Langston Kerman: John Mulaney, Chris Rock and ‘Bad Poetry’
The Last Laugh
The Daily Beast
4.6 • 661 Ratings
🗓️ 28 August 2024
⏱️ 57 minutes
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Summary
Before Langston Kerman was one of the most exciting stand-up comedians working right now, he taught poetry to high school students. As he tells the audience in his debut Netflix special ‘Bad Poetry,’ he was desperate to find another path for his life. In this episode, Kerman talks about getting his big break writing for Oscars host Chris Rock (even if he didn’t get a single joke on the broadcast), convincing his favorite comedian John Mulaney to direct his special, trying not to alienate Larry David during his very first Hollywood gig, and why he fears that fans of HBO’s ‘Insecure’ will never, ever let him “be free.” He also shares some behind-the-scenes stories from his time writing on the year’s most brilliantly weird talk show, ‘Everybody’s in LA,’ including the one pitch that was deemed too weird by Mulaney.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is The Last Laugh. I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and today on the show we have the exceptional stand-up comedian, Langston Kerman. |
| 0:14.8 | You might recognize Langston from his roles on shows like Insecure, The Boys, or Bus Down, which he co-created with his friends |
| 0:23.8 | and previous Last Laugh guests Sam Jay and Chris Red, along with the late great Jack Knight. |
| 0:30.6 | This past week, Langston debuted his first stand-up hour on Netflix, called Bad Poetry. |
| 0:37.2 | And it really is something special, not just because |
| 0:40.7 | it was directed by John Mullaney. As I learned in this conversation, it was while they were |
| 0:45.9 | working on the special together that John invited Langston to come right for his short-lived, |
| 0:50.8 | by design, late-night show on Netflix, everybody's in L.A., which I was very |
| 0:56.5 | excited to talk with him about as well. We get into Langston's unlikely journey from |
| 1:01.9 | spoken word poetry to stand-up comedy, his big break writing for the Oscars when Chris Rock |
| 1:07.2 | hosted in 2016, and why fans of insecuresecure will seemingly never leave him alone. |
| 1:14.2 | But before we go to my conversation with Langston Kerman, here's a clip from his new Netflix |
| 1:19.1 | special that gives viewers some insight into his marriage. |
| 1:23.6 | I just found out my wife thinks that I'm special needs. |
| 1:28.4 | And yes, she means it in a derogatory way. |
| 1:32.5 | She's a bad lady. |
| 1:33.7 | She should go to jail. |
| 1:36.0 | Lock her up. |
| 1:39.2 | The other day, she called me from work, and she said this to me verbatim. |
| 1:43.7 | Verbatim, this is what she said to me. |
| 1:45.7 | Now, keep in mind, I have changed some of the words |
| 1:49.0 | to make me sound better and her sound worse. |
... |
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