Forty years after his first screen credit as Modell in the Barry Levinson film, Diner, Paul Reiser is enjoying a career renaissance, co-starring in the biggest series on both Netflix and Amazon in Stranger Things and The Boys. Now in his 60s, Reiser has returned to his first love, stand-up comedy, embarking on a nationwide tour in the fall of 2022. Reiser sat down with me to talk about stand-up then and now; rebooting Mad About You and then now co-starring in a Hulu comedy about reboots, called Reboot; making passion projects that might not get seen nowadays thanks to streaming platform algorithms; making Beverly Hills Cop movies with Eddie Murphy, and how it all comes back to The Comic Strip in the end. Or doesn’t.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Liz Miele started doing stand-up at 16, got profiled by The New Yorker at 18, and earned her first TV credit on Comedy Central by 22. Miele has produced and starred in multiple web series, and written a book, “Why Cats Are Assholes” which came out in 2021. She has released four comedy albums, and the video versions of two of them have racked up millions of views apiece on YouTube. In September 2022, she released her newest special, The Ghost Of Academic Future, also on YouTube. Miele sat down with me to talk about being an early adapter of technology and taking risks as a comedian, launching her own tech startup, and adapting to how you never know what or when something might go viral thanks to ever-changing algorithms.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Jinkx Monsoon is a comedian and singer best known for becoming the first performer to win two seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, first in season 5 in 2013, followed by the all-winner all-star edition in 2022, where she was crowned “Queen of All Queens.” She began touring annually over the holidays in 2018 with fellow Drag Race star BenDeLaCreme, and you can watch The Jinkx & DeLa Holiday Special on Hulu. Jinkx has released multiple albums, been the subject of two documentaries, and has appeared on TV shows such as Blue Bloods and AJ and the Queen. In 2022, Jinkx filmed her first solo comedy special for Comedy Dynamics at the Tribeca Film Festival, and is the creator, writer and star of the sketch comedy series, Sketchy Queens, debuting on WOWPresents Plus in September 2022. Jinkx joined me over Zoom to talk about the evolution of her life and career, and what comes next.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!