Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It's one thing to hear that someone likes your show; it's a completely different thing to have them come take their time and film something with you on a sidewalk.
We have to remain vigilant and loud and stay consistently engaged with our representatives and the political process every single day, on both a macro and micro level.
It's one thing to be struggling and not really making money in your early 20s and figuring out your life. Early 30s, you start to wonder, is this ever going to happen?
When I came out to my parents, I knew that they knew. My father was like, 'Are you sure?' I literally said, 'You took me to see Barbra Streisand at Madison Square Garden.'
I have a vivid memory of loving Keith Hernandez, the first baseman for the '86 Mets. I grew up in Queens, so when the Mets won the World Series that year, it was a big deal.
'Billy On The Street' has no doubt always been about the people we talk to. That being said, it thrills me that the show really has a dedicated following in the comedy world.
The streets of New York are diverse, but when you go into a Broadway show, unless Denzel Washington is in it, or Fantasia's in it, it's a lot of old white people and gay men.
Our new vice president, Mike Pence, is one of the most blatantly anti-LGBT politicians in the country, and most, if not all, of Trump's cabinet is anti LGBT equality as well.
You can't be a great comedian without having self-awareness about others or your own faults. You need a strong sense of self and view on the world. That's what great actors have, too.
I came out to my parents when I was a junior in college. And it was pretty fine. They were more concerned with why I wasn't dating anyone. But now I'm 36, and I still don't date anyone.
The camera guys can't mess up. God bless them, they hardly ever do. But they literally don't know what's going to happen next. None of us do. And it all has to come together and be funny.
I just worship Madonna. As, like, a young gay kid growing up in the '80s and '90s... I was at the Blond Ambition tour with my parents vogue-ing up in the mezzanine at the Nassau Coliseum.
I came back to New York after college like any number of struggling performers, and you just find that niche where you can have some sort of impact. And for me that turned out to be comedy.
I've never even been invited to the GLAAD awards, to sit in the audience. I don't necessarily care, and I'm sure they will one day, and it will be fine, but I've never been invited to anything like that.
One of the first big agencies that represented me, my point person there - this was over 10 years ago, so it's no one who I work with now or have worked with recently - but he told me that I was too ambitious.
A lot of people in Hollywood, and everywhere pretty much, operate on fear. No one wants to get fired, so everyone's scared to take a chance. There's money involved, and there are careers and reputations on the line.
I was obsessed with award shows and made charts and graphs and stuff when I was 7 years old. I found the entertainment business hilarious, ridiculous, and alluring - and my parents supported it, for better or worse.
It was pop culture, entertainment, Hollywood, award shows - these are the things that really captivated me as a kid. I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win.
I was very much an only child who was raised by the television and movies, and I grew up in New York. We weren't, like, rich people, but we were middle-class people and my parents supported this love I had for entertainment.
I thought it would be funny to go to my Korean dry cleaner and ask her about my head shot, as if it's the most important thing in the world, and as if it's something that everyone should weigh on because it's important to me.
I do take for granted, probably, the fact that I grew up in New York City, one of the most liberal places on earth, with bleeding-heart, liberal parents who took me to see 'Rent' and Terrence McNally plays from a very young age.
There are people who have huge YouTube followings - whose every post gets hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of hits. But I don't think that's having the same impact as someone who has a regular presence on television, or both.
I don't think my voice has changed very much when it comes to things that I create. It's just my perspective, my point of view, and I guess that really hasn't changed very much. Luckily, it hasn't had to change in order for me to work.
Sometimes you go up to people who look totally normal and then you talk to them for a few seconds and you are like, Oh I better get out of this, because this person is a little mentally unbalanced, and they are not going to get a joke.
A lot of comics aren't their on-screen personas; Chris Rock isn't always ranting and raving. What I do is make myself this over-the-top character that people either find endearing or they think is a joke. Then I can do anything I want.
I know is that the response [for Difficult People ] has been really great. I think it's for smart people. I think it's for people who obviously care about pop culture or know about it, even if it's to a fault. I think it's for outsiders.
If a comedian has a strong following, and the branded segment feels different compared to what you typically do, people will know right away that it's not authentic to who you are as a comedian or performer. Brands need to keep that in mind.
It was one of Hulu's first original shows to really go out there. Now a year has passed, and the second season is getting a great response. I think the show [Difficult People] itself creatively has evolved, has gotten much richer and tighter.
Saying gay people shouldn't be the punchline is basically saying don't make people the punch line, which I think is ridiculous. The whole point of comedy is, on some level, to make fun of ourselves and put everything into an absurdist context.
Even when I was struggling and had horrible day jobs and wanted to be successful but wasn't finding my way in, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to keep working at it and keep putting material out there, even if no one was paying me for it.
I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win. I'd be doing Oscar predictions months ahead of time, and not only for the Oscars, for the Grammys. This is just what excited me as a kid.
My mom had a heart attack, and it came out of nowhere - she was 54. My dad had leukemia for about 3 months. He was 80 when he passed. My dad had me later in life, and so he had leukemia and was alive for about 3 months between diagnosis and passing away.
The most outrageous thing happened years ago in my YouTube days, when I asked an older lady - it was like a sexually flavored question and she just slapped me full-on across the face. That's the one time someone got physically aggressive with me. And it hurt.
I did a live late-night talk show called 'Creation Nation' with friends of mine. I had a sidekick and a band, and I wrote the whole thing. And it had the form of a late-night talk show, but we did it on stage because no one was giving me a TV show at the time.
I spend the majority of my time in New York and LA. I feel like a large part of my following and my fans are probably in New York and LA because of the work that I do is very New York-LA-centric. So people do recognize me. But it's nothing overwhelming at all.
I think it [ Difficult People] is for people who don't feel that they have been properly represented on TV. I think it's painting a very accurate if slightly exaggerated for comedic purposes view of the LGBT world in a way that we have never, ever seen in any television show.
It's been a very strange trajectory because I struggled for so many years. I mean, I was doing these videos, I was doing these live shows, I had a lot of fans in New York, the press would write about me, but I couldn't get a paying job, and so my father and I were really like a team.
You don't want to really pick on someone that you genuinely like. In terms of 'Billy on the Street,' there are certain actors - I don't care if they find out because I do feel that way. Though it's almost never about appearance or something out of their control. I pick on choices they've made or roles they've taken.
It's crazy. I don't know how I'm not dead. People think I'm going to get punched in the face: "Something terrible is going to happen to you. You're going to get killed." That's not what's going to kill me. The show is going to kill me. The work is going to kill me. Once I'm on the street, I'm not worried about that.
I grew up in Queens, which is the most diverse borough: the rich and the poor and homeless and people of every sexual orientation and gender and age group. Everyone is saying we live in this bubble, and there's some truth to that. But I do not think it is healthy to all of a sudden invalidate the way we live in New York.
We're really fleshing out the whole world of the show [Difficult People]. It's more of an ensemble now, whereas last season we were very focused on establishing the Billy/Julie friendship. Now that that's been established, we don't question that they love each other and what the show's about. So we can meander outside of that.
By TV standards - I'm not comparing it to manual labor by any means - by TV comedy standards, it is the hardest job I will ever, ever have. There is nothing that could be harder. I mean, when you combine the amount of writing that has to be done - sharp writing - with the fact that you then take it to the street and improvise with both celebrities who have no idea what's going to happen and real people who are not actors or comedians who don't even know I'm about to talk to them... It's lightning in a bottle every time.