Ryan Hamilton grew up in a small town in Idaho and studied broadcasting before turning to comedy. Hamilton calls several comedy scenes home, and that perhaps allowed him to emerge nationally in the mid-2000s in Sierra Mist’s America’s Next Great Comic Search. He’s also won the Great American Comedy Festival contest, and performed multiple times at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival, where I caught up with Hamilton before the debut of his first Netflix special, Happy Face. So let’s get to it!
Lynne Koplitz caught her first wave of success hosting or co-hosting TV shows the likes of Change of Heart, How to Boil Water, and Life and Style. The stylish comedian became friends with the late great Joan Rivers while paired up in the IFC comedy Z Rock, and later became a recurring character on Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best. Koplitz more recently was seen on the big screen in Chris Rock’s Top Five, and the small screen in Louis CK’s Horace and Pete, and she dedicated her first Netflix comedy special, Hormonal Beast, to her mentor, Joan Rivers. Koplitz tells all to me…So let’s get to it!
Janicza Bravo has made several short films that debuted at premier festivals such as Sundance and SXSW, and also directed an episode of the hit FX series, Atlanta. Bravo’s first feature film, Lemon, features her husband, Brett Gelman, as an actor and acting coach who turns 40 and realizes nothing in his life is where it’s supposed to be. In real life, you’ve seen Gelman shine in everything from Mad Men to Twin Peaks, as well as Comedy Bang! Bang!, Funny or Die Presents, Married, Love and Blunt Talk. They co-wrote Lemon, which hits theaters this August after a Sundance premiere earlier in 2017.
I sat down with Bravo and Gelman for some blunt talk about their love, marriage and how they think their lives and careers are matching up to expectations. So let’s get to it!
Natalie Morales is an actress best known for her supporting roles in sitcoms that have included Parks and Recreation, Trophy Wife, Girls, and The Grinder. She’s also done drama with White Collar, and action-adventure with The Middleman. She directed a webseries for Funny or Die about James Joyce’s Love Letters, and you can currently see her on the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet. Later in 2017, she'll co-star in the movie, Battle of the Sexes. But it's all love, no war here. So let’s get to it!