Anthony Jeselnik: ‘Satanic prince of stand-up’ plays nice

‘I always loved the bad guy’

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Anthony Jeselnik is the kind of comedian that people either love or hate.

He has a voice all his own, which he shares via his writing gig on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” and successful comedy specials Shakespeare and Anthony Jeselnik: Caligula. On stage, he’s a looming presence, almost sinister with his dark wit and biting one-liners. Yet in person, Jeselnik is actually a pretty nice guy. Jeselnik was recently in town for a show at Atlanta Improv and Creative Loafing spoke with him on the phone about what makes him laugh (turns out airline jokes are never funny), and the buildup to his upcoming comedy special, coming out this November.

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What’s up? What are you up to nowadays?
I’m just touring hard these days. I’m shooting a special November 14, so I wanted to build up a big tour. I’ve got a few tours kind of building up this new hour special, but the last push is just to perfect it.

Well tell me about your upcoming special. What can your fans expect from you?
You know, it’s a little fantastic mix of both past specials. It’s got the same stuff that people have come to expect from me. I’ve certainly got dead baby jokes wall to wall, and I have a lot of clever, kind of dark one-liners. On my last special, I opened with a rape joke. At the time, people were very upset about others joking about rape. You can’t do that. So I was like, “Yeah, I’m gonna open with that, and I’m gonna have three of those jokes.” Now that’s kind of over. Now there’s different things, like autism and transgender people. Those are the things you can’t joke about, so I have jokes about that now. I also get a little more personal in this special. I try to evolve as a performer and talk about why I’m this dark and what I’m hoping to accomplish by putting people through these jokes. I’m not just being a jerk; there’s a reason for it. And I try to explain that a little bit.

You’ve been deemed the “satanic prince of stand-up.” That makes you sound like the devil, which you channel a bit in your routines — this dark, kind of villainous character. Where do you find inspiration?
Oh my God, well if you want to be the devil on stage, you don’t need to look too far for inspiration. I always just kind of look at my favorite movies — I always loved the bad guy. The bad guy is kind of more fun than even the hero. You can’t really root for him, but on screen he’s smiling. I always liked that. And I always thought the devil was an interesting character, and I kind of go for that. They’re evil, but you don’t care. You know, you’re evil, but why not be evil? It’s so much fun. And when you can do that on stage, I think it’s the absolute best.

Which do you find more interesting — what offends people, or what makes people laugh? You’ve crafted a pretty delicate mix of both in your stand-up.
It’s interesting, people are like, “Oh, you just want to offend people.” That’s the last thing I’m trying to do. I do not want to offend people. I want to make people laugh at subjects that are usually offensive. And if someone gets offended by that, then it’s just kind of a cost of doing business. So I’m not trying to hurt people’s feelings, but if they get hurt and the person next to them is laughing, then that’s okay. I think most people don’t have a very good sense of humor, so I’d like to weed them out.

What kind of comedians do you like? What do you laugh at in your personal time?
That’s a great question. People always assume that I only laugh at dark and horrible things, but it’s just the opposite, because that’s what I do. So it’s really hard to make me laugh at something offensive and edgy, because I see it coming, you know, I kind of live in that world. So I like comics that just surprise me. Your question before, is it better to make someone laugh or offend them — it’s always better to make them laugh. You have to make them laugh, or else you can’t even talk about offensive stuff. So what offends me in comedy are people who are just kind of predictable, where they do what they think the audience will like as opposed to what they like. I think when I’m on stage, you can tell that I’m enjoying myself. ... The people that make me laugh are like comedian Todd Glass, the people who are just very funny and kind of fresh. You can’t predict what they’re going to say next, and I love that.

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So what happens when you get a crowd that is just not feeling it? Anyone ever try to fight you?
No one ever really tries to fight me, but I can see people getting angry. You know, I’ve certainly made people mad, but that makes things interesting. In the beginning, before I got kind of famous, people would just buy a ticket to a comedy show and they wouldn’t know what they were getting, and then they had to deal with me. Sometimes I would feel bad for a crowd. At a point I’d be like, “You guys clearly don’t want this.” But now that I’m kind of known, it’s very easy to find out what I’m going to do. So if you come and buy tickets to my show and get upset, now that’s your fault. So I never feel bad. And I’ve found that if I’m in an audience and everyone around me isn’t into it but I like it, then I like it a million times more because these other people are having a bad time. If a crowd is kind of revolting against me, I’m like, “Listen, I’ve got 10 percent of the crowd that’s loving this. Let me play to them.” Because that will be those peoples’ favorite show forever.

You said at one time that your dream job was to be a joke writer. And you did that for a while, most notably writing for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” How does life compare now being on the road and doing stand-up as opposed to holding a steady job as a writer?
You know, it evolves. I definitely think my dreams have evolved. I got into stand-up because I wanted to be a joke writer. I kept thinking, “Somebody’s gonna hire me, and then I’ll stop doing stand-up.” But no one was hiring me. I was too dark. By the time I finally got the balance out, “Fallon” was doing so well that I gave up doing that. And when I left Fallon, I was going on the road but nobody knew who I was for about a year, and so that was tough. But now that people know who I am, it’s much more fun going out and performing, whereas the writing job was nice when I was a little more anonymous. But my dream is always changing. You know, after I left “Fallon,” I thought, “Now my dream is to have my own show where I can make the decisions that Fallon was making.” Then I got that, and now I don’t know what my dream is going to be next laughs. But it’s always changing.

Have you ever thought about acting?
Yeah, I think about it. You know, I like acting, I don’t like auditioning. Auditioning is humiliating. If someone calls me up and they’re like, “Anthony, we have a role written for you. If you’re available on Thursday come down and shoot it,” then I’m there. I will happily do it. I’ve done a few things like that. But if someone’s like, “Hey, we’re seeing 100 people for this. Would you come in?” Then, no. I’ve got other things I want to do. But I think that once I film this special and I kind of put it out there, then I’ll go back into meetings and focus on that. For the past year I’ve just been writing jokes and trying to make this new hour special and make it all that it can be.