Mike Birbiglia: ‘The Old Man and the Pool’
The Last Laugh
The Daily Beast
4.6 • 661 Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2024
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When a special arrives on Netflix in its finished form, viewers don’t typically get to see all of the excruciating work that went into making it a polished piece. But for anyone who has been listening to Birbiglia’s Working It Out podcast over the past couple of years, it’s all there. “I was doing it privately,” he says on this week’s episode of The Last Laugh podcast. “I feel like it’s something that’s kind of unspoken about stand-up, that for the most part, we are in communities of comedians who kick around joke tags: ‘Hey, what if you did this with it?’ And ‘I have a similar story about this, and you know you could use that if you want to,’ or whatever it is. And we kind of just put it out there with audio rolling.” In his second appearance on The Last Laugh, Birbiglia talks about how this process helped shape his latest Broadway show-turned-Netflix special ‘The Old Man and the Pool’ (now Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special), shares his thoughtful response to the “emotional truth” controversy that came for his friend and fellow comic Hasan Minhaj, breaks down how he handles criticism of his own work, and a lot more.
This episode was originally published on November 22, 2023.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Last Laugh. |
| 0:06.7 | I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and we are officially in August, which means, well, |
| 0:13.1 | frankly, that a lot of people are on vacation. |
| 0:15.8 | But it also means that Emmy voting season is upon us. |
| 0:19.6 | So this week, we are revisiting my conversation |
| 0:22.5 | with one of my absolute favorite comedians, Mike Berbiglia. Mike's most recent Netflix special, |
| 0:29.1 | The Old Man and the Pool, is nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special, |
| 0:34.0 | which is clearly the best Emmy category this year because it contains four guests who |
| 0:38.7 | have been on this podcast over the past year. In addition to Mike Barbiglia, the nominees include |
| 0:43.9 | Jacqueline Novak, Alex Edelman, and John Early. And actually, the fifth nominee, which is the |
| 0:49.7 | writing team behind the most recent Oscar ceremony, also includes a former Last Laugh guest in Blair Erskine. |
| 0:55.8 | So there you go. Anyway, this was my second podcast interview with Mike, which we recorded last |
| 1:01.7 | November and has some incredible insights into his process, why he loves working out material |
| 1:06.9 | with fellow comedians on his own podcast, working it out, and so much more. |
| 1:11.2 | Before we get into it, here's a clip from The Old Man and the Pool that features Mike |
| 1:15.6 | Barbiglia discussing one of his all-time favorite topics, pizza. |
| 1:20.6 | Typically, I get back to my hotel around 11 o'clock at night, and the thing about healthy food |
| 1:26.6 | is it goes to bed early. |
| 1:32.3 | Healthy foods like I'm heading in for the night. |
| 1:35.3 | I got a big morning providing nutrients. |
| 1:39.3 | Unhealthy food is like, I'm gonna hang. |
| 1:41.3 | I saw a microwave on the corner, |
... |
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