Joshua Friedman

Today I am interviewing Joshua Friedman, a comedian born in Rochester, NY who has been doing comedy for five years. To find out more about Joshua, please visit his website.


Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

Growing up, I seemed to have some luck cracking jokes at the back of the class and making people laugh.

I saw an episode of Letterman in 1994 with Julia Roberts as a guest and it just looked like they were having such a fun time that it made me want to get into the entertainment business.

When I was working on the Sony lot a few years ago, I went up and talked to Adam Sandler (who was SUPER-nice, by the way) and asked him how he got started - he said that he had been doing a college stand-up tour when he got scouted to audition for SNL.

So I see it both as a means to an end (performer/writer on TV/in movies) and also as a pretty cool art form in and of itself; it's cool to me that one person by his or herself can entertain a bunch of people for a period of time. (If one can help improve the world by drawing attention to certain inequalities or hypocrisies, and it's still funny, then all the better.)

How do you feel about bringers?

Like everyone else, I don't like bringers. It sucks that this is the way that things are set up here in NYC (and in LA to some extent). But it seems like if that's the way the game is being played, and I need to make a tape, I'll do a bringer. Often I have a group of friends who actually do want to come out and see me do stand-up - I just wish they could do it without a cover-charge.

Is there anything you won't make fun of?

I would like to think that when you're on stage, you should be allowed to joke about ANYTHING. Realistically, audience-response is going to give you some serious feedback if you, say, use the N-word or something, but I would like to think that in art, you should be free to say anything. That said, for example, I don't know if I've seen a white person pull off the above without making ME uncomfortable.

I have a joke where I say "c-nt," which I would almost never say in real life. But it makes the point of the joke, and it's funny, and it's a character saying it.

I have a joke commenting on people mis-using the word, "retarded" which ends by calling them gay. I'm making fun of the mis-use of both words, but if you're retarded, you're gonna think I am bashing folks, which is gay.