Joel Kim Booster

South Beach Sessions with Dan Le Batard

Meadowlark Media

Society & Culture, Sports, Comedy

4.9 • 15K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2026

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you've watched any comedy since the pandemic... then you already love Joel Kim Booster. He's had a hand in everything from "Fire Island" and "Loot" to "KPop Demon Hunters" and "Big Mouth" and now, the new "Scrubs" reboot. Joel tells Dan about the challenges of understanding and owning his identity being adopted by a deeply conservative and religious white family... and how he navigated not being accepted by his parents for being gay and finding an outlet through acting and comedy. He also talks about his transition from the startup world to the world of comedy, and why even after creating original and authentic (and successful!) work… to maintain a career in entertainment, you never really escape having to prove yourself over and over again. Joel also reminisces about his recent marriage to his husband, the clarity and comfort it brings, and how love really can make any situation better. Watch new episodes of "Scrubs" Wednesday at 8/7c on ABC and streaming next day on Hulu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Draft Kings Network. Happy to have Joel Kim Booster in with us, comedian, actor, writer, wrote his own.
0:35.2	Now, Fire Island, wrote and starred in Fire Island on Hulu. He's in Scrubs now,
0:40.9	and also you have on Apple TV, you have Lute. So where along this path here, and thank you for being with us.
0:48.3	Where along this path did you end up feeling like you'd made it well beyond your dreams?
0:53.6	You know, I think definitely Fire Island was a big inflection point for me in my life and my career.
1:01.0	But I think like I had pretty modest goals set out for myself at the beginning.
1:07.0	And I think like I really had to re- like reposition the goalposts for myself.
1:13.0	I think after my first Conan set. Like I never really expected to ever get to that point that
1:21.3	soon. And I think, you know, for a while, I mean, I think the goal, you know, was to quit my day job and be able to support myself doing this. And so I quit my day job in 2016. And that was like already, I think, far and away beyond whatever had planned for myself. You know, obviously when you're a little kid, like, it's about being famous and being on TV and all that stuff.
1:45.0	But I think like I quickly disabused myself of any notion of getting there.
1:50.0	Probably in college, it just felt so far away and so unlikely.
1:54.0	So once that all started to happen in 2016 or around there, I really was already like, well, this is far and away, you know,
2:05.1	more than what I could have helped for. So as far back as 2016, probably. What was the day job
2:10.6	you were quitting? I worked for a tech startup. I worked for tech startups right after college.
2:20.0	One of my first jobs out of college was Groupon. I was like the 70-something employee of Groupon before they went public when they were still
2:24.9	a very young company.
2:26.5	And that got my foot in the door with tech.
2:29.5	And so all my day jobs from that point forward, we're at tech startups.
2:34.4	Were you unhappy doing that?
2:36.3	Because that's not exactly the best place for a creator.
2:39.3	I mean, yes and no.
2:41.0	I think like, especially early day startup culture was very, like, Groupon in Chicago, mostly only hired comedians and actors and creatives.
	...

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