Renee Gauthier is a stand-up comedian, writer, and producer based in Los Angeles who came out of her hometown Chicago comedy scene in the early 2000s. Her first big break came when NBC cast her to play Victoria Beckham’s personal assistant in the reality series-turned-special, 2007’s Victoria Beckham: Coming To America. Gauthier has performed stand-up on Last Call with Carson Daly as well as Stand-Up In Stillettos, competed on Last Comic Standing and worked the panel on Chelsea Lately. As a writer/producer, she has worked on Ridiculousness, RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Funny Dance Show, Lip Sync Battle, The Masked Singer, and wrote the presenter banter for the 2024 Golden Globes. She also recently released her first full-length stand-up special, High Blood Italian, in 2023 via Four by Three. Renee sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her early experiences dealing with the show business industry, getting to have a hand in iconic performances such as Tom Holland’s choreographed lip-sync to “Singing In The Rain” and “Umbrella,“ and what it looked and felt like behind the scenes during the 2024 Golden Globes. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Filmmaker Kristian Mercado has worked with some of the biggest names in music, including Billie Eilish and Bad Bunny. Since 2020, Mercado also has become one of the biggest names comedians turn to to shoot their stand-up comedy specials — starting with Hannibal Buress: Miami Nights, and going on to direct Sam Jay: 3 In The Morning, London Hughes: To Catch A Dick, Ilana Glazer Presents Comedy on Earth, Phoebe Robinson: Sorry, Harriet Tubman, Aida Rodriguez: Fighting Words, Michael Che: Shame the Devil, Taylor Tomlinson: Look at You, as well as Tomlinson’s forthcoming special which he filmed for her in 2023 that’ll debut in February 2024. Mercado just celebrated his feature film directorial debut with If You Were the Last, which premiered at South by South West and got picked up for distribution by Peacock. It stars Zoe Chao and Anthony Mackie as astronauts stranded in outer space with nowhere to go and nothing to do, and yet they’re both married to someone else. Now what? Rom-com ensues. Kris and I spoke about this movie, his early start in music videos, making comedy specials special, and how he might approach one of his next projects, a biopic of Cheech and Chong. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!