Life With Mike Birbiglia: And advice on writing a hit show

Mike Birbiglia took issue with the fact that I called him a really famous comedian. "Really famous comedian is a hyperbolic way of describing me," he said.

But Mike, if you're about to play a JFL42 show at Toronto's Sony Centre, and you've got a critically acclaimed Netflix special, and you're a "New York Times bestselling author", and your film Sleepwalk with Me won Best of NEXT at Sundance, and even my Greek dad knows your name, you're actually a really famous comedian. 

While his reluctance seemed to come from genuine humility, it may have also have had something to do with asking him about the emotional stakes of releasing a brand new show to the world when you're "a really famous comedian". That was back in Montreal in July when he had just performed The New One for the first time at Montreal's Gesù theatre for the Just For Laughs Festival.

"It's nerve racking," he said. "Putting yourself on a deadline, talking to my agent and saying, 'Let's premiere the show on July 20th,' and then backing myself into that deadline. It really feels a little bit like university or something where you just go, 'This is when the final is'."

Except millions will watch, eventually, starting with some major capacity theatres, so here's what Mike did to make sure he'd be ready: "I workshop the show in clubs and I perform it in theatres, by design. I want to have battle conditions in preparation for the perfect conditions. I want them to be serving nachos and people to be drunk on martinis and shouting things out every now and then, so that the narrative of the story and the jokes are so rock solid that when I premiere it here at the Gésu or a the Sony Centre, it's exactly what I want it to be."

"So it's been nine months of keeping my head down and being on the road every weekend in America, digging it out."

On the value and necessity of deadlines, he says, "I think that if I didn't have a deadline I would write forever and I would never finish anything because I think nothing is ever done."

Solid advice from a very prolific writer whose work we really love. But even more important, here are some of Mike's secret behaviours, embarrassing memories and his advice on what to say if you ever get the chance to travel back and visit your younger self….

Life with Mike Birbiglia

What's your secret internet obsession?

My wife and I have this thing where every time we're off the Internet, when we come back to the Internet, we hope that the President's gone. So we usually go to the first site that will tell us the President is gone.

Where's the best place you ever did comedy?

The Gésu [in Montreal] is as good a place as I've ever done comedy. The Melbourne Arts Centre. And Carnegie Hall.

Best thing you ate in recent memory?

I'm off pizza right now, which kills me, because I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I experience no joy from food anymore. Maybe someday I'll proudly declare that my answer is kale.

What posters did you have in your childhood or teenage bedroom?

Oh gosh, it's so embarrassing, it was all like, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. And then we had, like, Phil Collins and Genesis posters up. I had a Def Leppard poster.

What's the biggest splurge you've ever made on a single thing?

My wife and I took a vacation to Nantucket recently for a month so I could write half of my next screenplay. And I did. She's a poet. We both write. That was the biggest splurge I've ever made.

Where is your favourite place on earth?

Anywhere with my wife.

You and your wife have a weekend off, what are you going to binge watch?

I recently dove into The Man in the High Castle on Amazon. And I'm gripped by it. But to me, the greatest piece of television I've watched in recent years is Black Mirror.

If you could be any age for a week what would it be?

A repeat age? Would I be conscious that I was still myself from the future?

Yes.

Would I have all the knowledge and wisdom of my present self?

Yes.

I would go back to age 25 and I would say to myself, "You're not as pudgy as you think."

"It gets worse." You know what I mean though, right? I look back at photos of myself and I'm like… "I look pretty good!... I should have been more confident!"

Mike looked great, by the way, and had a lot of confidence in his new show. He promised that if you liked Sleepwalk With Me or My Girlfriend's Boyfriend or Thank God for Jokes, you will like The New One  as much, if not more.