"Shane Gillis"

0:28You know what the key is to these cold opens? smart smart

0:39smart smart smart smart smart

0:48Will, where are you? I'm at home now. I know, why did you switch places? Because I was at my office because they were doing work here. Oh, that's right. Oh, that's right. Remember the office, Sean? Yeah, that was extraordinary. Yeah, that lasted for just one recording. And now he's away from that work site. You know, it's so funny. You just have such a funny thing. Don't make me go deep on this. Your thing about work. You think that you go to office. Hey, I'm actor. My new role is work. Again, I grew up. I did everything I could to not do that. Right. Yeah, yeah. You nailed it. You don't want to sit behind a desk.

1:28Yeah. Yeah. Right? That's my dad. I mean, God bless him. Yeah, we all sit behind desks during the day. Yes. I mean, right? We did everything. Not Will. Not me. Will sits on the couch and he watches the Toronto Maple Leafs win. I sure do. That's all he does. Oh, look at that. I'll tell you who captures the camera real well is that Brendan Shanahan. He sure does. You know, when they point that camera at him up in that power box. Yeah. I know. He's stuck there looking like the boss he is. He's turned into a real silver fox, hasn't he? Yeah, Cameron loves him. By the way, he's going to call me and be like, what do you mean silver?

2:08You've got gray hair. It's a salt and pepper fox. A silver fox in a power box. I know. How about the time that he tried to teach Sean? Sean asked Shani when he was in town last year to teach him how to fight at the Beverly Hills Hotel out the back door, and Sean went at him. And Shani's like, okay, well, what? And Shani's laughing. Yeah, in two seconds, he got me in a headlock. Yeah, and Sean was saying, wait, aren't you supposed to take this off me? Isn't the shirt supposed to come off? I thought it was shirts against skins. I thought we were doing shirts against skins. I'm always skins. By the way, in high school, didn't you fear?

2:41Well, hey, Will, in high school, didn't you? Sean, that hurts. Oh, you're on board now. Now you're on board. Thank you, Sean. In high school, didn't it freak you out or junior high when the coach would say, okay, we're going to do shirts and skins and like in basketball. I didn't want to take my shirt off. I didn't want to take my shirt off. I was always afraid of that. It's traumatizing. Why do they do that to kids? And then they made us take showers at like 12, 13 years old. I'm like, I don't want to do that. I know. It's so... Will likes walking around with his kid off just kind of shaking his junk all over the place.

3:16I never went to... I never stepped foot into a gym until I was about 24. So I was never like... Oh, really? Yeah, ever. Yeah, but you played sports. I played sports, but I was, I just never, and then, but I went to boarding school, so I had to take showers, you know, starting at age 12 when I went to boarding school. Yeah, it's so like I can't. Yeah, it was, it's weird. I went to camp once, I think I said this, and we had a lineup outside, a music camp, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan. Huh, not a sports camp. No. Huh, hang on, let me just adjust everything I know about you.

3:57and they made us line up outside to take a shower in front of and one by one we had to take a shower and you had to like take your clothes off in front of all of these kids your peers and it was so sean when i was when i was in seventh grade age 12 i went from living with my folks to a place where they had uh uh four showers per side in a big huge open room with no divider yeah that's This is a torture. Yeah. Yeah, it's awful. And by the way, by the time I got in the camp thing, by the time I got up there, all the hot water was gone. So I was taking a cold shower and I couldn't breathe because it was so cold.

4:33If I'm being honest, you probably needed it.

4:39You're showering with all those dudes. I mean, that probably helped. Just get things back to normal. Anything to calm me down. Yeah. Oh, my God. What, you got some electrolytes going there, Sean, this morning? I do, yeah. What happened to the milk? Is the cow dead? No, I had milk already. Oh, you're chasing it with some electrolytes? Good luck on the toy toy. What are you? Jesus, you're so obsessed with people's bowel movements. Well, I just, I don't, he's creating a bomb. That electrolyte's going to cut right through that milk like a knife. Is it really? Yeah. Is it really? Yeah, dude. Whenever I see people eating, I'm not thinking.

5:18I'm going to get yourself over a toilet within the next 60 minutes. Well, let's wrap this up. Whenever I see people eat, I'm never thinking about, man, that's really going to come back to haunt them on the toilet. It just doesn't occur to me. You know, when I see clips of that hot sauce talk show, that's all I think about. I know, same. What are people doing? Same. You out of your mind? No, they should do it from a toilet. Yeah. You won't catch me on that show. No, of course not. Not once. No, no, no, of course you won't. Whose guest is it today? Do you have a narcoleptic guest or something, Will?

5:51No, no, no. Well, he's a great guest, and I was about to get to it, and then I was thinking about you talking about shitting everywhere. But our guest, the only thing, he hasn't shit everywhere. All he's done is he's scored everywhere. This guy has been making everybody laugh. That's another word for it. He has been... Ron Jeremy on Smart. He's been making people shit themselves. He makes me shit myself laughing. He's so fucking funny. He's such a great dude. I had the pleasure of kind of getting to know him over the last couple months. He's been very generous as I was going through the process on our film.

6:24And he has just been, his specials have been unbelievably well-received. He's maybe the biggest touring comic out there. His new, his show, Tires, is about to start second season on June 5th. He's a great writer. He's an incredible stand-up. He's the funniest dude. Guys, it's Shane Gillis. Oh, Shane Gillis. Shane Gillis. You're on Smartless. Good morning. There he is. I love you. This is so cool. Easy, easy. Yeah, so funny. Hi, Shane. Hi, Shane. Where do we find you today? Are we at home? I am at home. I'm in Austin, Texas. All right. And how is it in Austin? It's all right. It kind of sucks. It's hot and humid a lot.

7:06Hot already? I don't love it. I don't love it. Yeah, it's hot. It's been hot. It's going to be hot until December. Wow. It's one of the worst places I've ever lived. Do you ever jump in that river that they call a lake? Yes. And you cool off a little bit? Yeah, that's very nice. Why do they call it a lake? I'm not sure. It snakes around like a river, right? It's literally the Colorado River. I don't know. They call it a lake. I have no idea. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. Is that something that happens down there? Yeah, it's just the Colorado River. Yeah. And it doesn't even look like a lake.

7:39It's just a river. Yeah. There's nothing lake about it at all. You could throw a rock across it. Wait, so Shane, you live there by choice? I mean, it sounds like you hate it. It sounds like you're being forced. Is there somebody off camera with a gun? Yeah, Joe Rogan. He's right here. He's got a gun to my head. He's down there, right? Yeah, he's down here. And he opened a club here. And it was either, for a comedian, it's either New York, L.A. or that was always the only two options. And then he opened a club here so you can evade some taxes and do stand-up here. Now, he was a stand-up, right?

8:13And then I remember he was on one of the greatest shows ever, News Radio, so he was an actor for a minute, right? But he did start stand-up, didn't he? He's still doing stand-up the entire time. And remember Fear Factor? He did Fear Factor. Oh, that's right. He used to watch that. He did Fear Factor. So Shane, I first met Shane at Joe's Club in Austin. Oh, no way. Yeah, I went down there, and he was kind enough and gracious enough to let me twice have like 10 minutes of his time on stage. All right, Shane, give us a review on Will. No, you don't have to. Yeah, no, I want to hear it right now. No, it's going to be, Will doesn't want to hear it because it's flattering.

8:47Well, that's what I thought. I was like, so they asked me to help write on this, write some for the movie. And I was like, if I write any material that's good, I need to. You're going to keep it. Because I have nothing. Sure. So I was like, the only way to do it is just to actually do stand-up. So he came down and we did stand-up. And I was like, he's going to fucking bomb. This is a lot harder than he thinks. and he was so naturally funny right away. I was in the back of the room like, God damn it, it's kind of easy. He does have, Will, you do have that natural, and I mean, not as a pejorative, sort of this ham gene, right?

9:25Like you are comfortable with the spotlight on you. I'm going to stuff a ham down your fucking rope. You're comfortable giving a toast. You're comfortable, and I don't have that. I just don't like the spotlight on me. I don't like a lot of attention. Will, you're comfortable with it, and it puts the audience at ease. Yes, and it's a gift. It's talent. Shane, you have it too. Oh. Well, Shane's got, here's the difference. I hemmed my way and hawed my way through it. Shane getting up there is so natural and good. And I know you've been working on it and you've crafted it, but you've got such a great way about you on stage.

10:01And you kind of, you bring, what I love is you kind of bring the audience in with you and you laugh and you, I don't know, you kind of like, you don't really like take sides. You kind of like, you play to a wide audience. You play to different parts of what people, and you get to kind of just what's funny. So no matter where you land on any subject, you're like, you got to admit that's funny, whether you're talking about politics or whatever it is. And I'm sure that that's not, I'm sure it's, that's a skill, right? Like that's, to be able to do that, that's something you kind of work on? I mean, I think it's kind of, I mean, yeah, it's a skill, I guess, but it's also like, that's kind of how I feel most of the time, you know?

10:45Like, I don't like picking a side on, I don't know, publicly picking a side on an issue typically comes back to make you look like a fucking idiot. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, unless it's like a glaring thing that you should support, whatever. But I want to go back to the Austin thing. So the first show we went up and it was fine. The second show we did like an hour later, it was great. And it was really frustrating how good you were at it. Oh, with Will, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was reading a script and it was still funny. He's using your material. No, he wasn't. They did it themselves. In fact, I read the material first and I was like, I don't think this is going to fucking work.

11:26So wait, so what type of... I didn't want to say anything. What was Will's style? Was he like telling stories or was he kind of going joke to joke to joke? It was more storytelling, but it was exactly how I like the stand-up. It was stories with jokes, with jokes within it, which was... Do you remember any of it, Willie? Or have you deleted the files? Can you give us a taste? No. Well, a lot of it, as Shane knows, he read it because a lot of it is stuff that we use in the film. So we're working on it. So it's various stages of... Yeah, because we didn't say it. This is the film that you just shot and that's coming out later this year.

12:03What's it called, Will, the film? Is This Thing On? Is This Thing On, yeah. Is This Thing On. We can get that at a later date when I'm the guest on the show. Yeah. Are you going to book yourself? Oh, sorry. No, go ahead, Shane. Sorry. No, we were laughing. I was just at the cellar this week and we were laughing because there's a comedian there. His name's Will Silvance and Will's playing a character on stage. And after the show, he goes on with the comedian and asks questions about the set. And I think he took the set very seriously. It was like, man, I'm really sorry you're going through all that.

12:37Oh, really? That's great. That's a script, you idiot. He did. The first time I did New Joke Monday over there around the corner with him, and he comes up on stage and he asks you questions. And he was like, ooh. Like Shane said, he was like, ah, it's not really rough. And I just kind of answered him as if it was all real. And he's like, hang in there, buddy. Yeah, yeah. And we will be right back.

13:05And now, back to the show. Wait, Shane, so doing what you do for a living, do you wake up and go to sleep constantly thinking of like, I got it, like, that was funny today. This is funny. Well, I got to write that down. Like, do you ever get out of that, or are you always in that mode? Yeah, I would say yeah, although, I don't know. I used to be a lot better at it. Now I'm kind of just, I should be like that, and I'm not. Okay, great. I got to work on that. I got to go back to only thinking about stand-up. Okay, for real? Yeah, I mean, otherwise, I don't know. You feel like you're not coming up with any new material.

13:44Well, then how do you do what you do? Do you set aside some time to really focus on work? No, I don't really write that much. I just kind of, I go, this could be a good idea, and then I go on stage and try it. And if I do, great. So you just figure it out on stage and it's all straight improv that you haven't really worked on any of it? No, I mean, yeah, you do that for like, like I'll do, if I did stand-up tonight, I would do basically 10 minutes that I know, I know, I just know every word to it. And then I'd maybe try five minutes and see what happens and probably abandon it and then have one of my friends in like four or five months go, go, hey, that was a funny idea, and then I'll try it again.

14:27And so when you're putting together an hour to do a Netflix special, like, you know, are you... Is that something that they set the date for and they go, hey, man, we need you to deliver this special by this date, and so then that's when you kind of hone in and start working on actual stuff? I think they do that sometimes. I told them I didn't really... I wouldn't want a date on it, maybe 2026, because I got to... Right now I'm doing arenas, and I don't think the best way to work an hour out is in an arena. Because it's just different. I don't know. I think I'll do arenas for maybe the rest of this year and then go down back to clubs and really try to focus on hammering out the hour that I'm doing right now.

15:13I don't want to rush. It's special. When did you start? I mean, you've got so much good stuff that you talk about growing up. I love all that stuff about going to Notre Dame games with your family. Yeah, that's my favorite. When you guys get in the van together and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got such rich, and your cousins and your family, you've just got such great, rich stuff. What was the first moment? This is like the question, like, how did you start in comedy? But when did you start going like, oh, the stories that I'm telling about my family or the shit that's going on, people are laughing enough that I should go to a club and tell it in front of other people.

15:50Like, what was that? Yeah, I was washing dishes at my friend's restaurant, and I always thought I was funny, and I just had no idea how to get into stand-up. And then one of the cooks was like, I'm going to go do open mic at the Harrisburg Comedy Zone tonight. And I was like, oh, you can just do stand-up? And he was like, yeah. So I went, and I watched, and I thought everyone sucked, and I was like, I can do that. And then I went back every week for like two months just watching, and then I finally got on stage, and I fucking bombed. I was like, I don't have to write any material. I'm just funny.

16:22I just got up there and couldn't talk. It was crazy how bad it was. Right, right. And yeah, then stopped for a while after that traumatic experience, but I always still wanted to do it. And then eventually I went back and really applied myself and tried and did it. And was there, were you studying to do anything else? Like was this always the career plan or were you, did this derail something else? No, it wasn't really great. I was at Westchester University in Pennsylvania. I was studying to become a history teacher. Oh, yeah. Wow. I remember the first show I ever did, I fucking, it was a road, the first time I ever went on the road, it was a hotel outside of Pittsburgh in Mars, Pennsylvania, and it was in like a hotel lobby, and I bombed so badly that the club owner took me aside and was like, what are you doing with your life?

17:16And I was like, I'm a college student. I'm studying to be a history teacher. He was like, why don't you just do that instead of stand-up? I was like, all right, man. I kind of took it to heart. Were you done with your set yet? Yeah, exactly. I swear to God it was in between shows. I still had another set. That's really funny. I had to go up there like, this might be it. This is my retirement. You know who loves history? Our host, Will Arnett. Yeah, he loves history. Specifically World War II history. What's your favorite? You like the European or the American? He knows it all, man. Right, Shane?

17:53You know it all. Well, I don't know. I like World War II. I like American Civil War. It's great. Yeah, right. Have you seen both the Civil War documentary and the World War II documentary that Ken Burns did? I love them both. Yeah, yeah. I like the Civil War one I like better. It's so powerful. The West. Vietnam is great. His Vietnam documentary was great. Yeah. Yeah, because I didn't know shit about Vietnam. I remember what you say about the Ken Burns documentary. You said that it's literally kryptonite for women. Yeah. If you put it on, they're going to fall asleep. I remember you used to talk, the other thing that really made me laugh, you used to talk about that dude Shelby Foote, that historian and the way that he would, right?

18:40I did a bunch of Ken Burns material at my SNL monologue and everyone was kind of like, what the fuck is he talking about? That was it. That was it. That was hilarious. It was recent, right? Yeah, every time my monologue doesn't go great on SNL. I'm 0 for 2 on those things. I loved it. I loved it too. Look, I like it and I'm having fun up there. But Tate McRae was the musical guest. So the audience was like 20-year-old chicks just in the front. and I'm up there talking about fucking Shelby Foote and Ken Burns in Civil War. And they had no idea, literally. Just some ogre walked out onto the stage and talked about Shelby Foote.

19:24They were probably scared. You literally referenced the Battle of Fredericksburg. Shrek, yeah, yeah. Hey, so with such a drastic, like, are you happy with where you're at? Like, is this the, like, you find yourself at the top of your career in this particular field. which is drastically different than this other path that you thought you would be on. Have you adapted? Are you digging it? Right. I don't know. You guys probably know what it's like. It's kind of uncomfortable. There's definitely some weird parts to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty uncomfortable with the imposter syndrome and depression and all that.

20:03But I just drink a lot, so that helps. Yeah, that'll round the edges. That really fucking makes things easier, you know? Right, but we all have the option to just sort of get off the highway and, like, you know, hide, I guess. And, you know, everyone forgets about you after a few years anyway, so we could find anonymity if we wanted it. Right. Like, did you have that moment? I remember when, you know, you take, in your case, stand-up gigs or specials or whatever. In my case, it was a sitcom. And you... This guy! We love that show. It was the first time that it started. I took it because it was a job, right?

20:51You audition, you're just looking for a job. And then you have no idea what's going to happen. You're just looking to feed yourself and then you become famous. It's like, oh. And by accident almost, right? You just kind of want to work as an actor. It's not like, I want to be famous. I just want to work. And then it happens. And then in the moment, I remember thinking, I'm like, oh, this is what I read about. this is what I watch TV and this happens to it. So did that happen to you in that moment? Do you remember that moment where you're like, oh shit, this is what it feels like to kind of become successful?

21:23Yeah, there was definitely some moments along the way. I mean, hosting SNL when I did that, that was one of those moments because I had gotten fired from the show before and I was like, oh wow. Yeah, I just wanted to do it. Yeah, for four days. Yeah. Oh my God, really? For four days? Yeah, I remember seeing when they announced that you were going to host, and it must have been kind of surreal considering the history you had. It was, I don't know, but it was like, oh, great, we're going to go through this again. There was pressure, because once they announced it, everyone's like, fuck him, don't let him back, man.

21:59And it's like, I was fine without it. I was, you know, I'm doing all right. But it was still awesome, and I was so happy they let me back on, and those people, everybody there has been, they've been awesome. But it was funny. Back to the original, the question was those moments. I was with my friend, Dan Soder. He's one of the best comedians. Super funny dude. His name is Dan Soder. I love him. He's unbelievably funny. But he was like one of the first people to take me on the road. And then he and I were doing an arena. We were doing like the Cleveland Cavaliers arena. And I was standing in the tunnel before I went out there.

22:32And I looked at him and I was like, dude, I really just wanted to do a one-nighter at the local comedy club. I thought that was the ceiling. I don't know what the fuck this is. Hotel lobby would be nice. I don't know how I got here. Right. This has gotten out of hand. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And did you have, and so you have that moment before, and do you still have moments on stage where kind of out of body, where like you land a joke, and the place is going crazy, and you're standing, and I'm sure you're caught up in it, but you go, you look out, and there are literally tens of thousands of people laughing and going like, holy fuck.

23:06Yeah. Usually that happens when the joke doesn't land. Yeah. Silence is even louder. There's fucking 20 ,000 silent people and you're standing there going, oh, fuck. That's much more powerful, yeah. That's a real powerful moment. Well, you know, one of the interesting things about, that I found in the, just the short amount of time that I did it just in the small clubs over at the underground and at the cellar, rather, and the one time in Austin is that, like I went we went one night and we were working on something and we went to the cellar in that main room downstairs and it went great we were like holy shit that really worked and then we went around the corner to the underground 20 minutes later and it was like pretty good it was the same material and it was pretty good right it was a big room and then we went to the fat black pussy cat next door and it was absolutely bombed and I remember at the time my buddy Bradley was there and my buddy Bob, who you met, and they were in the back, and they're dying laughing because literally the same material that 30 minutes ago had killed, silence.

24:14Yeah, yeah. It's the best feeling in the world watching one of your friends bomb. There's nothing better. I know. It's the most fun possible thing. But yeah, that happens. And it happens, but what's crazy, and that feeling was like, oh, it's just you. There's nowhere to hide. You can't do, you're just up there. You can't just go, you can't start crying and drop the microphone and run off stage. You know what I mean? But talk about that, you guys. Because like, I think an actor can ruin a good script and they can also, you know, make a bad script good just based on performance, whether it's good performance or bad performance.