Berkshire Magazine July 2025 | Page 11

The 11-time Emmy ®-nominated actor, writer, and comedian comes to the Mahaiwe

The 11-time Emmy ®-nominated actor, writer, and comedian comes to the Mahaiwe

Let’ s talk about Life, Death & Rice Pudding. What made you decide to return to the stage for the tour and taped special at this time? I always intended to do stand-up. And everything else in my career was, sort of, an accident. In the’ 90s, I just got busy with Mad About You. And then afterwards, I was exhausted, and we had young kids. I was happy to stay home. Inadvertently, I ended up not being on stage for 20 years. In terms of the special, I was avoiding it for a while, because once you film it, you burn the material. I’ d rather just go town to town and do it. But I had been out of the limelight as a stand-up for so long that I had to reestablish my credentials. I would hear all the time, especially from younger people,“ Oh … I didn’ t know he does stand-up.” And I’ d go,“ No, no, no, that’ s what I do!” So, I felt I had to sort of create some sort of public record and go,“ Hey, this is what I do, and here’ s where I am today.”
What’ s your filtering process for turning personal anecdotes into comedy gold? Have your friends or family ever been upset with you for turning real-life mishaps into something on stage? There’ s this old adage that the most personal is always the most universal. So, when you talk about the minutiae of a marriage or a relationship, or parenting, or aging, or technical ignorance— all these things— people go,“ Oh, yeah, that’ s me, too.” So, it is coming from me, but it’ s not biographical. And it’ s certainly not mine alone. One of the things we learned on Mad About You was that we knew we were firing on all cylinders
when people would come up to us all the time and go,“ Oh, man! You must have cameras in our bedroom, because we just had that EXACT fight yesterday!” And I went,“ Okay, so it’ s not just us.”
You mentioned that young people today might not know that you started in stand-up. My parents’ generation know you from Diner. I first watched you on My Two Dads. An entire generation knows you from Mad About You. And now there’ s a younger wave, discovering you through The Boys and Stranger Things. Do you find people treat you differently based on how and when they first encountered you? I think people my generation, or roughly my age, who watched Mad About You— we’ ve sort of grown up together. We got married at the same time, we had kids at the same time, the kids grew up and left at the same time. So, there’ s a sort of familiarity that is lovely, and there’ s a certain intimacy and kinship with those kinds of people. Younger people who just know Stranger Things or The Boys— they don’ t come up to me in public necessarily to engage. It’ s like,“ Hey, you’ re the guy from that show. Sorry, that’ s it. I just wanted to point at you and tell you I know who you are.” You can see it in my live shows. When I see people in their mid-20s or younger, they clearly came with their parents because I’ m the guy from Stranger Things, or they point and say,“ Oh, that’ s the guy from The Boys.” And it’ s kind of nice, because it is cumulative.
Let’ s talk about The Boys. You’ re returning for its final season. Are you allowed to tell us anything about The Legend’ s arc, or are you sworn to absolute superhero secrecy? Well, two things: One, I’ m sworn to secrecy. Two, I don’ t really know anything. It’ s funny, when I got offered to join the cast of The Boys, I hadn’ t heard of it. I didn’ t know it. And I asked my son, who’ s, like, my cultural canary in the coal mine,“ Have you heard of this show, The Boys?” He said,“ Yeah.” I said,“ They want me to be on it.” He said,“ Dad, it’ s great... and you’ ll hate it.” I said,“ Why would I hate it?” He said,“ Well... you’ ll see.” So, I watched a little and said,“ Oh, my God, this is so over the top!” But then I came to really respect it. It’ s graphic, violent, and darkly funny— and it’ s really so well done. And I had a great time. I just did one episode a couple of months ago, and it’ s great fun. And the character feels like a character that I know. It’ s an old-time, Hollywood-ish producer type, and I just feel connected. Especially when everybody on the set is half my age, it’ s pretty easy to get into.
You joined the cast of Stranger Things during Season Two, after it was already a huge hit. What was it like stepping into something already so big? I really do love and enjoy creating my own things. That’ s what stand-up is— you think of it, you write it, you perform it. And Mad About You was“ Okay, what if I had to create something for myself? How would I design that character?” I’ ve written films and been in films that I was creating for
myself. That’ s a great joy. But it’ s also a great, contrasting joy to say,“ I’ m just going to go play in somebody else’ s sandbox. They’ ve got it figured out. I’ m just going to show up. I’ ll be the hired help and let them worry about all the other stuff.” With Stranger Things, I’ d seen the first season, and I thought,“ Wow, these guys are really on their game. They’ re doing what they intended to do.” But the crazy thing is, they called me right after the first season dropped. I got a call to meet with the Duffer Brothers. They said they had written this character. They didn’ t write it for me, but they were picturing me. In the first draft, the character was actually called,“ Dr. Reiser.” Then they said,“ Well, we should probably call Reiser because it would be silly if it was someone else playing Dr. Paul Reiser.” So, that was a really lovely compliment. I knew how good it was, and it was instantly a global phenomenon. So when they asked,“ Do you want to come join this?” It was the easiest“ Yes.” It was“ Yes, thank you.” I remember talking to some of the cast who worked on Season One— they didn’ t know it was going to be a hit. They didn’ t even know it would be good. They said,“ This might really miss.” It was very specific and nostalgic and had a certain tone. The contrast between doing the table reads at the beginning of Season One and Season Two was like a whole other beast. And I had the really luxurious position of jumping into this thing that was already sailing. I remember thinking,“ Don’ t bring the show
July 2025 BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE // 9