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The Last Laugh

Mike Birbiglia Doesn’t Care If You Think He’s a Stand-Up

The Last Laugh

The Daily Beast

Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Interviews, Tv & Film, Society & Culture, Tv, Movies, Film

4.6661 Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2019

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mike Birbiglia invites us backstage at the Ahmanson Theatre in downtown LA where he has been performing his latest show all month long. This week, ‘The New One’ premieres on Netflix. Before he went on stage for one of his final performances this past weekend, Mike opened up about his unique process putting ‘The New One’ together and broke down his evolution from stand-up to theater (and why he doesn’t care how anyone wants to characterize what he does). We also discussed our mutual, unhealthy obsession with ‘Saturday Night Live.’

Follow @birbigs and @mattwilstein on Twitter and @lastlaughpod on Instagram. 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

The way you kill zombies, you probably know this from the movies, right?

0:03.0

Is you shoot them in the head, which is also the way you kill anyone.

0:12.0

I'm talking about this with Jen, and she laughs, and I laugh, and we laugh as one.

0:17.0

And then she says,

0:19.0

But if we had a baby, I think it would be different.

0:25.5

And I was like, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.

0:29.8

You got bit!

0:32.8

Comedian Mike Berbiglia becomes a father and joins the zombies.

0:37.0

It's the last laugh. I'm Matt

0:38.8

Wilstein from The Daily Beast. On today's show, we have a very special episode with a comedian I

0:44.1

have loved for a very long time, Mike Berbiglia. We met backstage at the Amundsen Theater in downtown

0:50.3

L.A., where he has been performing his latest show. It's called The New One.

0:59.2

Today, the new one premiered on Netflix, and in my opinion is some of the most hilarious and moving work he's done in his career. His other one-man shows include Sleepwalk with me,

1:04.9

my girlfriend's boyfriend, and Thank God for Jokes. You might also know Mike from his many

1:09.4

appearances on This American Life,

1:11.3

and one of my favorite movies of the past few years, Don't Think Twice, which he also directed.

1:16.5

The new one is all about Mike's indecision about becoming a parent and the unexpectedly hard

1:21.9

road it took to get there. Spoiler alert, he and his wife, Jen, or Klo, as he affectionately calls her on stage,

1:28.8

now have a four-year-old daughter named Una.

1:32.3

Before he went on for one of his final LA performances this past weekend, Mike opened

1:37.0

up about his unique process putting the new one together and broke down his evolution

1:41.4

from stand-up to theater and why he doesn't care how anyone wants to characterize what he does.

...

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