how much of her own growing of her food she does, but she always has new food that she's preparing. She's talking about her birds and her peacocks and her like she just like you check out her Instagram.

She had another thing where she's like she had this fancy appetizer. And then she's like, and we finished it off with a peasant dish. And it's like, oh, Martha. No, I mean, from knowing people that know her, like, yeah, she's got to have a staff. I mean, I don't think she's feeding the peacocks. No, she probably does a little bit of it, but it looks too much for one person in general. She does work like she does do that shit all the time like she's yeah i mean it's not you know it's too much for her to do but all by herself but yeah yeah i'm sure if it

was like a smaller thing she would be doing it all by herself but i'm pretty sure she has like a full working farm and like yes oh yeah and everything well, yeah, she's making jobs. That's good. Yeah. So anyway, I'd like to have a little I'd never be as organized. There is nothing I would do would ever look as good as Martha Stewart. But, you know, I wouldn't mind having some of those, you know, lettuces. Yeah, exactly. Chickens and things like that. Lettuces you can't pronounce. Yeah.

This is this lettuce. things like that lettuces you can't pronounce yeah um this is this well do you think you could uh take your foot off the gas to do that um you know what i think i could you know i like i i started getting this groove with stand-up where i would i would be on the road for a week like i camp out somewhere tuesday through sunday do like eight or nine shows. And then like I take the next week off. And I know that isn't a ton of time, but like I liked getting into that group where it's like work really hard. Take a week. Take some time off. Yeah, that's not that's not bad. Yeah. And I think that's kind of the pace I'd like to get into regularly.

I mean, like right now I miss standup and I can't wait to do it, but I'm not like, I don't mind having this time off. You know, I also know I'm like very lucky to like be in my circumstances, you know, yada, yada. I don't want to, you know, I know people are really working hard and struggling. I don't want to make it. I'm having a great time. Right. But like, but you are, you are but i'm having you've never been happier i've never never been happier thank you covet 19 yeah yeah uh pandemic a party um but you know like i yeah i i don't i i've realized i don't mind the time off yeah yeah i thought it would kill me and apparently it's just getting me a little pudgier I don't, I've realized I don't mind the time off. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought it would kill me. And apparently it's just getting me a little pudgier. Well, what do you, you know, this is a, this is all about where you come from, where you're going and what you've learned. So we're kind of, you know, we're at the end here. Thank you so much for spending your time. What the hell have you learned? What do you know? From, from this conversation or in general?

No, from life. No, fuck this. I mean, you know, from life. You know what? I've learned that being a competitive person as I am, I've really learned that, especially in stand up and comedy in general, that. I never I got to a place where I never begrudge anyone's success. I'm so happy that anyone gets to do this. And, you know, like, they were all on our own little paths. And I had, it took me a while to get there. Like, you know, to not be like, oh, they got this, they got that.

And it's like, no, we're all on our thing. You know, something that's good for someone can potentially be good for all of us. And, like, you know, it's just, I don't know. I just think we should have this nice comedy community where we can actually you know we're all family at the end of the day really i mean not family yeah you know like i know what you mean all the stand-ups i feel like you know we all go we go on stage and we get off and it's nice to be able to talk to each other and have fun and as much as we might fight or hate each other um from time to time you

know be in each other's corners well yeah and you're all i mean it's something that i that is a common theme that comes out of this podcast is the notion of finding your own tribe yeah and that you know and that you are you have these things in common with these people. And one of the things you have in common with them is that you're a little bit different than everybody else. And that you kind of like, we're always somewhat dissatisfied with, you know, the regular life. And so you kind of needed this, you know, well, you need, you need, like, there's something so inherently sort of egotistical about saying, like, I'm going to go into a room where everyone's going to shut up. Yeah.

And they're going to sit in the dark and I'm going to be lit and they're going to listen to me, you know, and like that you're driven to do that is it's a it's a particular thing that you need to kind of nurture in each other yeah and like i mean we live on like the outskirts of polite society you know like yeah a lot of the stuff that we would say to one another we would never dare speak publicly and even sometimes when we do say stuff publicly people get mad and it's like that's the one thing i really wish i could communicate better to the general public which is like if a comedian's saying it i mean get mad if you want to get mad but do not tell them they can't say it because what makes you mad might be exactly what someone else needed to hear

like the way you process something is not the way everyone processes something. And you might've found it offensive, but someone else in the similar situation to you might've been like, that was really funny. And I needed that. Thank you. Yeah.

And also you're comedian. You know, it's like, you're not, you're not the surgeon general. You know, it's like, it's just words.

It's just an idea and you can take it or you can leave it. Yeah. Don't put me on this pedestal of like, Oh, I listened to her. You know, it's like it's just words. It's just an idea. And you can take it or you can leave it. Yeah. Don't put me on this pedestal of like, oh, I listened to her. That's where I get my philosophy from. It's like, no, no, no. Don't do that. Yeah. I stay up until five o'clock in the morning often. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And I hope, you know, I hope you get out of there soon. Yeah, I hope we all get out of here soon.

I miss the TSA. I can't believe I'd say that. I miss snacks at Hudson News. I miss LaGuardia. Yeah. Oh, LaGuardia. Why don't you miss Newark? Miss Newark while you're at it.

Yes. I miss the friskings. The friskings. I haven't been frisked in ages. All right. Well, thank you so much. And, you know, we will get at you people next time with a very special three questions. You're going to want to hear it. So, bye! The Three Questions with Andy Richter

is a Team Coco and Earwolf production. It's produced by me, Kevin Bartelt, executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Chris Bannon and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, associate produced by Jen Samples and Galit Sahayek, and engineered by Will Becton. And if you haven't already, make sure to rate and review the three questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts.

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.