What happens when comedians get serious about mental health? Discover a powerful and hilarious new perspective in the full feature documentary, Group Therapy.
Join moderator Neil Patrick Harris as he guides an incredible group of performers including Mike Birbiglia, Nicole Byer, Tig Notaro, Gary Gulman, London Hughes, and Atsuko Okatsuka through a funny and surprisingly honest conversation. This is more than a documentary; it is a unique “docu-therapy” session that aims to break the stigma around mental wellness.
From director Neil Berkeley and co-producers Hartbeat and AXA, this film explores the personal journeys of these comedians, revealing the deep connection between their comedy and their own mental health struggles. The film delivers a simple yet life saving message: sharing is therapeutic.
Settle in for a witty and thoughtful exploration of a topic that affects everyone. Don’t forget to Like, Comment, and Subscribe for more great content from the LOL! Network.
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Every year a million people
commit suicide. A million. That’s 2,800 a day. That’s one every 30 seconds. There goes another guy. Does anyone have drugs to ease
my pain? My kingdom for a quaude. Do you know how hard it is to get a
doctor to write you a prescription for a pill you don’t need? It’s not hard. I love my parents so much I lost my dad. I didn’t
lose him. I mean, I know where he’s at right now. I’ve never really thought of myself as depressed
as much as paralyzed by hope. That’s what your 30s is all about. How can I turn this [ __ ] around?
I’m a horrible person. Help me, Tony Robbins. Help me. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Yeah. I think we
should all just come and sit down and shoot. What did they say you’d be doing today? just
hang out with other comedians and talk about um mental health. I thought that we were gonna
be healed by Neil Patrick Harris. And then it like culminates in a beauty pageant, right?
Yeah. Why is everybody so cute on this show? Myself included. Camera set. All right, here
we go. Ready? All right. Looking right at me. Can we also make it clear this is my living
room and I’m lending it to all the comedians to be interviewed in. All right, you guys
are rolling on everything. Okay. I just Why please? Okay. Okay, who wants to start? All right, here we go. Mark, I’ve done five solo autobiographical shows. And
my director, he and I always talk about how it’s crucial that the show is not therapy. I if it
becomes therapy, it loses the the point. Because in therapy, you’re essentially putting on your
therapist uh your problems, your challenges, your issues with the hope that you’re working through
them. Um and with a show, you’re giving the audience something. It’s actually in some ways the
the opposite or certainly not the same thing at all. Um ideally, you’re providing something to the
audience and not putting it on them. So, who here has struggled with mental health in their lives?
Yes. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I was assuming everyone was going to raise their hand. Audience is like,
“We’re fine. You’re either very healthy or lying.” Um, welcome everybody. What we are doing here
today is not a comedy show. Although the people that we have invited up make their living doing
standup comedy, the six people who are here have been able to use the things that have happened
to them in their lives in effective ways. And I think what I wanted to do was have sort of a
group therapy discussion. To be clear, I am not a therapist. I am not a stand-up comic. I am wildly
unclear as to why I am doing this moderating I think I’m affable. Yeah, we got chosen as the
mentally ill comedians to be in this. Yeah. So, it’s really a high out of thousands of people.
They chose us from all around the world. They chose us. There’s a lot of Yeah, there’s a lot of
comedians. We stuck out. What is it about standing in front of an audience even before you get to the
personal stuff? What is it about you that needs you to do that? Oh, I don’t know. But sometimes
I I hope I’ll eventually answer this question, but I’m going to start here. In kindergarten,
announcing to the class during show and tell that I could Here was the thing that was going
on in show and tell when I was five. The kids were lying. And so when when it became clear
that you weren’t being punished for lying, I was like, “Well, [ __ ] this. I’m going for
it.” And I said, “Uh, I can speak French.” I couldn’t really speak French. I could just do
a French accent because I had seen Inspector Cluso in the Pink Panther movies growing up.
My mom would take me to the movie theater and we were we were poor. So that’s that was like
our air conditioning for a summer day. So I I got up in front of the kindergarten kids and my
teacher and I said, “Um, do you have a monkey?” And then everyone laughed and I thought, “Oh,
I’ll do everything I need to to make this happen again and again.” When was the first time you
thought you were funny? I was never the class clown in school. I know some people were, but in
my town, I grew from Massachusetts. Like, Gary, for the class was the mean guy walks room like,
“You’re fat. You’re gay. I’m out of here.” You know, I was I was always a little fat and a little
gay. Like, I never got along with that guy. Like, I I wasn’t class clown. I was the first time I
remember getting attention was I was like probably five. I remember I actually pulled my pants on and
just chat in our backyard. Um so it was physical comedy first or so that was you know that that
was the height of my sophistication. Now that was prop comedy. Prop comedy. When I was a girl I
liked my insides but I didn’t like my outsides. I knew I was like sweet and funny and nice and
and charming but I didn’t like how I looked. I didn’t like that I was I didn’t think I was
cool. It felt like I was auditioning. Like life was one big audition and everybody was judging me.
Yeah, that’s that’s who I was when I was younger. I couldn’t take a joke. I was the worst. Like
all my family were funny when they’d be roasting each other and I’d be crying like don’t say mean
things. And everyone was like, “You need to get a tough skin. You’re eight. You need to like you
need to grow up. We are the Huses. We are a funny family. We make jokes. this is what we do. And
I’m like, “No, you’re teasing me.” And then like something transitioned in me and I said to my dad,
like, “Dad, I think I’m ready.” And he was like, “Listen, now if it’s got like it better be good if
you’re bringing it to the table.” And I was like, “I’m I’m bringing a joke to the table.” And I
made a joke up when I was eight. What was it? So I was like, “What do you call a Rasta man
that wears glasses?” Raster. And they all went and I was in. I told my joke and I was funny from
then. I didn’t cry when people teased me anymore. I was in. I was in. But I also like that they were
very angry about the comedy. Yeah, cuz they were like, why can’t you take a joke? We’re a funny
family. We are the funny. I envy y’all with like, “Oh, my family is so funny.” I come from a family
of like non-affers. They’re not interested in anything. My grandma doesn’t listen to any
music. She doesn’t listen to TV. Nothing. It’s just silence in the home that she just cooks and
eats. And so it’s just like I really need this is what I’m saying. Yeah. I don’t know if anything my
family does is a typical family dynamic. You know, in Japan it was taboo to even be from a family,
you know, where it’s broken they call it, right? Like so like I was the only kid I was the only
kid in my class usually with divorced parents. How did you develop your sense of humor if
that was your if that was your upbringing? It was from like watching TV. I learned
English from Scooby-Doo and so like you know so yeah. So I was like an outcast. They
were like what? Why does she talk like that? That’s how you developed your sense of humor was
because everybody’s just like cooking and Yeah. And then I was like is this dead pan comedy?
There was like eat right eat please eat right. Did you eat? No. Eat. Please eat. Eat. Eat.
Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Did you eat? No. No. I didn’t think so. Eat. Please
eat now. Eat. Eat. Did you eat? No. Please eat. I cook. Eat now. Please eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.
Did you eat? No. Please eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Did you eat? No. I didn’t think
so. I cooked now. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. And then the next time they
see you, they call you fat. There was confusion and frustration and a
lot of sadness. I was very sad. So I was always projecting, well my grandma’s so sad,
you know. My grandma had to raise three kids on her own. Her husband was murdered when she
was 30, you know, and then her daughter has mental illness and epilepsy and doesn’t leave
the house. So she still takes care of my mom, her daughter at 89 years old. You
know, my grandma raised me, you know, so I didn’t really hang out with people
my age growing up. Yeah. Yeah. You know, people always like, Oscar, what’s wrong with you?
Someone 50 years older than me taught me how to socialize. Okay. I think that’s the core of my
comedy is wanting other people to feel seen, to build that camaraderie so that nobody feels
isolated um like I have ever felt, you know? Smells food. Can I do it? Okay. Two
camera marks. Apples and bananas. Make sure you just make it seem natural.
Oh, I forgot we’re doing a documentary. That was very natural. I’ve never been a part of any group therapy uh
type situation. Have you done group therapy? No, I haven’t. Certainly not with Neil Patrick
Harris. And what is what is his role? He’s a psychologist. He’s a medical doctor. I’m
having a uh hot flash. Yeah. I didn’t move to Los Angeles to become a comedian. And I
didn’t move to be in the entertainment. My two good friends that I grew up with
were headed out to LA. I I was like, “Well, I guess I’m moving to LA.” In uh high
school, I was um I was voted least likely. I’ve been running with it ever since. And I
was just very much the failure in school. And uh I failed three grades, dropped
out of high school. My mother, she was always just wanting to make sure
that I knew the most important thing in life was to be happy. Even down to dropping out
of high school, my mother would brag to people. She’s like, “Yeah, Tig dropped out.” You
know, she’s she’s doing her own thing and my own thing. But I had nothing going
on. Like when I was performing in dingy, smoky bars in the Dakotas, she still thought I was
doing cool things. Do you work here? Can you hold this? I loved that my mother was into it. So, I’ve
never had this, you know, I’ll show everyone back in my hometown or the people I grew up with or my
parents or my mother. I just have never felt that way at all. My parents just thought, “You’re
crazy. Like, just be a normal person. My mom just wanted me to have kids. Just have kids.” You
know those pushy parents that you see in TV shows, stage moms? I wish I had a stage mom. I had
a normal mom, normal dad. didn’t think that like anything would happen with my career. So, I
was like, I’ve got to take my career into my own hands. My parents didn’t really do that either.
Like, there was nothing I could do that would like elicit like a reaction to be like, I’m so proud
or whatever. Especially my dad. My dad was an engineer at AT&T, which is like I don’t know,
science. When I decided that I wanted to act, he was like, “What the [ __ ] is wrong with you?
Who’s single? Except for daddy over here. You’re single. What are you looking for? Confident
dude. That’s it. Girl, come on. A job. You’re diagnosed with ADHD. Was that recent? This was
29 or 30. I had a friend who was like, “Hey, you need therapy.” And I was like, “That’s pretty
rude.” But it turns out she was right. and I had an assessment and she let me talk uninterrupted
for like 10 minutes and she was like, “It’s bad.” Yeah. Things were happening that I don’t know
if I could Google. I don’t know if I could put it into words what was going on in my brain.
I just felt like I was lazy and crazy. Once I got that diagnosis, I was like, “Oh my god,
I’m not an idiot.” My like most magical moment on stage was my Netflix special. Did you have
a monitor with your set list on it? No. I wish. Oh my god. No. Little little helpful. I love
that for you. But I was like looking to make sure I was like on track and it was like stop
costumes needs to see you. And I was like, “Yeah, and stop costume.” And I said it out loud. I went,
“Oh, I think they’re trying to tell me to stop.” I often seem very unhinged when I’m performing,
but I think that’s just who I am in life. You are babes. My current therapist sometimes she’s like,
“Hey, can we just hold some space that you will lose your keys twice a week. Can we just That’s
just a thing that’s going to happen.” And yeah, it’s frustrating, but you always find them and you
always get to where you’re going eventually. Yeah. I think bombing gets easier. I mean, I don’t
like it. No, I hate it. Bombing in England, I’m fine with. Bombing in America makes me
feel sick. When I bomb America, I’m like, I’ve let down Richard Prior, all the people
that have performed on this stage. Like, there’s so much more history to it. I
remember the first time like, how many big names have performed here? And you get your
opportunity to perform and you do that, you idiot. I find influences super important. Did you have
any I’m here with some of my influences. Yeah. Which is what’s so cool about comedy for the
most part. We’ve been in the trenches together, right? So, there’s camaraderie. Yeah. I I
watched Gary and Tig and Mike when I was a young comedian. My first like set ever. I was
trying to sound like Tig. People were like, “Is she so TIG is more dead pan and like you know
takes time.” We also dress differently. Of course, a little bit we dress differently and you know,
we’re just different people. We are. So that’s that. Nobody ever mistakes us. The first time
I probably intersected with Richard Lewis, I was probably six or seven. He was a really
good-looking guy with long hair and he was cool. He dressed in all black. Thank you. I’m uh I’m
thrilled to be here. And he was just really honest about how miserable he was and how anxious and
nervous and also how full of self self-loathing. And even like a week ago, I’m in bed. This woman I
was I was so looking forward to this sexually and uh I just I well I’m screwed up. She says,
“Don’t you want to have an orgasm?” And I said, “What’s in it for me?” You know? So So how did
you know that that was going to be you when you were older? Like how did why did you resonate with
this old miserable man? I remember thinking, “Oh, there’s a there’s a spot for somebody like
me who’s quirky, funny, and and miserable.” My dad loved comedy. He loved Richard Prior, and he would laugh at Richard Prior. And I
didn’t know what Richard Prior was saying, but I’d know when to laugh, so I could laugh
at the same time as my dad. So I just be like, I discovered masturbating by accident. I’m
not lying. I was about 10. I was in the tub and that’s when you used to have to hold your
dick with two fingers. I mean, I said, “Hey, I’m on to something here. I bet dad don’t
know about this.” Yeah, I think we’re all a little bit influenced by Richard Prior. He’s
like in some ways the godfather of a type of autobiographical storytelling and comedy,
opening himself up to the audience. Say, “Here’s my flaws. Here’s my problems. Here’s
let me tell you about my drug problem. Let me tell you about the time I lit myself on fire
and it nearly killed me.” Now listen to me. All the people you ever heard of Freemason,
have you ever heard of anybody blowing up? Why me? 10 million [ __ ]
freebase. I got to blow up. There’s something about that. Seeing someone like
him who’s such a tremendous performer open himself wide open and be funny about it all at the same
time there. It’s just inspiring. Seven years ago, I I started walking in my sleep. I was living
with my girlfriend at the time and I started having a recurring dream that there was a
hovering insectlike jackal in our bedroom and I would see this hovering jackal and
I would jump on our bed and I would strike a karate pose and I would say that was my
girlfriend. There’s a jackal in the room. Well, around this time, I remember thinking,
well, this seems dangerous. Maybe I should see a doctor. And then I thought, maybe I’ll eat
dinner. And I went with dinner for years. I have a serious sleepwalking disorder that got so bad
that I I actually jumped through a second story window sleepwalking in Walaw Wala, Washington
at a at a motel called Linta Inn. There are two important details. One, I was on the second
floor. to the window was closed. It was January, so I jumped through a window like the Hulk.
But my epiphany as a comedian was that when I started talking about it on stage, I thought
that it would be very dramatic and actually it was very funny and people were laughing. Not
because they also jumped through a window, but because something extraordinary in their life that
made them feel anxiety or made them feel alienated from other people. If comedy is impersonal,
if it’s entirely outside of yourself, you run the risk of losing the humanity of what live
performance has the potential for. There’s a human connection in that moment between the performer
and the audience. And that’s unbelievable. When I go to a show and there’s a single performer
on stage connecting with a thousand people all at the same time. Oh, great. There’s stairs. I think
my grandfather calling me fat every Thanksgiving is what’s keeping him alive. We’re all feeling
a thing and we’re all laughing at a thing. That’s magical. That joke came from pain. Let’s
transcend it. I grew up in the 70s and 80s and um as a sensitive boy, not a not a very
accommodating time for sensitive boys. And so someone asked me for advice and I say
like, hey, maybe you should tell that story. It’s a personal story. It’s twofold. One
is I’m saying the audience would enjoy that so they could have that kind of magical
connection, but also like it’s good for you too. Like it’s a more deep human connection
with your own material and what you’re sharing. I have my I love therapy. I go to therapy. I have
couples therapy. My husband goes to therapy. My mother I pay for her therapy. My brother. I’m big
into the idea that talking about stuff provides solutions. Well, that’s the thing is you can find
yourself in anybody’s story. Yeah. I had advice from a really good therapist who I didn’t want
to tell anybody about anything about my life. And he said, “If you’re an open book, nobody
will have anything on you.” There’s another famous phrase is you’re only as sick as your
secret. Secrets said by the very wise Oprah. Oh, is that Oprah? She’s wise. Oprah said
that. She is so wise. Oprah wise wise, but she might have gotten that
from a guest, but I know I got it. I know. I got it. I know.
I got it through Oprah. So, it’s all under the Oprah umbrella.
Wait a minute. Does Oprah get credit for everything that guest? She also
wrote a lot of the Beatles catalog. See, also you all all of you have doctors is what
I’m realizing. Wait a second. You don’t have you don’t see a therapist or have a Oh, yeah. I
haven’t had a therapist in year. I’m I’m raw dogging it right now. This is Wow. Wow. My This
is my true authentic self. Unfiltered. It’s almost like I woke up one day and everyone I was like,
“We have a therapist. We signed up without you.” And I’m like, “You have a for how long?” They’re
like, “Oh, we’ve all been seeing a therapist.” I was like, “Was there a group or a discount
that I missed?” Everyone, you think there will be a time? I don’t want to talk about it so much
because I haven’t felt like I’m ready or that I would have I I feel like Yeah. I Does anyone else
have diagnosed medical conditions? Yeah. I mean, I have a major depressive disorder and anxiety.
Yeah. I take medicine and that changed my life, of course. Yeah. What are the the valleys like?
I say that because I think standup seems rot with so much insecurity because you’re writing your
own material. You’re literally putting yourself and your stories out to other people to judge
them night after night, show after show. And it seems like if depression is an issue that
it would be a challenging career. I mean, it is a challenging career, but it’s also a
a career that allows you to to go to work at 9:00 p.m. Yes. and wear what you wore all day.
And they don’t require you to shower or anything like that or put on put on ironed clothes. At
17 years old in 1988, I was 6’6 and 255 lbs. I had built a very convincing man costume. I was
bigger and faster and stronger than everybody. So, I did very well in high school and then I
got to college and everybody was the Gary Gman of their high school and it was
just I was overwhelmed and I was like, but this is all I have, all I am. And about
3 weeks into it, I I had this breakdown. I didn’t know that I was being seen as as this this
great potential which is I think it’s a quote from from Socrates or somebody who said uh those the
gods wish to destroy they first call promising. I was athletic. I’ll own that. But then we
put on football helmets and pads and I go out there and these guys just kick my ass for three
weeks every I mean guys bigger than me but also guys just smaller and faster and tougher than
me. I dropped a ball in in the end zone and I went home on a Friday night and slept through
Saturday afternoon. Stayed in my room on Sunday. I had put my self-esteem into how I was on
a football field. And my brother was really helpful. He said, “You need to go to the trainer
on on Sunday and tell him that you’re suffering.” I don’t know. I don’t know why you cry. My older brother told me, “Tell the trainer that
you you have depression.” My brother diagnosed me. I didn’t really understand what it what it was,
what the symptoms were. I just I just thought I was very weak. And I went to the trainer. I went
to a therapist, got diagnosed, and suddenly this thing I’d felt since I was seven had a had a name
and that was helpful. But then it wasn’t until like 6 months in they put me on a medication. And
I remember when it kicked in, I remember like, oh, this is how everyone else feels all
the time. Yeah. Right. Screw this back in. How are you feeling about all the feeling? So, I
do feel a little scatterbrained. Really? I forgot to take my medicine today. There’s been uh a
couple times where I have very much zoned out and not been here, but then I kind of have
to ground myself a little bit and be like, “Someone’s talking.” Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my
relationship with standup is it’s very up and down. Right now I’m in a phase where
I don’t want to tour. I do want to tour. I don’t want to tour. I do want to tour. I don’t
want to write. I do want to write. I’ve had a lot of moments where I didn’t want to do it.
And I had weeks where I was like, “Oh yeah, I quit comedy. I don’t do comedy anymore.” But
here’s the the thing. I I used to think I need jokes and I need 45 minutes and I need an hour.
And I think about how daunting it must be to have this I can’t concentrate. I can’t concentrate to
sit down to write the hour. There’s a book called bird by bird about writing. It was advice that
the author’s father had given his child. He said, “Well, how am I going to do this big report about
all the birds of North America?” And he said, “Uh, bird by bird,” which is right. And then how do
you write jokes? One sentence at a at a time. Me personally, I look at all the birds in the sky and
I go, “Oh my god, how on earth am I going to do all of this?” But if I just keep in my brain just
one bird at a time. You like parrots, start with a parrot and then you can move on to a flamingo,
but make sure you get to that parrot first. Do some easy ones up front. Yeah, that’s just like
a nice thing to be like, Nicole, one bird at a time. Yeah. The the author is Ann Lamont. and
Lamont. Lamont. L M O T. Like Lamont. Lamont. Am I not saying it good? Yeah, because there’s
no N in Lamont. Like Mott’s Lam Applesauce. M or Mott Street or M Haven if you’re if you live
in the neighborhood that I live in, which is called M Haven. I can’t believe you had so many
examples of just in your pocket. Yeah, I collect When I was starting out in the early
2000s, just like in New York clubs, it was tough. People would be so mean to me,
like merciless, cuz I was young, young 20s. Mitch Hedber was the first person who like was
someone who I really admired and asked me to open for him on like a whole bunch of dates. Whenever
I want, people try to hand me out flyers. And when someone tries to hand me out a flyer, it’s kind of
like they’re saying, “Here, you throw this away.” I would ask them all kinds of questions.
And you know, when you’re the opening act, you pick up the headliner sometimes and bring
them to the club. Like that’s part of the gig, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I just couldn’t believe it.
It’s like literally like there’s c there’s moments in in my comic career where things like that where
I’m like, “This is the best thing I’ve ever done by far.” I actually have a habit of making awkward
situations even more awkward. Like I was moving a new bed into my apartment recently and this woman
that lived in the building opened the front door for me with her key and she goes, “I’m not worried
because a rapist wouldn’t have a bed like that.” Now, what I should have said was nothing. What I did say was, “You’d be surprised.” And then we went uh I was like, “Do you guys
want to go bowling?” There was a bowling alley. I had my own bowling shoes. Oh, boy. Yeah, I know.
Hey, uh, now’s a good time to announce that I am a nerd. I go bowling and I’m nervous because it’s
like my hero Mitchburg and I’m bowling all kinds of like zeros and gutter balls and cared. Well,
at the end of it, he says to me, “Thought when you asked us to go bowling that you would be good at
bowling.” I’ll give you a fact about Mitch. Time magazine once dubbed Mitch the next Seinfeld. Was
this our friend who had the uh drug problem? Well, you know, I got the drugs under control now. Do
you? Yeah. You had to take them responsibly. Yeah. Just, you know, just for the creative side of it
with Mitch’s drug stuff. I was I was in the dark to some degree like most people. Like I wouldn’t
witness it. Wouldn’t be out in the open. Were you aware that it was happening? I would hear
stories about it. I used to do drugs. I still do. But I used to, too. Yeah. I mean, I saw Mitch
about a week before he died at Caroline’s. Um, I like to drink before the show. I have a
couple drinks before I go on stage. Every time people applaud, I’m always going, “No,
no, no. Hold on.” He asked me to come up and like do a guest set and afterwards I saw we went
to a bar and people like fans of his were coming up to him and like like offering him drugs, like
handing him drugs. And the first one I was like, “Fuck, this is bad. This is this is bad.” My
manager’s cool. He gets concerned. He says, “Mitch, don’t use liquor as a crutch. I can’t
use liquor as a crutch because a crutch helps me walk.” In relation to substance issues, I
think like everyone in his life, I I I struggled with what could we have done differently? And I
Alcoholism is a disease, but it’s like the only disease that you can get yelled at for heaven. I
got to get off this damn stage. I wish it was just like a trap door that would open up and I’d fall
in it. You are done. And I land on a couch and have a drink. I’ve had I, you know, I’ve lost
a handful of comedian friends over the years, Mitch Hedber and Greg Geraldo and and others. And
the pain of it doesn’t go away. There’s there’s no answer in it. I remember at Mitch’s memorial
was with Mitch’s mom and David outside together. It was really sweet. David Tell, I think one of
the great comedians of all time. And and Dave said a thing that I mean in some ways it’s sort
of silly but in some ways there’s a lot of truth to it is he goes just like you know like we’ll
always have the records and I love that. Yeah. We’ll always have the records cuz it’s true. Like
I still listen to Hedber Records. Oh yeah. Yeah. The makeup artists in England are
insane. Oh no. When I was at the BBC, the makeup artist that they had for me, she’d
never done makeup for black people before, and she panicked. She didn’t realize I would be
black, and she didn’t have any black makeup, so she put cocoa powder on my face. What? Literally
like an actual tea. Yes. On my face. Like you can drink it. And she tricked me because I could smell
it. And I was like, “It smells really chocolatey.” And she was like, “Oh, it’s called cocoa.” She
put me in blackface. It was just ridiculous. So, yes. London, what on earth are you doing? I was
doing children’s television to pay the bills and because I wanted to be on TV and that was the only
like form of television that would upset me. Oh, the toilet toilet. More like you smell like
a bog brush. Kids TV in Britain’s so diverse. And that’s where it stops. And then like normal
television is just old white men and hot young white women or just hot young white men. I was
told I wasn’t conventionally attractive. So I didn’t see myself as attractive. So I just was
like, you’re a ugly black girl trying to make jokes in Britain and they keep telling you
no. And uh I watched a lot of my white male friends become famous. Like one by one they’d
start comedy one year and the next year they’d be on TV. And I just saw it happen happen.
and all of a sudden you just get depressed. And so after every show it felt like a rejection.
It would make me die inside. And I’ll go in the comments and read the comments because I’m looking
for people to call me ugly or annoying or not funny. But every negative thing that anyone’s
ever said about me, I’ve already thought about it. Thought it about myself. People had problems
with my hair. They didn’t know what the [ __ ] it was. Now everybody look like me. Haha. Like
watching American TV and just seeing people like Whoopi Goldberg and people like Brandy and
and Tia and Tamara from Sister Sister and Moisha and all these black girls that are all American.
I said to myself, that’s where I need to be. Once I get to America, they’ll see because blackness
in Britain was American blackness. The music we listen to American. Our heroes Oprah American.
Beyonce American. Whoopy Goldberg American. So, as a black British girl that’s trying to make
her mark in anything, I had to look to America as guidance to get me there. I tell you what, I just
turned 31. I know I don’t look it. What? Just turn one. I’m very attractive. It’s not a joke. It’s
more factual. I’m rich. I’m rich as [ __ ] guys. Seriously. When I eat McDonald’s, I eat McDonald’s
in Beverly Hills. Okay. I’m rich as [ __ ] Like in Britain, a lot of the female comics there,
God bless them, they uh they would like just stand still, keep the microphone on the stand and then
just like put their hair back behind their ears and speak like this and then maybe an anal jerk
and then that’s it. This whole tone like that. And I watched that and I was like, I don’t like
that. That’s not me. So I was like, what do I want to do? And I would like take the mic off the
stand, kick it down. All I know is that if I was a mute that worked in 7-Eleven, I’d be married
by now. It’s true. It’s true. And I ain’t even been proposed to. There’s [ __ ] in Kentucky with
no teeth that have been proposed to. [ __ ] is wrong with me? I’m in your face. I’m loud. And
then essentially that just became how I enjoyed standup and how I wanted to perform and show the
world who I was. So, is is the version of you that you’re presenting when you’re doing standup
armor like a a character version of you? Not I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. No, it is
100%. My standup version of me is basically just a ultimate bad [ __ ] And so, I don’t know. When
I’m on stage, my energy and my standup rhythm, like Tig was talking about, is gunfire. It’s
like like I literally won’t give you enough time to laugh. You’re laughing. Choke on those.
Here’s some more jokes. So, like when I watch comics like Tig and Aco and they’re on stage and
they’re like drinking the water. Like I’ve never done that before. Like I literally do not stop.
I’ll stop for the applause breaks obviously. I’m just like is that to potentially overcome
an insecurity? I probably I probably am like I’m not good enough to stop. So I got to keep
going. I should try your style. Yeah, try it. Yes. Go on, pig. I would be
like, “Oh, God.” Yeah. Jeez, my spinal fusion. Yeah. Tat. Yes.
Everyone’s dead. Anal jokes. Ain’t no coming at you with my anal jokes. I think my style changed over the years. Um,
when I first began it was very kind of oneliner, quick joke. I noticed more and
more women are getting fake boobs. Meanwhile, I still haven’t even
gotten real ones yet. Then it became I went on Conan once and pushed a stool around, made everybody uncomfortable, but uh feel like
maybe some of you aren’t into it. got some laughs. But yeah, I just I I kind of allowed myself
to do whatever I felt most comfortable doing at that time. And then that’s also what ended up
happening in 2012. Can you talk a little bit about the circumstances leading up to that? Well, in a
4-month period of time in 2012, I had pneumonia. Then I contracted this very deadly disease.
Cadiff, the intestinal disease. Then my mother tripped, hit her head and died. My girlfriend and
I split up. And then I was diagnosed with invasive cancer. And uh yeah, I didn’t have depression.
I had sa deep deep sadness. Deep deep fear. Deep deep sadness. Deep deep fear. I had this show
booked at the venue Largo in Los Angeles. And I remember I called to say, “Hey, I I don’t think I
can do this. I’m really struggling emotionally and physically.” And um and I remember the owner
saying, “Let’s just keep it on the books and just see how you feel when we get to that date.”
And I thought, “This guy, I don’t think he heard me.” Uh my mother died and I have cancer and my
girlfriend, you know, and um but he was like, “Yeah, just if you don’t want to do it, you can
cancel it the second before you’re going to walk on stage.” And I thought, “Okay.” Okay. And as
it got closer to the show date, I found myself making jokes about these different things that
I hadn’t been able to find humor in. I allowed myself to go with what was happening. And
that was that it didn’t make sense to do anything other than to share what
was actually going on in my life. Good evening. Hello. I have cancer. How are you? Is everybody
having a good time? Diagnosed with cancer. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. It might not be okay, but I’m just
saying you’re going to be okay. After my mother died, the hospital sent
this questionnaire asking how her stay at the hospital went. And when I first
got that in the mail, I was outraged. Whereas that night I walked on stage, I
talked about it and I answered the entire questionnaire. Number one, during this
hospital stay, did nurses explain things in a way you could understand? I mean,
considering you had zero brain activity. Number four, suggestions for improvements, such as, should we stop sending
questionnaires to dead people? There was nervous laughter. There was hysterical
laughter. People were stunned. People were confused. I really felt like I was stepping
off of a ledge and suddenly I could fly. Even if I was maybe going to crash and burn, it was
very freeing to share these personal aspects. What if I just transitioned right now into silly just jokes right now? No. I
want to hear more bad news. No, this is [ __ ] amazing. Oh, on that note, let’s take like a five
minute break. Let’s take a break. Do we leave the room? I find LA the the hardest city to live in because
it’s a very industrycentric town where everyone at their level is annoyed seemingly that
they’re not at the next level. Thank you. We got invited to the Vanity Fair party after
the Oscars. Like we made it. We’re at the [ __ ] Vanity Fair party and we walk in, we do the whole
thing and then we’re like looking and there’s like a velvet roped area in the and we’re like what?
Who’s in and they’re like, “Oh no, that’s a” So then the next year we got invited back and we’re
like, “Can we get into you know we know it’s like a velvet ropey kind of area that would be could
we go in that?” So we did and we got and we get into the velvet rope area and we’re sitting
there. We’re hanging out with a couple people. Maybe Brian Cranston was there. It was so fun. And
then everyone starts leaving and we’re like, “Oh, where you going?” Oh, we’re going to Madonna’s
thing. And we’re like, another velvet literally And then you go to Madonna’s and there’s a group
of people that get to go like downstairs to the where Madonna is at Madonna’s part. So that was
LA to me was like no matter the cool spot you got. It felt like there was another level. And the
thing is, if you would have been fine, if you hadn’t seen that velvet robe, you would have had
a great time. You would have had the best time. I’m watching Britney Spears dance
dance. She’s just, you know, she always just dances semi- naked in her
house. Oh yes. I remember being 12 knowing that Britney Spears made it on the Mickey
Mouse Club. She was 12 and I hadn’t made it and I wasn’t on the Mickey Mouse Club
or Barney. I remember just feel feeling like I’ve missed my chance. I’ve passed my
prime and that was me at 12. So me at 34. It’s no surprise that I’m blonde right now. I
remember wanting to be a white girl so badly because I just I thought as a kid that like
the being white was seen as beautiful. Richard, I don’t want to be obsessed with race, but uh
this is a different angle I’ve really never heard anybody discuss. Uh can white writers write for
you? You know what I mean? If they write for the human being in me, yes. If they write if they try
to write for some idea they have of what I would be as a black person, they usually cannot do that.
Most of the the shows that we have on British TV that include black people were written or created
by white people. And for me, because I was in the industry and I wasn’t like I wasn’t like that.
I wasn’t like black enough for the white people. Then also I’m black. I was too black for the
white people as well. Earlier in my career, like I’d be steered in a direction to sound a
certain type of way. What would be a case of somebody trying to sound black? Could you give an
example? You know, like I mean I I know they don’t mean any harm, but they don’t realize how ignorant
it is when trying to have that black voice that uh some whites try to do. They really
don’t do well. Like why you jive turkey? Yeah. I did a commercial. It’s one of the
only commercials I’ve ever booked. I play a fairy in it. And at the audition, the casting
director was like, “Be as black as you can be, and if you go too black, I’ll bring you back.” And
in the room, in the room, I was like, “How is she going to bring me back?” One, two, what is too
black? Um, was she black? You know, she wasn’t. You know, it was a thin white woman who was like, “I want you to say things that your people say,
like call the little boy son and say sister.” And she wanted like neck movements for a
fairy to be like, I grant your wish. Um, and the comic in you could probably know that is
it material potentially. I ended up uh writing a sketch about it called Be Blacker. Nicole, I need
you to be blacker. Do you understand what I mean when I say blacker? No, I’m sorry. I I don’t. Do
you know how to be sassy? Yes. Let me see. Yeah, sassy. That’s great. Sassy. I want you to take
that. Go right into it. I love that. Zass it up. Sassy. Still rolling. Go ahead. Luana,
did you get those clams I asked for? Oo, child. I got them clams. I got everything on that
list you gave me. Okay. Um, have you heard of Ma? It doesn’t feel good when someone’s like, “The
black you are is not the black I want. I want you to pretend to be this other type of black that
I only know from TV.” Or whatever. And it wasn’t only that. I was I’m like also fat and I had to
be in a harness and hoisted to the sky. And the first thing the stunt guy said was, “We tested
this. I’m the biggest man we could find. You’re bigger.” But we tested. I was like, so I’m like
a parody of a black person. I might die. I’m the biggest thing there. People are like staring at
me. It was wild. The whole thing was wild. Wow. You’re told as a kid, “Oh, oh, she’s fat.”
And you’re told that fat is a bad word. In my early 20s, I worked at a clothing store
called Lame Bryant. I called it Lame Giant. Nobody thought it was funny. And I would wear
like really skintight clothing. And my manager, she looked just like Shrek. Her name was Judith.
Please leave her name in. And she would like yell at me, reprimand me. She would be like, “You
can’t wear tight clothing.” And I in my brain, I was like, “What? So am I lying to the other
fat people about being fat? That’s insane.” I just had like an epiphany where I was like, “I
don’t give a [ __ ] I’m just going to wear what like I feel comfortable in.” And then I started
wearing bikinis out in public and then I was like, people do stare, but I was like, that
means my body is really powerful. So, I tell a lot of fat jokes and there’s always
someone in the audience who’s like, Nicole, you’re not fat, girl. No, you’re beautiful,
[ __ ] I know. Look at this. Thank you. It’s nice to like pull from something where
you’re like, “Oh, that didn’t feel great.” and turn it into something great. You’ll talk about
anything on stage for the most part. Yeah. I don’t know. I just feel like everyone kind of goes
through [ __ ] So, like, why not talk about it? Because there’s somebody in the audience that’s
gone through it or identifies with it. Nice. After my mother passed away, I was
diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer, but I have not told anybody yet. You’re the first people to find out.
Wow, that’s a very cold response. After all of the attention I got, it confused
me because everybody was saying that I found my voice and that I am a dark trutht teller and and
I was thinking, “Yeah, I guess that’s what I am.” And before my surgery, I was already relatively
flatchested. And uh I made so many jokes over the years about how small my boobs were that I
started to think that maybe my boobs overheard me and we’re just like, you know what? We’re sick of this. Let’s kill her. But I was really lost, you know. I
was I was still swirling from so much. I was trying to have a child even before Stephanie and I got together.
And I kept it a secret from her cuz I didn’t want to freak her out in the beginning of our
relationship to be falling in love and and say, “Oh, by the way, I’m also injecting
myself on the side of the road with hormones to try and have a child by myself.
Want to go out?” Once I revealed it to her, I couldn’t believe that she was all in. and she
was like, “I I don’t want you hiding that from me. I want to be a part of that.” And I couldn’t
I could not believe she was saying that. Then we started to do that together as a couple. I was
the subject of a a documentary film called TIG. The producers and directors wanted me to get
the results of my pregnancy test on camera. I know if the news that he’s in there, if that is
the news, I don’t think it would be possible to have another bad day while I’m alive because
of my health. It was questionable whether or not I should be even trying to do this hormone
treatment to have it just it was it was really a lot. Oh my gosh. There’s the doctor. Oh,
boy. And then I got the the news on camera. Hello. Uh, hi. So, I got the results of
the blood test and um, unfortunately, I don’t have uh, good news for you. Uhhuh.
The results came back as less than two for pregnancy test and that means it’s negative.
It’s so wild to think about now because there really wasn’t an ounce of my being that
thought that um it wasn’t going to happen. I was so convinced it was devastating.
And there I was with cameras on me. I really wanted privacy at that moment. Yeah, copy that. I have massive imposttor syndrome
with a lot of things. You know any of these? No. No. I think I’ve met I think I’d met Gary before,
but like decades before. So that’s as much as I know anyone here. Gary and I have funny history
because when we first met, I was in Los Angeles for a few days. You and I did a show together on
Sunset Strip at some bar and then he was like, “Here’s my number. Let’s hang out.” And then you
ghosted me for about five years. That is funny. Why did you ghost me? I thought you When I wasn’t
on stage, I was frequently standing on a a window sill. Like I was I’ve never been more depressed.
I was on the 12th floor and I remember looking out. The thing that saved me was like I know I’m
going to regret it halfway down. Oh wow. But I would stand up there. Would there be anyone that
could take you off that ledge at that point or would it had just have to be you? It was just me.
Yeah. I mean, somebody I always thought somebody would call with some nice thing or something
like that, but I was calling you. It’s me. I was calling. I called the ledge. I even called the
landline that was attaching to the ledge. Yes. You kidding me? Were you paying rent or were you
just standing out on a lot? No, it was a break. Since I’ve been 7 years old, I couldn’t imagine
an ending for my life that wasn’t self-inflicted. How fresh is that thought now? Oh my gosh. Yeah. When was the last time I had
that thought? Sure. Probably October of 2017. The best 2017 was Chris Pine. He was Captain Kirk in
Star Trek and the love interest in Wonder Woman. Let’s compare to my 2017 Psych Ward. I would
have 3 to six month periods of of depression. I remember as early as seven years old just
about every year through 46. And then at 46 I had one that lasted for two and a half years.
And um it had never been that deep. It had never lasted that long. It was it was just my wife
said, “I thought you were dying.” I was like catatonic on the couch all day long. I
couldn’t take shows. And that was the one thing I was always able to do through my
at that point 24 year career was pull myself together for an hour or so each night and work
and then I couldn’t even do that. Excruciating. This is like a a a cosmic bottom like a bottom.
I’d been offered to come into the hospital for two years and and I’ve fought it because of every
reason why people are afraid of hospitals. Movies and television tell you that the psych wart
is is uh dangerous and it’ll make you worse and that it’s unclean and I checked myself in
and it was it was ordinary. Other than you have to give up your shoelaces and wear socks with
treads on them, it’s very ordinary. and I got recognized by another patient from television
and he said, “I don’t I won’t tell anybody and I don’t don’t want to embarrass you, but am
I crazy or are you Gary Goldman?” And I said, “Uh, oh, you’re crazy.” But I’m only taking
that from the context. My psychiatrist is an advocate for and an expert in something called
electroconvulsive therapy, which used to be called electroshock therapy, but they felt electroshock
was not quite horrifying enough. They said, “Yes, electroshock is disturbing, but I feel like
we’re softelling the convulsions.” I had only seen that in one flew over the cuckoo’s nest and
it scared and it scared the [ __ ] out of me. But I’m grateful that I can talk about it from the
other side and and make people less afraid of of those treatments because they’re not it’s the gold
standard and especially for treatment resistant depression. What I’m trying to say is I’ve tried
everything up to then every medication pamelore and then Prozac, Selelexa, Aexa, Zyprea. I think
my doctor just said, “Let’s try drugs that rhyme.” And it was and it was that that that I think rewired or defragged or however
you want to put it to my brain, got out the grooves that it was it was in and
it saved my my life. And so, thank you. And and After ECT, I made a decision to move
back to the town that I grew up in to to uh conileles. And uh I wound up moving
into the same house I grew up in. And coincidence of coincidences,
my mother still lived there. But you were 46 years old. Yeah. Yeah. And
here’s the other thing. I find it easier to tell people that I had received a dozen
in inpatient electroconvulsive therapy sessions. Then at 46 years old, I
had moved back in with my mother. I got better and started doing standup and
it got me to do this thing which is very therapeutic which is get out of the house and
be around people. And I happen to be welcome at a comedy club in in Harvard Square called the
the comedy studio to try out jokes about mental illness. It was the ideal place
because I felt loved there and I could fail and I could do well and
that permission to fail was essential. Thank you. Thanks so much. I’ve been diagnosed
depressed for over 30 years. And it went from sneaking into my therapist’s office to telling
anyone with an HBO subscription in in 30 years. Those are great strides. Huge. There has
never been a better time to be mentally ill. My husband’s mom also has schizophrenia.
And some people think that’s how we started dating. Yeah. No. Yeah. Which can you
imagine that being your only criteria for finding a partner? Like how would that
work, right? Just your mom too.com. You know, I didn’t really mention that my mom has like
mental illness or anything with friendships or relationships at all. It just happened to be
that on a night I’m just hanging out with someone I like and we’re, you know, about to get intimate,
you know, for the first time. He gets a call from his mom and I was talking to my mom before we were
about to um, you know, uh, do it. Do it. Yeah. Uh, Ryan told me first that his mom has schizophrenia
and then I revealed that my mom too. That is so wild. It was weird where I was like, I feel like
I’m in a movie. Mhm. Yeah. And she doesn’t even know you’re talking about it. She knows I talk
about a lot. I say, “Mom, I’m an open book on stage. I talk about our family. I talk about a lot
of stuff.” But just know people, they never judge us for it. Yeah. They share their stories with me
afterwards, too. Yeah. So, they don’t feel like they’re freaks. Yeah. And so, we’re not freaks
either. I I kind of tell her that. And then, you know, and schizophrenia is hard to talk about
in comedy, you know, because people are afraid of it and it’s so stigmatized. And I don’t think it
helps that it has such a scary sounding name, you know. No, it doesn’t. Yeah, it doesn’t help. Yeah.
I truly wish schizophrenia had a more approachable name, you know, something like Splash Mountain,
you know. But that’s fun. I love that ride, right? In fact, what if all mental illnesses
were just named after rides at Disneyland? I would watch a lot of Disney movies and Disney
movies don’t have great examples of moms. They’re usually not there. You know, Little Mermaid
doesn’t have a mom. Uh Belle from Beauty and the Beast doesn’t have a mom. Cinderella doesn’t
have a mom. Pocahontas doesn’t have a mom. She has a grandma, but it’s she’s a tree, you know.
So, I just thought moms were maybe like my mom. I don’t know what mental illness is when
I’m a kid. We didn’t talk about that, you know. And you’ve never had a therapist. I’ve had
therapists before and I thought, well, you know, uh I came to you to figure out how to break up
with my boyfriend and we achieved that goal, you know. stuff. Oh, I have a therapist. Yeah,
you don’t. I do. I’ve gone for like 20 years, I think. Right. Yeah. Since we’ve
known each other. Is it because of our relationship? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 20ome
years. Same person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For real. Yeah. That’s wild to me. I like it for
other people. But you don’t like it for you? I do think there would be something that you need
to want to do, right? Yeah. But it is hard because and you know like my my mom’s not on medication
right now because she’s not she refuses to go to the psychiatrist and I’m starting to think I’m
like and I can’t force her. I’m not going to put her in the car, you know? while she’s kicking and
screaming, you know, she doesn’t leave the house. She’s scared of the world. She She hasn’t bathed
in 20 years. She’s kind of she just stays home and she’s so scared of the world. And um I I wonder
sorry you asking made me realize maybe I don’t see a therapist because I feel like a part of me
feels like maybe I don’t deserve it and when my mom needs so much help right now and I’m always
like oh maybe we could get you a therapist to even talk out some of the traumas that you know
the voices in your head you know maybe I see a therapist and I go mom look at me. Yeah, honestly
that is helpful. Like anytime I’ve had a friend who I’m like, I think you should probably see
someone, I tell them about how therapy helps me. And so she’s not at all able to function
on her own. We’re scared to let her, but she has the daydream. That’s where she’s
able to live outside of the confines, you know, of the limitations that life gave her. I have
dreams of getting her a cat though. You can make that come true. But if she gets it and
she realizes this is too much, I don’t want it. You can send it to our house. Really? That’s
a bold statement. That’s a bold promise. Well, I have three cats. Why would a fourth What if the
cat This cat’s like evil? Don’t deal with it. No, I’ll take you up on it. Yeah, we ended on
a promise. Kitty promise. Do you know Tech Noaro? That’s my other mom. That’s my other mom.
Hi Jake. I’m afraid I have some terrible news. Uh your mother fell last night and uh it looks like
she’s not going to make it. Please give me a call. Rick, I’m here. During my childhood, I was
not terribly close with my stepfather. He had told me that my career was a waste of my
time and energy because I think in him his mind it was like you go to school, you go to
college, you you know you you take all those steps that I was not at all taking. And so it
created this deeper rift between the two of us. When my mother died, we were leaving
my mother’s funeral. He broke down and apologized. I couldn’t believe that I
was seeing him cry. And then he said this thing that I still am blown away that it came
from him. He said, “I realize now it’s not the child’s responsibility to teach the parent who
they are. It’s the parents responsibility to learn who their child is.” And he said, “And
I did not do that with you. And I’m so sorry.” If I could tell my mother that that
happened, I know that she would have said it doesn’t matter when it came. It’s
just important and good that it did come. We continued to grow closer and nothing that
had happened before mattered anymore to me. And then yeah, March 28th of
2022, Rick contracted Cadiff, the disease that had nearly killed me 10
years before. And then 10 years to the day after taking my mother off life support,
I was taking him off of life support. We were uh all gathered at his grave site.
There was the green astroturf, you know, over the grave and my brother got up and um
he fell into my stepfather’s grave. No. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I into the the six foot hole.
Yeah. He fell in. They had forgotten to put plywood under the green. Oh my god. He was
like, but because there was the green astroturf, it like slowly he was going, “Wow.” And and I
was I was truly I was sitting there thinking, “This must happen all the time.” And then a second
later, I was like, “No, this doesn’t happen all the time.” And then I was like, “Oh, I have a
new show to write.” Um, I love it when people can make jokes like that because it it just makes
you feel, oh yeah, we’re all in this together and there’s funny things about this and sad things
about this and we’re all just going through it. A funeral audience is really amped to laugh. My my
dad’s funeral I murdered. I murdered at my dad’s, too. And and then the rabbi tried to do time after
me. Oh no. Couldn’t follow me. Couldn’t follow me. And I said, “Rabbi, you don’t go on after the
headliner. The show is over.” My mom died when I was 16 and then my dad died when I was 21. Um,
and I guess the way I dealt with it was through humor and stuff. So, like when we were spreading
my dad’s ashes, we were like fighting over who was going to do it. And I like snatched it on my
granny’s hand. I was like, “I’ll [ __ ] do it.” And as I sprinkled them, the wind picked up and my
mouth was open. Oh my god. You ate I ate my daddy. I was never really close with my dad, but
like we shared some like really fun times before he died. He had sent me an email and
was like, “They’re looking for a new lottery person to like call the numbers.” And he’s
like, “You should do that. That’s a camera. That’s a thing you could do on camera.” And I was
like, “Oh my god.” He didn’t call them auditions, but he’d be like, “Are you going to the
tryyous?” And I’d be like, “Yeah, Dad. I’m I’m trying I’m trying to do the tryyouts.”
And I told him about improv and uh I was like, “Will you come to the city and watch me?”
And my dad hated the city. And he was like, “I will come.” And I was like, “Oh my
god, that’s amazing.” And then he died. The further I get from that, I’m like,
“Well, at least I had that. At least I had like a year or two where he was like
a cheerleader and asking me about stuff.” So, I guess I just feel really lucky
that I had those years with him. The stuff I’ve been through has certainly been a
heavy load. I felt cursed for a while. Even though I don’t believe in that type of thing, it’s hard
and easy to say I wouldn’t change a thing. And I reconcile that by imagining showing my mother my
life. If things hadn’t happened the way they did, I wouldn’t have my life with Stephanie or with
my children. You were saying before that now that you are married and have children, it
affects the way that you construct bits and stories. Mhm. Do you think ultimately you land
in a better place or do you think it impairs your your jokes? No, I think it’s in a better
place because of the bigger picture. I mean, there’s always an editing process and it’s
like what is your motivation in your edit? Um, and and sometimes now it’s I have other people
in my life that I have to think about. Do you talk about everything or is there stuff that
you choose not to talk about? Tick and I were talking about this backstage, but like some of
it is you wife and child. You do consider like, well, I don’t want to hurt their feelings in
this way or or that’s their story as well. So, like I wrote this joke about how Jenny and I went
to our daughter’s ballet recital and Jenny and I are crying and crying because she doesn’t have
it, you know. Well, cuz I’m in the business. I know. You know, you have a sense you’re in
the ballet business. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, of course. No. I was crying because it was so
good. And then I’m hugging Unona afterwards and I go, “You were fantastic.” And she said,
and it’s true. She goes, “Dad, you would say I was fantastic even if I wasn’t fantastic.” And I
had to say that’s a really good point and you’re right. I just did a matinea show and my kids saw
me perform for the first time and it was really interesting because I did not consider that my
son Max was going to heckle me. And so I’m I’m amazing. I’m doing my show. I’m doing my show.
And my son Max, he goes, “No, she didn’t.” Wow. That’s so good. Oh, that’s incredible. I was like, “What?” I was like, “Yeah.” And he goes,
“That’s not true.” Oh, wow. Amazing. When I met Stephanie, she said that her big
dream was to live to be 100. And I thought, well, that’s insane. I always thought I’ll
probably kick it somewhere in the 60s7s and I’ve had a good run. And but she said, “No, I I
want I want us to die together.” And I was like, “I’m 15 years older than you, so that means I’d
have to live to be 115.” and she said, “You can do it.” I think it’s most important to figure out
what your north star is, what what’s driving you to do the thing, whether it’s standup or living to
be 115. It you have to have that thing. Otherwise, none of the other elements are going to fall
into place. And that’s what drew me to changing my diet, meditation, prioritizing my sleep, all
of those things. Uh, but I think it’s so crucial. I had appeared multiple times on every
single late night TV show. Gman, everybody, April 13th. I had a a lovely girlfriend who’s now
my wife. had from the outside what you would say. This guy I remember my friends when I opened up to
them telling them how depressed I was. They would say I I thought you had everything together. I
kept thinking that my first Tonight Show then I’ll feel like a tell people. No, second Tonight
Show, third Tonight Show, first Letterman, second Letterman. No, no. It’s good to have ambition,
but I think gratitude I have to check myself. No, it’s it’s so true. I mean, gratitude it’s it’s
an antidote to compare and despair. Oh yeah. It’s like, yeah, I don’t have that, but I have this. I
have this. Yeah. It’s crazy. We We are so lucky. I’m so grateful right now. I’m happy that I’m
I’m me. I’m happy you were you. Yeah. I’m happy we’re here. Me, too. Let’s leave everyone here
with how to stay hopeful. How do we maintain our sanity? I write in my journal all the time cuz I
find that if you write down sort of what you’re saddest about or angriest about, you can start to
see your own life as a story. And sometimes you can zoom out and encourage the main character to
make better decisions. My first therapy session, she was like, “What’s your goal?” And I was like,
“To fix me.” And she was like, “Well, I can’t fix you. You’re not broken. I’m going to give you
tools in order for you to adjust your life to you. So like I lose my keys almost every day. So now my
keys are five pounds.” Like there’s like a hundred keys on them. Being kinder to yourself. Yeah. And
I forgive myself a lot. The self-acceptance, yes, is enormous. I see how I feel now as a remission
or I’m in recovery to use an a term. And I do all these things to maintain, exercising, eating
right, sleeping, my medicine, my therapist, just dancing, $22 dance class, living my best life.
And there’s people there from all ages. One of the women’s is like 70. One of the girls there’s
like 18. And we have the best time. And I always feel even if I haven’t got the routine down or I
forget the coron. I always leave feeling so much better that I went that or get yourself a mental
health designer handbag. I do that. I got myself a mental health Chanel bag. It helps. Yeah. It’s
out here. The handbags. Mental health. Yes. It’s so hard for me to say that other people should
find help because I don’t seek it myself. Yeah. In no way am I uh perfect or there with um looking
out for my mental health needs. Yeah. In fact, I’m just starting to figure it out. One thing
that was really helpful was a quote from Mark Twain. Me? Um, well, from Oprah, from myAngelo,
that my therapist famously said, I prefer Samuel Clemens. Samuel Langghorn Clemens. Yes. What was
his quote? Uh, if you want to cheer yourself up, cheer somebody else up. Yes. Oh, I love that.
Yes. And Kurt Vonagget’s son, Dr. Mark Vonagget, has this great thing. He says, “The meaning of
life is to help each other through this, whatever it is.” Yeah. Well said. I don’t have a single
original thought, by the way. Yeah. No, this is what I’m learning about you. I love it. But at
least I cite my references, which is ethical. No, of course. Of course. Well, and as Rahm Das said.
Yeah. Regardless of where anybody is in life, we’re all walking each other home. Wow. And I
love that so so much. And it and it ties in to taking care of each other. There’s another quote
that was like, “Have you ever heard the glasses already broken?” Who said that one? Who said that
one? It’s Oprah. It’s Walk other people home. I’m trying to summarize. In summary, treat yourself.
Walk other people home. Share yourselves. Go to the share. Misquote Oprah. Misquote Oprah.
And you’re not alone. Yes. Did I do good? Yes, you did. Perfect. Thank you guys for being
here. Thank you. Okasco Nicole buyer tigaro London Pierce Gary Goldman and I’m Neil Patrick Harris. Good night. Thank you. Yeah, let’s do it. I have very little wisdom. All I
would say is whatever you’re feeling, you’re most likely not alone. Most likely is allowing for pedophilia.
That just in case anyone’s wondering. I don’t want people to feel cart blanch like,
“Yeah, [ __ ] it. Everybody’s feeling this.” So, I want people to feel some
sense of shame if they’re evil. Some days it’s hard to get
out of bed. And people say, “Why is it hard to get out of bed?” And I I
think I know why. This is my my theory. The thing they don’t tell you about life when you’re
growing up, you’re all healed. Is this life? It’s every single day.
4 Comments
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
I love NPH ❤
Sometimes, like in the thumbnail for this movie, Neil Patrick Harris looks like Neil Flynn.
Thank you for making this moving documentary. It was great to hear each of their mental health journeys.