Stand-up. Writer. Person.
The preternaturally youngish comedian Demetri Martin will be in town this week headlining the Just For Laughs Comedy Tour, bringing with him an hour of new material best described as "just jokes".
Joining the former Daily Show correspondent and Important Things creator are Funny as Hell host Jon Dore, Canadian Comedy Award-winner Levi MacDougall, and podcast superstar Todd Glass.
But we wanted to talk to Martin, a Yale graduate who left law school to act, draw with both hands, and master the one-liner. Which turned out to be a great idea.
I was told that you're calling me from the set of a movie you're in?
Oh. No, I'm editing the film that I shot. I shot it over the summer. But I've had a little bit of work on the show House of Lies, and I'm between days on that right now. I'll be on the set tomorrow for that. But I like the idea that I'd be calling from the set of a film.
From the Important Things days to now, what are some highlights?
Well, I did Important Things, and I've had a couple roles in movies. I did a book of short comedy pieces and then a book of drawings. I'm working on a book of short fiction that will just be short stories. And I'm working on my second book of drawings. And I'm excited to do this tour because I have a new hour of material that I'm going out with. Hopefully I'll shoot one of those one-hour specials with the material.
It's funny – I think a lot of comedians… We're all running our own small businesses. If you can, you diversify enough so you can still make money in different ways, and you can survive.
You've always struck me as someone who could go in any direction with your various talents. What was so magnetic about comedy?
Well, first of all, thanks. I wish that were true. Maybe it's that the two parts of it I enjoy, one is the part where I just work alone. Kind of like daydreaming and brainstorming, and composition. Because I do jokes, still. There's something about the economy of words with jokes, if you compose them well, that's satisfying. And the second part is being up in front of people. Ever since I was a kid I felt comfortable in front of an audience. I enjoy it. So it's a nice balance… There's something about being a comic, if you think you need attention or whatever, there's a place you can go get it. For 15 minutes at a time, 20 minutes…
When I told some people in the office here that I was about to talk to you, they all wanted to know your secret to looking so young?
I don't know! People tell me I look young. I certainly don't feel that I look old. Maybe because I'm Greek? But maybe, this has something to do with what people think is young about me, is I have all these food allergies. And because of it, I've been afraid of a lot of drugs and a lot of things over the years. I'm always afraid I'm going to have an allergic reaction! Like, if I got high and was like, 'Oh my god, I want to eat that.' I'm afraid I'd get high, eat something, and then that's how I would die. So I'm over 40 now and I have this streak going of, like, basically no drugs, I don't drink coffee, I don't smoke. An inadvertent straight-edged lifestyle has really helped me. [laughs]
You haven't really changed your look, either, over the years…
I'm laughing because it's true.
When you were working on the Daily Show, or Late Night with Conan, for example, what was the funniest bit that maybe never made it to air?
Whoa, that's a good question. You're taking me back now… I don't know if this was the funniest bit, but I liked this bit and it was on the board with Conan a bunch of times and it just never made it to the show. It's a little farfetched, but at the time, when Conan had that late night show, and he was at 12:30am in New York, he was doing all this cool, weird stuff with mascots and robots. I wrote a bit where Late Night had sent a probe into space to look for other comedy premises, because there's just so much content that had been done already, so many jokes had been done.
So I was like the commander of this small Late Night space vessel, and there was a computer called the What's-That-A-Bot 2000, you know, like 'what's that about'? An observational comedy robot printing out all these observational jokes in a robot's voice. Really stupid.
The idea was every now and then Conan would be sitting at his desk and you'd hear [imitates radio static], 'Conan! Can you hear us?' and the radio signal was coming from outer space, and you'd have a little vessel above the New York set.
I really loved it but it just never quite made it to air.
What's this new material you've been working on? Is there a life theme or anything new in your world?
In a way, I'm kind of going back to when I started and what drew me to stand-up. I've done a lot of bits with drawings and music and stuff, but I can't get away from just jokes. Just loving simple, well-structured, hopefully surprising jokes. I'm trying to just go out with a big pile of new jokes that nobody's ever heard. I might play guitar a little bit, but that's just a little layer of fun.
The other thing that's different – I haven't done shows in Canada for while – is I've been a lot looser. I improvise a lot more than I used to. It adds a nice, kind of spontaneous dimension to the show.
The Just For Laughs Comedy Tour hits the Orpheum Theatre Nov. 14 at 8pm. Tickets start at $35; Go to ComedyTour.Hahaha.com for more info.
