Work in Progress with Sophia BushComedian Alex Edelman is having a moment in the spotlight. Yet, he admits his 8-year-old self would never believe he works in an industry that requires talking in front of so many people.
The writer, producer, and comic joins Sophia to talk about how he got his start in comedy and the journey from open mic nights to Broadway with his highly acclaimed show "Just For Us". He dives into the valuable lessons he learned while crafting the show and how he felt receiving a Special Tony Award for his work.
The comedian also discusses his criteria for choosing jobs, his distinct pet peeve, and what he's looking for in his next relationship!
Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Good day, Whip Smarties, or for anyone who's listening at night, good evening. I am absolutely tickled for today's episode because I'm going to sit down with one of my favorite minds who also happens to be one of my favorite friends.
Hands down, one of the most.
Impactful friendships I've made in the last half decade is with today's guest. He is an acclaimed comedian, writer, producer, and actor. This year, he was named to Times one hundred list of the world's most influential people. He just won a special Tony Award in recognition of his breakthrough stand up show.
And he happens to be one of.
The smartest thinkers, kindest souls, and honestly most motivating and interesting piece people that I know. I call him anytime I have a weird thought or a problem, and I know I'm not the only person lucky enough to know him who feels that way out in the world. People are obsessed with him for good reason, and that's because this year, a show he's worked on for five years called Just for Us went absolutely viral. He began tinkering on the show in twenty eighteen, and he just finished its run on Broadway and now the show is available streaming on Max. Just for Us as a special that Alex wrote in the wake of a lot of anti Semitic threats pointed at him online. He began trying to figure out why people hate and very quickly found himself volunteerily walking into a meeting of white nationalists to try to see if he could learn anything about these people, and maybe they could learn anything about him. That fascinating experience is what led him to write Just for Us, and it is absolutely funny, heartbreaking, poignant, thought provoking and every other thing that I believe good art is. It's actually his second big special. His first, Millennial, won the prestigious Foster's Best Newcomer Prize at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He's actually only the second American to have ever done that. And in between that show and Just for Us, he has been a staff writer on several television series. He's written and produced documentaries based on his love of sports for ESPN's Thirty for thirty and his love of politics and systems for the US State Department. He is a journalist for outlets like The Atlantic, and The Believer, and he was the head writer of Saturday Night Satyr, an all star variety special that aired during the pandemic and raised over three and a half million charitable dollars for the CDC's COVID nineteen Emergency Relief Fund. I have no idea in this man finds the time to sleep, let alone take my phone calls, but he manages to do it all. And today we're going to find out how enjoy.
It's actually very.
Fun to do this with you, because you've become one of my closest friends over the last almost half decade.
And now I feel giggly, like I can't wait. What am I going to interview?
How do I interview you? How do I pretend to be like a journalist right now?
I mean, honestly, let's just pretend we've never met or something like that. You can interview me as a sports fan, as a comedian, and okay, as a proud as a proud questian.
You can have me. You can interview me and through any of these things.
Wonderful.
Can't wait to learn your expertise on that last subject there. Yeah, yeah, I actually do this with a lot of people who come on the show because I feel like, you know, for myself or for listeners, you meet someone as you know, a fan of what they're doing in the present, or a project.
That's just released, whatever.
But I actually really love to ask people to go backwards with me before before we sit in the today, and if you were to meet yourself at let's say eight or nine years old, would you see your current self in that little kid? Do you see the through line of you know, what he loved, what he was interested in, and the artist and like creative person you are today?
Yes, I mean I think.
I think you'd see an eight or nine year old Alex just trying to just sort of figure everything out, but also in love with various like you know, in love of various little things, like in.
Love with.
Baseball, and in love with various like odd books, and in love with American history, and like I think my job is like a dilet job.
It's like a job for someone who just like likes a lot of things.
And I think as a like child, I just loved so many different things and it's and I found a job that let that let me basically I monetized my ADHD that's right. I monetized my childhood ADHD and turned it into something that that could be exploited in front of audiences. But I do think that eight or nine may would be surprised that I talked to people. I was very I was like very quiet and very like a reader and had trouble looking adults in the face. And my first boss at the Red Sox, a really wonderful woman named Colleen Riley. She was like, you know, she had a she got to be like, hey, when someone talks to you, you should look at them, which sounds like, you know, silly advice or patronizing advice, but like I needed it.
I didn't know. I didn't know that.
Like there was someone at the Red Sox quite who I'm less fond of, who would call me doctor Shoes because she was like, you're always looking at your shoes when you're speaking, So.
I was for anyone listening.
I got a job with the Red Sox when I was a teenager, at thirteen or fourteen years old, so I had this I was around adults, but like it grew me up pretty quickly, and it grew me up in like a bunch of ways. But when I was eight or nine, I would have been sh I'd be like, I have a job talking to people, No thanks, my job should be writing.
So ooh, I love.
I think for some of us, like you and I are systems thinkers. We know a bunch of random facts where it turns out quite good at trivia. More on that later, but like, sometimes the basic stuff doesn't compute. And you know you're you're like sort of a genius. But yeah, you needed somebody to tell you to make eye contact with them while you were speaking.
And I think that is sort of very sweet.
Although whenever anyone's like eighty issue a superpower, and I'm like, miss me with that superpower, would kill not to have this insane superpower.
I hear you on the miss me with it.
But when I when I remove myself from being your friend and I and I click into being like the journalist who researches strangers for this show. And I look at your resume and know that you're, you know, developing a film that you'll write, direct and star in. I know that you've been a staff writer on so many different television series. You've written and directed not only you know, for scripted but also documentaries like thirty for thirty, which is your love of sports all the way to the US State Department, which is your love of all things system and politics. Like me, You've as a journalist written for the Atlantic and The Believer, been profiled in Times one hundred. You won a fucking honorary Tony because your play was so impactful. Like, I get that as a human being, you might not have loved it, but I also see the incredible smattering of things you've been so wonderful at And I would say I still view you as a person with a superpower.
I mean, that's nice, but a superpower like it. I wonder sometimes if my work ethic could be a little bit different if I didn't have ADHD. Right, if I feel that work ethic, then maybe I could do even more I could do, you know, I could be even more profoundly productive. I could be even more interested in the right things. And you know what's so's there's a weird catch twenty two for me, which is that I desperately need ADHD medication and I do not take it.
I just don't.
And so because it makes me really sad, it makes me really but I have had you know, there was a point in my life. I was writing on a TV show I won't say which one, and they sent me off on draft and I wasn't getting anything done. And then I took the ADHD medication, which means when you're a writer on staff that I'll send you to write an episode.
That's when they send you off on draft.
And they sent me off to write this episode. And I took the medication that I am prescribed for the first time in you know, probably a year, and I finished my episode in like thirty six hours. I just sat down at my desk over the weekends that I was assigned it and.
Just went.
Did you eat while you did that?
Did I eat while I did that? It was no. I actually that's a really amazing thing.
Like I really distinctly remember like not eating at all, like just being like, yeah, that's tricky, like and it's it's it's so hard. These medications are such a you know. I also had friends who occasionally would ask me like, Hey, can I have one of your pills? And I was always want to be like, you don't want this, you don't want the.
But I'd say, but.
It's like it's the thing people don't fully understand, which is like why would they unless they had.
It like the urge.
Sometimes I will be on a phone call I really need to be on and I will put the phone call on speaker, go to my phone and start playing a game when I shouldn't be.
Like sometimes it will happen.
I have lifelong implications these phone calls, Like genuinely another on a phone call with like a lawyer about something, and I was like, yep, time to.
Do mine sweeper, you know, like it's my brain.
Requires like so much activity to be stimulated. And like, also sometimes I was I a couple of years ago, I was like, I should be doing something right now. I know I should be doing I had this distinct thought. I was like I should be doing so oh I'm driving.
I'm driving.
Like that was the I was like literally daydream about something, and I was starting to daydream about the thing I need to be doing. And then I was like, so, if you ever see like comedian alex Heedelman killed in vehicle crash, like, please know that there's a distinct possibility that I was just like con templating, you know, some obscure.
Fact and then just like.
Well, and that you were trying your best to pay attention. I have that thing I struggle to be on phone calls. It's actually why I really like Zoom, because I can look at people and it holds my attention. But you know, one of the things that has helped me when you said the thing earlier about wishing you could be more productive, like maybe if you had a more neurotypical brain, you'd be better at crossing through all the things on your to do list. One of the things I've also learned about being non neurotypical is that like people who are feel proud when they accomplish something, they're like, hey, I did that, I'm proud of myself.
We're like, good for me.
They can give themselves a pat on the back, and we're so averse to that. Like you do something, you win an award, and you're like so.
And I mean, I'm proud, well my awards, But.
Do you feel proud good?
That was gonna be my question because the show in particular, I mean, I want to hear a little bit about how you got started in comedy. But you know, I, as a friend and a fan, I've seen iterations of your special for almost four years now.
I've watched just for us.
In small theaters and you know, seeing you take it to Broadway and been in the audience at the Mark Taper Forum more times than I actually can remember. The sweet ticket takers there started to be like, hey, Sylvia.
I was like, what's up, dude, that's right, you came so many times in LA You're like, can I come and see it again?
I was like, Wow, you've seen this already. You know, I don't know that the end.
But for me, it's like it's so a so important. B I love to support my friends and see I really wanted every single person that I know to see the show, which you know, for our friends at home, now you can on HBO, it is streaming.
On Max just for us.
Is incredible and as I mentioned, one an honorary Tony, which is such a huge, incredible deal. They were just like, oh, we're not even going to nominate you in a category, We're just going to give it to you.
Win.
You win the award, no one else will compete. I think that's like one of the cooler things I've ever seen. And you know, the show this this has been such a big hype year for it, but you started writing it in twenty eighteen, I think so many people who don't do what we do don't realize how long it takes to make these things.
Can can you.
Tell our friends at home what the special is about? And then and then I want to dig into kind of like the process of doing something like this and of comedy in general with you.
So Just for Us is about this guy who's a janitor at MIT, but he's smarter than a lot of the professors that work there. And his best friend is Ben Affleck and he is philosopher. Is Robin Williams Incredible? It's yes, philosopher is Robin Philosopher. The show is about a Jewish man me who goes to this meeting of white nationals and queens and he sits there for a little while and then eventually one and I'm like, sorry, but this guy's too, and I'm like, yeah, haven't you. And so that's what the show is about. I went to this thing. It's based on this real story and yeah, I've I did the show in Scotland at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Festival in twenty and one there as well.
They won an award there and it was nominated for an award in Australia and it was. It was a nice thing that I had, and I sort of put it away for a little while to write on some television shows. And then at the beginning of twenty twenty I was like, you know, I really want to recommit myself to live comedy and I really want to recommit myself just for us. And then a pandemic happened. But when the show came back in twenty twenty one in New York, or actually January twenty twenty two, it just it just ran and ran, thank god. And it went to Broadway last year and almost exactly a year ago, and as toured and is now on Max. It's like this incredible, the most beautiful, fullsome.
Creative experience of life, my life.
Apart from like a thing I did with my friends in the pandemic, it has been this really special, it's really really special show, and behind it there's this comments tale of joy and collaboration and grief and difficulty. It's the sort of like aggregate of all of my happinesses and hardships over the last couple of years.
I love it a lot, and I'm very proud of the show. I'm very very proud of it.
And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. Did it feel obvious or a little intimidating to take it off the stage and make it into a special It.
Felt both obvious and intimidating, because I knew I didn't want to fumble the ball at the one yard line, so to speak, and more people would watch just for us.
In the first two hours of it.
HBO then had seen it in the years that I'd been performing it just you know. Yeah, So it was it was something that I and also it's my permanent record of this big chapter of my life, and so we really really focused on making sure that that thing was really like well cared for. And we got this guy named Alex Timbers who's like the greatest, greatest Broadway director, and he's he was the creative consultant and the facto director of the show on Broadway and just did this really incredible job.
But I was really scared.
And thank god, one of the reasons we did it with HBO is because they took so much care and they let us know that they were going to let us film it on Broadway, which is where I wanted to shoot it. They let us know that they were going to let us edit it the way that we wanted for however long we wanted. And we worked really hard on this thing, but it was so if. It was so terrifying thinking, oh my god, what if this thing that worked live does not work as a film's product, which happens a lot, like sometimes you see a great live thing and then it doesn't work it doesn't work on film, and you're just like so like, it was really thank god. I think it's come out really beautifully the special. I think it's really really nice. But I was really really I was so freaked. Wow, sorry to give you.
That l No, I love it. I love it.
I think there's an assumption that when you're an artist, it's all just easy for you.
I don't think people understand that.
It's like you kind of have to be willing to like pull out your own fingernails. It's hard and personal and it has it has such effect on you emotionally and physically and psychologically, and you know, I've had to figure out how to process, like getting scenes I film out of my body because your body doesn't know something isn't real.
Is that true for you? Yeah?
You know, like to to shoot something, let's say on a moon or a TV show where I lose a loved one, Like to grieve like that, to suffer like that, your body experiences, like the pain and the trauma. You know when you cry for six hours at work, Like it takes a toll and you have to figure out how to separate. And there's a whole different sort of toll. It's beautiful and exhausting. It's like this incredible you know when you see those birds like fight in the air and they're like spiraling but they're flying.
But they're falling.
A death spiral show.
Yeah, it feels like a death spiral to be on stage to me in the best way, Like it makes me feel alive and a little high and also the most tired I've ever been when I get off.
And I thought about that a lot.
For you, because you know, last summer I went to the West End to do a fourhander and it was wild. And I've watched you do this one yeah, yeah, yeah, I've watched you do this one man show over and over again, and you know, I feel like your bubby, Like I check in and I'm like, are you eating, have you had water?
Did you sleep?
How is travel? But I thought about that a lot for you, the toll of the cadence, you know.
So we had a weird tragedy on our show where our director Adam Brace, who was my closest pal, passed away. And then when that happened, I mean it was really we worked together Adam I for eleven years and we had this amazing collaboration and we did three solo shows together. Did all my solo work was with Yeah, ironically, it's weird to say something's a solo show when it was a huge amount of paperwork on these shows and you get really great creative input from literally everyone. It's shaped by all these things. But Adam was my most significant collaborator. And then when he died, all of my friends sort of showed up for me, which is really beautiful and surprising and sublime, like Bench pass like most of all who you know, Who's Who's Who's my I'm sure we'll come walking through that.
I'm you know, spending.
Some time in Bench but like right before this podcast, so so that's why we're but yeah, but Ben benj really showed up for me and my friend Shashana and Jake, and you.
Were a big part of that. You were you were.
Checking in constantly, and and like I think people like you say everyone thinks it's easy for artists. The thing that I think not everyone gets is that it's actually really it's hard. And I think people that do musicals or people that do plays, it's actually really harder to carry. So at least I'm doing my own stuff, so I'm sort of carrying my own water. But like once I started doing Broadway, I began to understand how difficult it is to like I'm going to just go. I just want to see Sarah Polson in her in that show appropriate I saw it. I can't believe how hard she's working. Like there are so many of these shows. I've seen, all these plays and all these musicals and people working their ass off, like Shana taub is doing that musical stuffs, like she's working so hard on stage, Like I don't understand how they do it, and I don't understand how everyone else is in constantly, like.
Like they can make a million dollars a day, they're not making enough. Like it's really really really, really, really really difficult. And by the way, obviously.
Everyone should get paid more for all their all of their work for for pretty much every job, especially stockbrooker, but I'm killing.
I was like, especially the teachers, and You're like, it's the finance guys.
They need more money exactly if.
You're a if you're a hedge fun guy, it would just be great for me to make ten million dollars more a year, so you can make two hundred and ten millions, So two hundred. But but yeah, I mean like I frankly didn't respect uh stage actors the way that I should have because I had never seen it up Yeah, that way, And it is really difficult, and you need people to constantly check on. You need to be like babysat by entire goddamn community. It's ridiculous.
Well, it's so all consuming. And I remember thinking, you know, because I traditionally come from TV. Sometimes on movies you have time, but TV is so like you're going one hundred miles an hour and you're doing it sixteen hours a day. I'm used to not having a moment, so when I was when I signed on for the West End, I was like, oh my.
God, essentially up four hours a day. I've never had so much free time in my life.
Yeah, sure, fine, two show weekends turns out a two show weekend is actually a five show weekend because it's one on Friday, two on Saturday, two on Sunday. But whatever, I learned a lot fast. The person who, thank god, helped me to not go in completely blind and oblivious was Brian Cranston. I had seen him in LBJ, I'd seen him do Network. Anytime Brian's on Broadway, I'm going and I by happenstance. We were at the same Easter gathering the April before I left for London, and he was like, Oh, this is so exciting.
Asking me all these questions, and I said yeah, and you know, I feel like how fun it'll be.
I'm going to live near the theater, but i can tube around and I'll go to the VNA and I'll see all the art exhibits and I'll do great things during the day, and on Mondays I'll take the tube somewhere far away and I'll really get to know London and the greater area. And Brian looked at me and he said, you're going to be lucky if you make it out of the house before you have to be at the theater every night. He said, it will take everything out of you, and then you will give what you don't have to do the stage door every night because people will line up. And the reason we make art is for other people, he said. And you will go home and you won't be able to sleep until two or three in the morning, and then you will sleep and when you wake up, you'll feel like you've been run over, and you'll do it again because for some reason we love it. And I was like, wait, what, I'm not going to sight see and he was like, oh honey, And thank god, he told me.
I don't.
You do it just for you.
I do it for that sweet sweet cash baby.
I thought it was just for us, Alex for us.
Oh no, that's when I say just for us, I mean stock give it in. Yeah, that's why I got into comedy. That's why I want to do those open mics in Boston.
Because you made so much money at open mics. Okay, wait, that actually is great. I love this segue because we're jumping around in the way that we do. Your Your special has come out. It's Broadway, it's filmed, it's HBO, it's it's the special Tony Award. I realized I called it honorary earlier like a degree, no special Tony Award, not honorary Tony Award. But how did you get started? Like how how does a quirky young kid who grew up in the sort of home environment you did, which was, you know, pretty ultra conservative you wind up working for the Red Sox because you love sports?
Like how do you left.
Turn into stand up? Where does it start? Is it an open mic? Is it that someone tells you you're funny and you should try? Like how did it begin to get you here where we sit today?
I mean I started pretty much.
I started pretty heavily at open MIC's music of the MIC's in particular. My upbringing wasn't My upbringing wasn't ultra conservative. It was it was like moderately, it was moderately like, uh, it was religious, so there was some of that, but frankly, like my parents gave me, you know, you can't do this anymore. I don't think in any American city, but my parents in Boston the early two thousands were like just go do your thing. Yeah, like go do whatever you want, and like they let me rollerblade everywhere, Like I rollerbladed all around Boston.
I would just sort of like do what I needed to do, and.
They were really understanding and like if I was interested in music, I'd go to a concert and if I was interested and so like, in some ways, I had like a pretty permissive thing, although I didn't even like discover everything. Like I remember I went to see like I want to see like a movie at midnight because this like really cool.
Girl in my town in Brookline.
I met her at like a Starbucks and I had like a big old crush on her, and she was like, Oh, they show these midnight movies at the Coolidge Corner Theater and they had this movie called El Topo, which is like this Juttorowsky like Mexican art film about like a lone gunman. And I went to this thing at midnight and I was like, I don't know what any of this is.
And I I didn't know about the existence of like art films.
I'd only ever seen like Disney animated movies that were like PG so like so like I had this whole discovery process and I guess stand up was part of that, but it was a hobby. I just never quit, Like I've not quit a lot of the stuff that I like, a lot of the stuff.
That I became interested in as a child, I'm still interested in. Like there's still a big part of me that.
Thinks that one day I'm going to like become a like macrobiologist, even though I've never shown any aptitude for it and have none of the education for it. Like there's still a part of me that thinks I'm getting drafted into the NHL. And every year the draft comes out and I've never chosen, and the odds of them picking the Boston Bruins taking a thirty five year old comedian seem pretty slim, but like, well, like, yeah, I was everything I was interested in as a kid. I had the sort of real world privilege to follow. And by the way, that's that is privilege, right, like to be able to just show up, Like I think people don't understand that that ninety percent of it is just if you just keep showing up, eventually they like let you in.
It takes longer sometimes depending on who you are, but like.
And like, it's easier if you're like a straight presenting white presenting and presenting, Like if you have those privileges, that is really that that that tilts the balance in your favor. But like I would just show up places and be interested and like bang my head against the wall, and some people I really alienated and was because I know it was really annoying, but eventually like they just kind of let you in. So so that was that was my very very first start. And then sorry, I'm talking for too long.
So I love it.
And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think you will too. You're talking about perseverance though, and one of the things that I worry about for us a little bit, not just with like the fact that you know, our attention spans have shortened because of the Internet and the constant ability to drag your thumb and.
Refresh, but.
I also fear and I had a conversation about this recently with one of my mentor's kids. I really cherish in our generational friendships. And you know, I sat with this group of kids in their mid twenties.
And intergenerational friendships is yeah, okay, yeah.
Well like so important.
And I sat with these kids and what frightened me for them is that they think they're supposed to have everything now, everything figured out, know who their person is. But I mean even like stuff like they they're just like, well, I should live in the apartment on the cover of Architectural Digest, and I should. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. Like I worry that we can like see into each other's stuff so much that it's made us like even more obsessed. I know, everyone's always been obsessed with stuff. I mean, look at the American economy and the era.
Of mad Men, Like, sure got a lot of stuff.
But I was like, you guys, you don't even think it's going to be cool to like work up to something. Like I when I turned forty and like looked around and went, oh, look, there's like some stuff I've achieved. Like I didn't know if I was going to be here when I was twenty five, and I've done these things that I feel really excited about, you know. I I appreciate that evolution in my own life. And I was like, don't please, don't think at twenty six that you're supposed to have everything that the forty year olds and the sixty year olds in your life have, Like give yourself.
Time, you know. I I love the era where I was like.
Doing all my meals at the bodega because it was the only way I could afford to live in New York for this summer. Like, I loved that, and I don't want people to lose it.
I think there's also like just to in terms of like, you know, I should not have gotten any of the attention that I got for just for a minute before I got it, And now it's harder.
We'd say more about that.
Well, the best gift that you can get as a creative person is anonymity, because anonymity affords you the ability to iterate free of any pressure, free of commercial expectation, free of and by the way, there are pressures that are economic, right, like some people need to put out stuff that they can't afford. Not everyone can afford to iterate on a musical for two decades, right, Like not everyone can afford to have a passion project album that takes like you know, like three years. You need to make money today. But like you know, I worked Jus for us in various forms before it went to Broadway.
For five years. Some of those jokes are six or seven years old.
Where were some of the places you worked on it that people might not know about?
Storytelling nights, I did, and no one ever asks this. That's really like I would also England as this. I became really heavily involved in the comedy scene in England and I went there for my last year of college and fell really hard into this group of comedians and artists at.
The Soho Theater. Chief among them was Phoebe Wallerbridge.
She was like someone who who was the leading light at this theater and Adam i collaborator, worked on Fleabag with it, he helped out in Phoebe's part.
Adam dated for a very.
Long time Vicky Jones, who is Phoebe's co writer and Fleabag and a brilliant creative moment of her own. But like in England, they have this system called the previous system because they're aware that people need to iterate. So all these different pubs in East London or North London or little towns outside, they'll just they'll expect three comedians to come in each do an hour or something on a Tuesday night in June as they prepare for the Edinburgh Festival. And if you're if you hustle, you can book like twenty thirty forty of these previews. So I would do the show or any of my solo shows as hour long sets in continued repetition for for two or three months, and everyone like, my break wasn't just for us.
It was a show called Millennial that I did a day ago.
In twenty fourteen, and it was about the millennial generation before the word became ubiquitous, so I was sort of explained with.
It, and I did these shows.
I moved to England in like May of twenty fourteen, and I rented a little apartment and a part of a London called Clapton Pond, and I said, I am not leaving this apartment until like not like day on day, but like I will stay in this room until August, and then I will go to Edinburgh.
In between, my only goal is going to be getting ready for this show, and.
I would go to I did this show dozens of times, rarely in front of more than twenty people, and.
Like and the gift of.
Anonymity to work on your shows, like I do lots of unannounced shows or shows that I only announce on my Instagram or to my email list, because like my process, and I will oftentimes leave New York or leave LA to go to weird little places in like the North of Wales.
Or like like.
You have to find darkness to work in. You need to tinker, especially if your medium is is it performance one. You need to find a place where you can iterate. And if you are famous, that is really hard. And I'm not, but I have worked with lots of famous comedians on their material, on their.
Specials, and they weirdly.
Don't get the opportunity to incubate in quiet that lesser known people do, and because of that, it is much harder for them to sort of generate the thoroughness that people who are.
People who have less eyes on them can. Yeah.
Sometimes people I have a friend who's a really brilliant comedian and he's always bemoaning the fact that he doesn't have more, like doesn't have more own.
Yeah, but you're gonna pop when you do it. You're gonna pop in a big way.
And you'll love all this material that just is there because you've had all this time to incubate it. So and by the way, he will he's really really good, but it's like like he I think he like I miss the ability to iterate completely anonymously and often have to like artificially recreate that.
So I feel that really deeply, I think, and look, it's the golden handcuffs, right, Like for me, I didn't know my first show was going to be such a big deal. And I went from like, you know, three years post graduating from an all girls school to being on TV. Like there were fifty five girls in my graduating class and suddenly I was on this like global hit show, which is a blessing but also such a curse because you can't up in private. You can't learn your lessons in private, you you know, and like even for me as someone who loves comedy as much as I do, like, you know, we just did this big all like queer you know, female and non binary entertainer reading performance of Wayne's World at the Annenberg Theater, all these people like pinched me a moment. The writer of Legally Blonde comes up to me and is like, you are so funny, Like I had no idea how funny you were, And I was like, well, thanks, I guess I spent like ten years sobbing. But I love him on TV.
So like, I don't know, maybe everyone thinks I'm melodramatic.
But I remember, like, you know, when Chelsea Handler's show was on and she was doing like the round tables with all the comedians. A bunch of those people were like, you really should try comedy. I think you'd love it, like you're quick, you're you have like dry wit. And I never did it because I was like, it's too scary for me because I feel like I'd get made fun of. I feel like I feel like the way that I would have to learn, like anybody who does it is has to learn. I don't have the privilege to do anymore because I'm not anonymous.
Because I was on the second teen TV show. But maybe you have to get out of your own way. I don't know.
Do you know that curve of like knowledge competence thing? Don't tell me about that about it where it's just like if you when you start you have to know that you have to not know that you're when you start something, you need to not know how bad you are at it in order to Yes, that's step, because if you started something and knew how awful you were, you would quit.
Yes, Like a first draft is supposed to be bad.
Yeah, But what I mean is you're supposed to a thousand percent not know that you're a comedy when you start comedy, because if you were an expert in.
Comedy and you start a comedy, you would go, oh my god, this is terrible.
Like I have a friend who's like constantly threatening to start comedy and I want to be like.
But you you will be terrible.
And also you know too much about comedy to ever like get past that.
Place where you're just like truly horrific.
Yeah, you don't have the play. You don't have the privilege of being naive.
Oh yeah, I mean like my friend Josh Weller is a comedian who switched who was Friends of the Million Comedians and switched over a bunch of years ago from music. He's a musician in a band called the Kenneth's to Comedy. And I was a really good comedian, but he had to start knowing how awful he was.
Yeah, I said, this is going to be really, really difficult for you because you are going to you know too much.
You're like slightly down the matrix, like sat with us in like vans and buses from like you know, from like Leicester to Birmingham. And now you're going to have to just like be shit at something. It's like it's so scary, but he got there. I mean, like it's a really got the competence. That curve is a really like once you get to a certain point, you look back at how bad you were and you're just like, oh my god, I thought. And by the way, I hope I do that now or in like ten years, I hope I look back to where I am down and I'm like, oh god, I was so it was so terrible. It was a lesser comedian and I could have, you know, I could be more.
But like, well, that's.
Actually really interesting that you say that, because you are in that sort of mid point. I mean, you're you're at the top of your game, undoubtedly, But when you think about your life and where you've come from and how you started at these open mics and you'd go to work these pubs pre Edinburgh and all these things, I think another thing people don't really realize about what we do is when a job ends, you have to start over, Like you start from ground zero. You are starting with more awareness, you are starting with more expertise. But like, now you're gonna start ideating your next comedy show. How do you do that from this place of experience. Do you feel more pressured because you're no longer naive or do you feel like it's a little easier because you've proven to yourself that you can do this at such a level.
You know Bench Passek, who like I keep repeatedly mentioning who's my closest living pal and not to be dark not a little document, but Ben.
I feel like Adam would actually appreciate that joke, so hats off to.
Him, absolutely appreciate it. But benj be my closest learning Palen also a genius lyricist, writer, composer. He wrote all the music for lah Lah Land, The Greatest Showman and Derevan Hanson. He's constantly telling me that I have tools that I don't even realize that I had, or you know, I don't even realize that I have, and that I'm now better equipped to go on and do the other thing. You have to trust that sometimes, and this isn't wou This is how I make decisions, Like I really make decisions based on this, and it's not like airy fairy.
I do this like quite cynically.
I will choose jobs and opportunities based on how much I'll learn. I will choose jobs and opportunities based on how much I'm like, how I can how much I can steal right, Like, how many things can I go into a room with ten smart people with and take out with me? Like That's why two Writers is such a big part of my process. Like I try to go into a TV writers remember a couple of years, not.
Just because it's nice to have healthcare, and it is nice to have healthcare, but also because, like, you're in this room with with between six and ten of the or six and twelve of the funniest, sharpest people you've ever met, that range from it really experienced, genre defining television writers to writers assistants who are really bright and have had to fight so hard to get the jobs that they are and everybody wants and so like, and.
Someone specifically curates this room for a vibe like a team, and then you sit there and listen to these people who are You're so lucky to be around, and like, I have a lot of just for us came out of other people's brains, Like in terms of like the approaches that I saw people take, in terms of like the things I saw people dismiss as cliche. I was like, oh, I have a little that I should get rid of. That like a lot of my editing processes in standards and methods, and like even the story structure of Just for Us. It structured sort of like a multi camera sitcom because it was coming out of a multi camera sitcom room, and the characters in Just for Us are sort of done in a more of a single camera style because I had just come out of a single camera room when I started redeveloping the show. Well, like those subtle differences, like the more places you can put yourself where like you learn something and I hate that this sounds like a nice, like sweet thing.
The more places you can go where you're.
Like stealing techniques, yeah, or like picking stuff up from other smart people, like selecting for yourself, like like goods at a supermarket, what you want from other people's like tastes and skill set, like the better off you'll be.
So that's wonderful.
I love that.
Blend of other people's tastes, you know.
Well sure, but I also think it's it's a really good reminder to make sure you're in rooms with people that are smarter than you.
Oh my god, this is my my number one pet peeve when you say, like, I'm not quite as sure about, like I'm not quite sure about learn about like, uh, what are what our environments are becoming? Has less to do with entitlement, even though I do think it is a problem.
And much more to do with.
Anxiety around opinions that aren't ours and intellects that aren't ours, that that are intellects that are that are not the same exact line that we are.
And so.
I am nervous, very very nervous about uh, I'm very very nervous about like the uh like people's I sometimes notice people in rooms feeling so threatened by those that are smarter than them that they forgot to that they forget to take advantage of those people, like literally, I will not.
I don't know that I could date someone who isn't smarter than me. I don't know.
Everyone I've ever dated has been smarter than me. Everyone I've ever worked with in a serious way has been smarter than me. Everyone I've ever entrusted my Like, why would I entrust myself or why would I put someone in my path who isn't more intelligent than me? And I think people out of fear are seeking out like lesser intellects that share their opinions.
So like and I fight all the time, Like whenever we collaborate on something, we argue. We argue and argue and argue, and.
Like because Bench feels like I'm smarter than he is and that's not true. And I know that Bench is smarter than I am and he's and h. But like, yeah, you need every relationship is like a romantic one. You need to think that you're the lucky person in it. And sometimes I think people seek out folks that they wouldn't feel lucky to be around. It's like a crazy, crazy experience.
And now, for our sponsors, the requirement for critical thinking is being willing to analyze a bunch of possibilities and deduce truth or the most equitable outcome or you know, fill in the blank in any way you want to.
And it reminds me of the last time you and benj and I were together.
We were in a big room of folks trying to make sure that the world doesn't become like one giant fascist heell hole. And as we were talking about certain things that worked, we were also pushing back on each other about the things that don't and it was really important to me. At one point, I was making a point and you jumped in to say yeah, but they will say and you filled in that blank, and I want more of that. I want more of Okay, but what about this smart point. Let's also solve for that. Let's figure out how, you know, if we include this bucket of people, Let's make the bucket of people who think the point you just.
Made is true.
Let's make sure we're figuring out how to communicate with them and invite them to the table. Also, it's the way we build bridges, it's the way policy has to work. You have to take care of the most people possible at all times. Some people want to do that and some people don't want to do the work.
And I find that to be.
So important and to realize that when we're able to kind of go tete a tet, it's not a fight, it's a spirited debate. And I miss I miss that, And I think some of why we miss it is not just that we're being siloed into groups of people we only agree with. But as you see this sort of like base level of fighting, we're missing language, we're missing nuance, we're missing importance. I mean even the fact that when you've talked about the special obviously you as a young Jewish man going to a meeting of white nationalists, we know we're going to touch on anti Semitism, but you talk about how the through line of that show for you is actually about assimilation, not just antisemit It is a really important linguistic distinction. Why do you feel like it's so important to make a distinction like that for people?
Well, I'm i I'd rather have conversations about identity without considering victimhood.
I was.
I will say that until very recently it was somewhat of an anti semitism minimalist. I think there are real instances of anti Semitism. Then there are some where people are like I found a swastika my cross.
For puzzle, and I'm like, that's not real. But I've always thought.
That, like, assimilation is about how you see yourself fitting into the world, and prejudice is about how others see you fitting into the world. And one is very much within your control or more in your control, and others are less so. And the two are obviously linked, right, Like perception is a big part of both of those things. In response to that perception.
It's a big part of both those things.
But like, you know, the cost of fitting in to me has always been more interesting than victim hud.
I find victimhood very boring, and I find.
People claiming oppression to be nonspecific in some instances, like obviously the people who are you know, we can all think of, like there are instances where people are genuinely oppressed, and then there are people who who claim it based on like Donald Trump sometimes is like, I'm the most persecuted man in the world, and you're like, not an You're a billionaire. You're a billionaire monster.
Shut up.
Like you're a billionaire who's gotten away with crime for like fifty years. You're finally being held accountable.
Shut the fuck up.
He's like, oh, yes, I'm There's no one who's more persecuted than me. And you're like, and then sometimes people who are big fans of that guy are like, we're persecuted too, and.
You're like, you're not persecuted. You're fine, Like no one's coming, No one's coming for you, buddy.
Like no.
And so because of that, victimhood as a currency feels very boring to me.
There's an difference between that and redressing.
Aggrievance or shifting a balance, like assimilation is something that to me let me more deeply consider my own identity.
Hmmm, Like what if I thought, also, it's more interesting as a premise. What if a.
Jew walked into a meeting of people that dislike him and just sort of took it for granted that they disliked him and never really never found that to be revelatory. What would be the more interesting questions you could ask right, like, like instead of sometimes I watch various like Instagram clips where people interview.
Like dumb racists as a sort of gotcha.
And the point of the clip to be is to be like, this person is a racist or this person is very very you know, like I'm thinking of a specific person in here, but like their work is good, and I don't want to mismarch to work. But like the point oftentimes for comedy, for really good comedy, is this person is bad. The person I'm interviewing is bad. And sometimes I think, yes, I know that person is someone we would all consider bad. Can you tell me one interesting thing about them? Because we might be able to get it, like a greater truth there, so so I'm always like, you know, I'm more interested in the stuff that comes in underneath than the stuff that's up there on the top, I.
Guess being willing to have such nuanced conversation and to think so critically, and you know, to put yourself in the position you put yourself in to write the show in the first place. Is it interesting to hold that as your sort of container the sort of questions you like to ask and then to be met with. Over the years, so many people in an audience who will be in inspired but also potentially triggered by the subject matter of your show, Like you get so much feedback afterwards. How has how has it been for you? Has it been strange? Has it been amazing? Is there is there impactful feedback you want to share about or are you like, please, God, I don't want to.
Talk about it anymore.
I no, No, I'm happy to talk about like organic feedback. I mean the feedback that was used to me was like people who didn't understand things, people would go how could you go to? That meeting eventually made me right the end of the show, which is like here's why it went, Like we can open yourself up to feedback, you get what audiences actually are curious about. So I get a lot of stuff that audiences are curious about. Also, you know, it was really interesting. Sometimes I would give an answer. I would answer the question and the show that I've been and then I go, but isn't it better if they discuss it? Actually, the better if they guess my intention and get the answer. So, like, I think I learned a really valuable lesson about certain things, which is, if you give people narrative closure, but don't give people You give people like like narrative closure, but don't give people like ultimate closure, then they'll be right.
Like if you don't.
If you if you make a sorry to be more specific about that, this is a craft thing, I guess if you talk about an issue that's tangentially geopolitical like whiteness or identity or you know, and then touch on and then tell a story that touches on those things but doesn't but doesn't give an audience entirely an opinion on the issue written large, then the audience will discuss that opinion when they leave. I hope they've been conversant with it, but you haven't completed the loop. And so some of the smarter critics around the show, or some of the smarter observers around the show, would take the story at face about you, and some of the ones who are a little more prescribed to be like, well, he never takes a position on X y Z because the truth is, like, it's right, it's actually quite boring to be told and uh right, And an audience should work when they're watching the show, and they should have work when they leave, but they should also feel satiated. And so yeah, needles like the essence of live performance.
For me, I love that.
That's such a good nugget. See, that's something everyone at home gets to steal. And clearly it works as a device. I mean, I feel like every single person I know and admire in our entire industry came to see your show and well, no, seriously, and I loved it. I was just like, that's my friend, and like I love this for him. You know, It's sort of like when you feel like you find a new band. Obviously if like they have a record out there doing great, but like before they've popped and become like the biggest band in the world, and then you know, they become the biggest band and you're like I was, They're early, like I feel a little bit of that sort of pride about your show. I sure was, and I loved every minute of it. And then to see like Billy Crystal and Steve Martin my literal idol and like Jerry Seinfeld come to your show, and then you wind up doing a movie with Hint with Jerry like you're you know, for the fans at home, alex Is in Untrusted on Netflix, like.
What it's who cares?
It's still you did a project with Seinfeld, Like was it a wild experience to have those people show up and tell you like I loved this was was the was the little Boy?
And you just totally geeked.
And also I love that, you know, and Amy realized though that, uh, it's a special thing, you know, Like I've not all my work is warmly received. I've done other stuff that's not been as I'm very lucky. I've never been savaged, you know, I've never gotten less three star review. I'm sure it will come with my next thing, but like I've never but you know, I've done some work that people were like.
Okay, it's good for you, buddy, that's pretty good.
Yea, but yeah, it's a joy. It's just like and to have your you know you say, make our for other people. I make art for my worst critics, my family, myself, two friends, one of whom is no longer alive.
And.
The people that made me want to do this, And so genuinely, sometimes I think, what would Seinfeld think if he saw this joke? What would Maria Bamford think if she saw this joke? What would Sloman think if she saw this joke? What would Joan Rivers or Richard Pryor or or you know so and so how would they feel if they saw this joke?
And so, by doing that, you set for yourself a high standard.
And when they come to the show, some of you, like I got a message in Albert Brooks and he enjoyed the special. And there's no one I respect more than Albert Brooks. Like, wow, I ever met the man? I don't know him. His wife Kimberly is a brilliant artist to follow her on Instagram, And so got a message from Kimberly and like I cried, like it is things for your peers and your betters, it really is.
It's special.
I love that well.
Being in this position where you're able to reflect on this so beautifully, and you're obviously ideating on some future projects, one of which I'm very excited about, but no, we can't talk about another of which we did together, and we can't quite talk about it. But hint, hint, it might be that trivia mention I made earlier. Uh, how do you feel about what comes next? What as you sit here, you know, in the middle of the summer in New York, looking back and looking forward, what feels like you're work in progress?
Is it professional? Is it personal? Is it a mix?
It's a mix.
Like I've got to also want to stop for a little while soon I take a break. It's been I've been doing this show for a long time, just for us, I've been talking.
About it for a long time.
Maybe nice to like delineate a chapter of something coming up that'll be busy.
I'm busy. I'm very busy, but like, it won't always be that way.
I'll always have to there might be times in my life have to jump start things or stop things, but like, yeah, you know, for now, I'm happy with where I am. I know that sounds crazy, nuts and I can't even believe I'm saying it, and it's also not true, right, Like it's also not true. I want to do everything. But like you know, I drove my show until the wheels fell off, and I stopped just before them. I stopped eleven months after Adam died because that was the right amount of time.
That's how long JU say cottage for. So that's how I did my show.
But but like my next thing, I just want to keep working, like I really love to work. And my show is up for Emmys and hopefully it gets nominated for things and hopefully people consider it for such.
But like it's a yeah, I don't know.
I'm just writing, I'm doing some acting, I'm doing some like more live stuff. I will always be a comedian. I will never stop doing comedy. So like, yeah, I'm just like the mixture. And at the same time, it would be nice to like calm down a little bit so I can maybe like grab myself and start thinking about a family or something.
So so yeah, yeah, yeah, wait, can we can we tell the internet a little bit about that? As an asterisk? Alex Edelman is single? What are you looking for my? Can I get a date out of this? The people who listen to this podcast, are very smart, So like, what if we find you like a smart cutie.
Nora e fron is who I'm looking for. That's what I'm looking for.
I know she's dead, but I want to like a genius, funny, jewo, weirdo and who's gorgeous. I don't need all of those things.
He has like some boss energy in her.
Yeah, I get that blotsom you know about my like you know everything, you know everything wrong that I do.
I do, But you know, I'm like, let's let's put a little pixie dust out there.
Why not I do?
I mean, I purpose dates, we do it all here.
Oh my god, please don't make this the social post.
I won't socially post it, but people who get to the end of the episode will know, and maybe they'll start DM ing you.
We'll see what happens. I'd like to have a follow up.
Genius gorgeous weirdos. That's my I'm looking for a genius gorgeous weirdo. But that's my love it like I've always I've only ever dated genius gorgeous weirdos.
And so you know what a compliment if you've been on a date with Alex Edelman, feel good about yourself. You're a genius, gorgeous weirdos.
Surely I've not dated any any anyone who isn't one of those things.
Have they always been easy?
No?
But you know, well we're probably not easy either.
We're neurotic and wild and obsessed with facts, so here we go.
We'd nightmares are struggled to be present, so that's the the thing for me.
And we're magical little glitter ponies too. Sure well, I love you, thank you for coming on today.
Oh my god, are you kidding? This is fantastic. M
