[Exclusive Interview] Connor Malbeuf Bending Rules and Breaking Boundaries in Comedy Today (and More!)
“…at the end of the day, I would love to represent a community of millions and millions and millions of people, and if I could, you know, bring up issues that mainstream comedy is not highlighting, then that's huge. I think there's an important factor to that for me.”
His last name may mean “Bad Beef” or “Diseased Cow” in French, but Connor Malbeuf is far from anything bad. In fact, he is about to take over the comedy scene and you should be there for it. I met with the young Canadian comic who has a strikingly similar appearance to Shawn Mendes; however, the super power he possesses is not music, but rather is humor. Malbeuf was born in Aurora, a small town outside of Toronto, Canada where he attended Western University and majored in Media Theory and Production before coming to the states and receiving a masters in Media Ventures at Boston University.
Malbeuf’s kind of comedy can be perfectly defined as authentic, honest, and relevant. As a 23-year old gay comedian, he is paving the path for others to enter the industry and hopefully create an actual category where they can feel comfortable to speak their minds, share their stories, and be recognized for their talents. Malbeuf said himself, “some of the funniest people we all know are gay, and you know what, where's the representation there?”
Malbeuf has already had amazing success from landing an internship at talk-show legend Larry King’s studio, to a full-time job at one of the largest players in the production agency world, Done + Dusted, to opening for Nikki Glaser, who is easily one of comedy’s leading ladies, to finally headlining his first show ever at the Flutter Experience here in L.A., which he called ‘Stand the F*ck Up.’
The full video of the show will be available on December 13th, this year, and we’re excited to be the first to announce that!
On the side, he creates short-form videos, and the content he provides range from a variety of genres such as spoofing Shawn Mendes interviews, interviewing strangers on the street on pop culture topics, and documenting his own wild adventures in L.A. (i.e. Riding up and down Runyon Canyon on a Bird scooter). Malbeuf just has a way of knowing what the people want, and it helps that he’s young, open-minded, and social. His very presence charms the people he meets because of his big Canadian heart that cares for so many, his amazing smile that makes it impossible not to smile back, and his beautiful way with words that grabs your attention and makes you just want to stop and listen to what he has to say. After crossing the border, Malbeuf knew he was one step closer to his dream. With a clear path ahead and a lot of proactive hard work, bending rules and breaking boundaries, he is quickly finding his way and showing people this is where he needs to be.
Our Interview:
Neelu [N]: Thanks so much for being here, Connor! Very excited to have you featured on DETOUR. So, let’s get started. How did you get into comedy?
Connor [C]: Thanks for having me, Neelu! I’m excited. When I was in second year university, 2014, I was doing television stuff and I was doing TV hosting, and the whole reason I wanted to do TV hosting was because I watched interviews online, like the people on the red carpets. I would watch my favorite singers interviewed by these TV hosts who were so goddamn awful. I would watch these interviews with these artists and wonder why aren’t they asking the questions I wanna hear? Why is no one asking from interesting perspectives? Like why is there no one pushing the envelop? I thought to myself ‘I could do this so much better.’ I honestly got into it because I wanted to ask questions that no one is asking. Like if you have a new album coming out, I don’t want to just ask you, ‘oh, what was the inspiration behind that’, like there’s got to be some depth and meaning and personality to interviews. So, I got into it wanting to be the next Ryan Seacrest but more funky and fresh.
Connor explained all of this to me with such energy and excitement in his eyes and charisma in his voice. It was evident that he was an amazing speaker and was meant to be on the stage.
[N]: You wanted to be that kid that asked the question in class that everyone wanted to ask and that everyone was happy asked it.
He continued:
[C]: Ya! Exactly. I always wanted to be the person who asked the question that everyone was like ‘oh, I was thinking what he said’, or ‘I didn’t have the balls to say it’. And that came down to my comedic influences like Joan Rivers and Chelsea Handler—and really strong personalities like Dave Chapelle—people with really strong opinions who weren’t afraid to say what they want. I mean there’s this perspective that saying what’s on your mind can come across as rude or arrogant or narcissistic, which I don’t think is necessarily true, I just think it’s saying things with a purpose and with a bold statement and a reasoning behind it.
[N]: Totally!
“I think everything I do has like an underlying message or purpose to it.”
[C]: But, I got into comedy because that idea of TV hosting went hand in hand with this idea of improv and comedy, and I did my first stand up show when I was in the beginning of my undergrad. I was so awful, but it was ‘kitchen humor’ and I just said stuff. I wasn’t good at writing down concurrent ideas and putting it into a format. I’m still learning how to do that and basically how to read a script you’ve memorized. So, it took a while trying to find that formula of writing and improv and personality.
The first time I got into it, I was in this little comedy club thing called the Improv Club, and I did my first show. I don't even think I want to know if the video is out there. I hope no one ever sees it. I think it is there somewhere, thank God, it's like deep within the archives.
Connor chuckled, thinking back to those days. His hands covered his eyes as he made an exasperated sigh.
But, then I stopped comedy for a long time and really focused on TV hosting and interviewing musicians and did that for a really long time professionally. And I loved it. I would always play like funny games, and every time I'd interview an artist, they'd be like, ‘well, I've never been asked that’ or ‘I've never done that.’ And that's kind of what I aspired to do. Both in college and even in comedy nowadays. I think everything I do has like an underlying message or purpose to it.
[N]: For sure. What do you think makes the best comedian, in your eyes?
He smiled and looked at me, but he also looked pretty bewildered.
[C]: Truthfully, I don't know if I'm maybe being hard on myself. I was going to say, maybe I'm not the perfect person to ask for this because everyone's subjective in comedy. I always say it’s [comedy] more specific than the type of food you eat. You know what I mean? It's so so specific. But I think if you have a story to tell…I mean, Dave Chapelle used to say that the best comedy doesn't have to make you laugh line by line; It has to entrench you, and it has to kind of like, make you listen, and that you're telling a story. You know, some comedians are punch line, sink in kind of jokes—all haha, haha, laugh, laugh. What I try to do is to try to bring you along this story or this journey, where I'm telling you a really personal thing, and I want you to listen. So, I think maybe, in my perspective, it's something that can just really make you think, ‘Oh my God, that's funny’, but like, ‘Oh shit, that's true.’ So, in this way it's not only telling a story, it’s making an impact.”
[N]: Yeah, comedy is very informative, but in a culturally acceptable way, kind of in a way that, as you said, reaches people without having to hurt their feelings. It's such a hard medium because everyone listens differently. Everyone absorbs content differently and everyone is so, so different in what they like and what they listen to. So, to be able to resonate with every person in the room is arguably impossible for sure. And like the levels of humor too—some people obviously taking more to heart than others while others can laugh it all off.
[C]: Yes!
[N]: Knowing how to engage your audience all the time, when really you'll never know your audience fully.
[C]: Exactly!
[N]: Ok, fun question. Think about your dream venue to perform in. Where would that be?
[C]: Oh my god, it would be like the Sony Center or like Massey Hall in Toronto, which are like old time original theaters, or like the Phoenix Concert Venue. These are like, small old kind of beautiful theaters that I used to go to when I was a kid and growing up in Toronto. A hometown show, and we’d just laugh it out with some of my best friends and family and like the locals, on the coldest night in January, and we’d be sneaking whiskey into our cups.
He closes his eyes, imagining as if he is warming up to a nice cocktail while all bundled up in a jacket and scarf mid-winter of Canada. (Though we are just sitting in my apartment on a night in Los Angeles that is the lowest of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, wearing jeans and t-shirts.) He has an after thought then:
[C]: Comedy is cool because, you know, everyone's sitting down and it doesn't need to be a riot, but I also want it to be a party. Like I don't know why we don't play music and make it feel like the last comedy show I did.
Malbeuf recently executed his first headlining show. It was held at an amazing pop-up museum venue with neon lights everywhere and free alcohol and music blasting. Four other great young, emerging comedians: Sarah Lawrence, Farida Amer, Chanse McCrary, and Caitlin Alyn all opened for Friends and friends of friends from his L.A. experiences came out to support, and it was really a wonderful time.
[C]: We had like a little intermission and people could get drinks and I came up on stage to “Motivation” by Normani. We just had fun with it. The cool thing about being young in comedy is that you can break rules.
[N]: This is true. I like that a lot. I think it's definitely one thing that comedians have not done in a long time, is break the formula.
[C]: There's a formula to success, for sure. But I totally disagree with it.
[N]: There's always that third wall?
[C]: Ya, I feel against the audience.
[N]: And that’s interesting because in live music we pretty much have the same format as comedy: an opener and a headliner, and artists will interact with their fans, I wonder why that’s different for comedy. Ok, so now with your niche audience in the gay community that you were mentioning to me earlier, explain a little bit more about how you think it's helped your entrance into this industry and how it's made it a lot harder for you.
“I always say it’s more specific than the type of food you eat. You know what I mean? It's so so specific.”
[C]: Well, I think first off, I've gotten a lot of success, and I don't say that narcissistically, I just mean that like for someone who's only been in Los Angeles eight months…For me to say that I just headlined this great show in L.A. and opened for Nikki Glaser and for me to say I've only been here that long…I’m really proud of that. But also that wasn't solely because of talent. That was also a lot of hard work and being at the right place at the right time and knowing the right people, and it came down to being this niche comedian. I always say name five comedians in the LGBT community in your hand, you can barely name any, you know maybe three. Sometimes I even struggle to name five.
[N]: It’s an extraordinary accomplishment!
[C]: But yes, I’d say that's both hurt and helped me. It's [comedy] an old boys club. And I mean, yeah, I'm a boy, but I'm also gay, and I'm very vocal about the struggles It is to be a gay person, but also, I'm just talking about my life. People get very taboo about certain things. Overall, I think I would say the positives have been more but again, when you think of gay comedians, I want and would love for you to think of me. Because at the end of the day, I would love to represent a community of millions and millions and millions of people, and if I could, you know, bring up issues that mainstream comedy is not highlighting, then that's huge. I think there's an important factor to that for me.
[N]: Especially in this era.
[C]: This era is all about revolutions and game changes and evolving right now. And so this is the time for it. I don't want to go up there and just like, you know, dance and shake my booty, I want to say something. You know what I mean? I really want to and that's like the last show I just did. There were so many underlying tones, like the beginning was all talking about how our education system was lacking, and especially the education of being gay. How I was growing up in health class there was nothing for me to look at, there was nothing for me to understand. So, there were these underlying issues of not only our education system not representing us properly, but our politicians not representing us properly in my show. Like I'm kind of like throwing a punch and a jab, but also trying to make you realize and make light of things.
[N]: For sure, and you know that kind of talk is so important.
You can sense the feeling of responsibility that Malbeuf owns when he discusses wanting to not just be any comedian, but be a person who speaks out and speaks up for the LGBTQ community as the current climate our world stands as today is completely a painting of blurred and splattered dots and lines, much like a Jackson Pollock piece of art. We went on some tangents but returned back to the interview.
[N]: Okay, fun question time. If you could meet with anyone in comedy, who would it be with living or dead? Give me both.
[C]: I would LOOOVEEE to sit down with Joan and just talk. I would love to ask her about what it was like to be isolated from the Johnny Carson show and being shunned from all of comedy. And, you know, there's just so much she faced and so many barriers she broke down. She was also a huge advocate for gay rights. I would also love to sit down with Kristen Wiig.
Oh my god, I just grew up literally listening and watching her be so damn weird on SNL, and I would impersonate her to my dad and my uncle, and they would hate me. And the same goes for Chelsea Handler. You know, seeing her on TV was huge. But I mean, also as a Canadian, I grew up with Jim Carrey and Steve Martin, and just really, really great comics. I still remember the first short film I ever did. I played a young Jim Carrey in school, and he grew up only five minutes away from my house! So, that there was like this really deep connection to this guy who was just so authentic and so real and ridiculous. If I could sit down with anyone living right now it'd be Kristin Wiig or Jim Carrey.
“I always say name five comedians in the LGBT community in your hand, you can barely name any, you know maybe three. Sometimes I even struggle to name five.”
[N]: So, what are some of your goals in the next year or five years?
[C]: Hmmm… well I kind of love where Kelly Clarkson is. She's headlining Vegas. She's touring. She's still putting out music. She's a mom. She's got a talk show.
[N]: So is that the goal? Is the goal first for you to get to a talk show? Or to be an actor or be just a comedian? Or do it all?
[C]: I don't think I'd ever be fulfilled from just doing like movies or TV shows. I don't think I want to play a character.
[N]: For sure. You want to be you?
[C]: Yeah, I want to be me. The dream is to be like a Jimmy Kimmel or Samantha Bee. Have that show and then also do touring on the side, because I guess there’s still something crazy riveting about just being in front of the stage and being in front of new audiences all the time and bringing your content to communities that may not be able to hear your story all the time. That's the best— when I went to Irvine and was playing for Nikki, we were in very white suburban old neighborhoods and talking about things that they'd never heard of… ‘They're like, what is that?’ I would love to, like, bring my comedy to like rural Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama, and give them the shock of their life, because you're not going to learn if you're not being exposed to different things.
But first thing out of everything, I would love to do like a big college tour. Go to all these colleges around America. We need diverse comedians getting around more. I was on Netflix the other day and I took a video I was like, white straight guy, white, straight guy, white, straight guy, black straight guy, black straight guy, woman, black straight guy, white straight guy. Wanda Sykes is the only gay that was there. That sucks. Some of the funniest people we all know are gay. And you know what, where's the representation there?
I'm also on YouTube, but YouTube doesn't fulfill me. I did YouTube for a long time. And you know, the views are cool, but everyone you're interacting with is not real, right? There's not like a live audience and being able to interact with someone who says ‘I saw your show you, you were really great, that joke was really funny, that helped me’ or whatever that might be.
[N]: Okay, here's our publication’s big question. What's your detour?
[C]: Well, it's funny because in my life, I have a full time job, so, a lot of the time comedy does feel like my detour, but the actual detour, probably from comedy itself, would just be like the idea of solitude and listening to music, and going on hikes and going to the beach alone. I have this little beach, it's like a little coastal access that no one knows, and there's no one ever on it. I love the water. I mean, I swam since I was like a baby. I was a competitive swimmer. But I've always had this amazing experience with water and music and just being alone with your headphones. And just like, no one can, it resets. You definitely do really, really like that. Because in terms of comedy, you're always in front of people and you’re always communicating, so this is kind of the complete opposite. I'm an extrovert to the max, but extroverts still need to recharge. Some of the best days I've had are with just me and my iPod Classic. Yes, I still have one.
[N]: Alright, so now this is another question I ask artists usually for the blog, but if you could be a beverage which beverage would you be?
I would just be a really good glass of red wine. That's all, because red wine gets you ready to party, but it also is the perfect sit down with friends and talk drink. Like the the idea of just being warm around people and sipping a glass of wine with your dinner and just talking, it just reminds me of being at home in Canada.
[N]: Now, tell me more about this show you recently did.
[C]: Well, what inspired me to do this was I came off a bunch of shows with Nikki Glaser and I was like, ‘this is great’ and then all these people in L.A. were like, ‘we want to come see you perform.’ I was doing just 10 minutes then, and I wanted to challenge myself into like 25 minutes. So, yeah, the show was great. And it was, I would say, 50% of the people I knew were friends. It was so much fun. And I had some great openers that I had known from the Laugh Factory (Sarah Lawrence and Caitlin Alyn). And then I had this other opener who I used to work with on the Larry King show, and another I knew from being a comedian in L.A. A lot of the comedy was very new, so it was like the first time people were hearing it and a lot of the show was me testing out material, but also just having fun. It was at this really cool art gallery art space and part of the proceeds went to the L.A. LGBT Center. There's nothing like walking off stage, and you're just surrounded by all these amazing friends and co-workers and friends of friends.
“I want to do a college campus tour… and share my story, and educate them, and make them laugh, and make them think—talk about sex and politics and make them think it's okay to talk about things and have a dialogue around taboo subjects, because we're not talking about things and that’s why we're scared.”
[N]: I can attest that it was very nice. You’re just so natural up there. What do you tell yourself when you start to get nervous?
[C]: I just kind of feel like you could just throw me in the fire. Yeah, I might come out a little burnt, or maybe will come out a lot, but every comedian is always learning. I'm never gonna have the perfect show, so when I come off stage, the first thing I should think about is ‘wow, that was great.’ I need to shift the perspective of the mentality. You should be proud first, critical second, because the critical part is going to make you improve. But if you're always critical first, you're never going to be confident in your work. And if you're not confident, your work will suffer because you're not gonna believe in yourself.
[N]: For sure. So now, if you had to give advice to people who are thinking about going into comedy, but are in a similar situation as you who have a full time job, what would you tell them? Usually, we tend to like to use that full time job as a crutch in terms of being like excuses and things that get in the way if we get tired, we're human. We're not supposed to be always working every night. So, how do you get yourself motivated to still pursue the comedic side even though the good thing is that your job is involved in entertainment, so you're never out of it? But even when you always feel like you're out of it?
[C]: I remember when I first moved to L.A., I was watching an Instagram Live by Mateo Lane, another gay comedian and he's done really well for himself. I asked him what advice do you have for someone just wanting to get into comedy and he replied ‘just do it’. Literally, you just got to do it. I would also say that like, I just started surrounding myself and messaging people and saying, I want to do a show, can you let me open for you? Like, I think really putting yourself out there is key. Yeah, because you're right, it becomes a crutch, and especially because, like for instance, I came off of working 18 days in a row 7am to 11pm, and then I finished that. And then two days later, I had my first headlining show in L.A., but looking back on it, the show was a success. I can do both. You have to be able to tell yourself you can do both. You also have to tell yourself that you have to sacrifice certain things. For instance, I can't go to the gym five days a week anymore. That sucks, but that's reality. I'm like, it's not possible to have a six pack, a perfect boyfriend, a great career and a stand up comedy act. Come on. So those things come at the right time. And you have to you have to say do you want it? Yep. Do you really, really want it? If you want to be a stand up comedian, you'll make it work. You really make it work. Joan Rivers always said this, and I still believe this, she goes, ‘I’ve never met a funny person that didn't make it.’ She says if you're really genuinely funny, you'll make it. You'll push on, and you're going to run into issues and you got to say no to things and you're gonna have to put things on the back burner. It's like that expression, if you ever want something done, give it to a busy person. You know, I always had that mentality. My mom always drilled it into my mind. If you want it done, you got to do it yourself. You gotta have that full time job because you gotta make money. But is it creatively fulfilling you 100%? No. 60 or 70%? Yeah, sure. But what wakes you up in the morning?
The look in his eyes suddenly transforms from solemn to ecstatic trying to wake me up to see what he means. He goes on this incredible rant of what he imagines to be the coming home show of his dreams, and that restless feeling of finally making it. He goes on about how your job versus your passion is what helps you find the itch you’ve been searching for and how at that very moment in time is when you should not let it get away. He then paints a beautiful picture for me of the dream show he hopes to perform one day in.
[C]: I just love the idea of seeing family and friends who haven't seen me perform in two years and really come back and be like, I'm fucking making it. I’m doing it. I really want to perform for the people that have been following me literally along this journey for years and years and years. I want to do a college campus tour, and go to every small and big campus in this country and share my store, and educate them, and make them laugh, and make them think—talk about sex and politics and make them think it's okay to talk about things and have a dialogue around taboo subjects, because we're not talking about things, and that’s why we're scared.
I would love to do one of the late night circuits. You know, you always see these comedians who get their start doing like a five minute bit on like, Conan or Fallon or Corden. I just know it, I would kill it, but I just gotta kind of somehow get there. I want to be able to push myself.
[N]: I love it and believe it— I do not doubt it for a second, Connor, you’ll get there.
Be sure to follow Connor Malbeuf on social media: Instagram | Facebook | YouTube