Billy Eichner
To me, what the 'Billy on the Street' persona is, is me as a 12-year-old.
You have to have a sense of humor about all of it - the Emmys and politics and everything.
I always want to lead with comedy but hopefully be able to sneak my message through at the same time.
We have a whole art department on 'Billy on the Street.' We give away dioramas that we've made.
I loved 'Solid Gold!'
I'm not a bro.
I have a vivid memory of loving Keith Hernandez, the first baseman for the '86 Mets. I grew up in Queens, so when the Mets won the World Series that year, it was a big deal.
People saw 'Moonlight' because it was excellent.
I was very much an only child who was raised by the television and movies, and I grew up in New York. We weren't, like, rich people, but we were middle-class people and my parents supported this love I had for entertainment.
I thought I was going to be like Kevin Spacey in college.
I came back to New York after college like any number of struggling performers, and you just find that niche where you can have some sort of impact. And for me that turned out to be comedy.
I would not have a career without Facebook and Twitter. That's the truth.
Every actor-performer says this, and it sounds so irritating, but I'm not the most outgoing person.
I thought it would be funny to go to my Korean dry cleaner and ask her about my head shot, as if it's the most important thing in the world, and as if it's something that everyone should weigh on because it's important to me.
For some reasons, I have WWE wrestlers tweeting me all the time. Like, my biggest fans. Why they can connect with my love for Meryl Streep, I don't know.
There have been man-on-the-street interviews for years, but insulting people is not that funny to me.
A lot of comics aren't their on-screen personas; Chris Rock isn't always ranting and raving. What I do is make myself this over-the-top character that people either find endearing or they think is a joke. Then I can do anything I want.
A lot of people in Hollywood, and everywhere pretty much, operate on fear. No one wants to get fired, so everyone's scared to take a chance. There's money involved, and there are careers and reputations on the line.
If you really think you have something good, you can't take no for an answer. You've got to get in there and ignore the people who say no.
Facebook is weird. They have all of these seemingly random rules that I'm sure make sense to them, but don't make sense to me or any people.
People come up to me all the time and say, 'I just found out about you!' Part of me is happy, and part of me is, like, Where the hell have you been?'
I was a terrible waiter.
I grew up worshipping Pee-wee Herman.
No one was asking me to be on TV. So I made my own late-night TV talk show.
There is no way I will survive Mike Pence doing Carpool Karaoke. What song's he gonna sing? 'I Deported Your Grandmother?'
One thing that I love about 'Difficult People' is that Julie Klausner and our showrunner, Scott King, have written the lead character I play as a fully formed man.
Saying gay people shouldn't be the punchline is basically saying don't make people the punch line, which I think is ridiculous. The whole point of comedy is, on some level, to make fun of ourselves and put everything into an absurdist context.
It's not enough for Hollywood to make a bunch of gay movies. That's obviously a big part of the equation, but then gay people have to show up for those movies.
I took the Oscars very seriously as a child.
I loved all awards shows growing up, but of course, the Oscars was the biggest one.
All I wanted to do as a kid was go to the post-Oscar parties I was seeing on 'Entertainment Tonight.'
I grew up in New York, so I had a lot of access to all kinds of movies, and I would handwrite reviews of them on loose-leaf paper.
I'm on all the apps: Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, Scruff. I have no shame about that.
People going off on politics on Grindr is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. That's an immediate sign to run in the other direction.
I haven't done many commercials, and I'm very picky about it because it comes down to creative control.
I don't want to do something that's watered down. I don't want to take what I'm known for and dilute it.
If a comedian has a strong following, and the branded segment feels different compared to what you typically do, people will know right away that it's not authentic to who you are as a comedian or performer. Brands need to keep that in mind.
If you're faking it, people will know, and it's going to turn a lot of people off.
I always turn to Wendy Williams when there's any type of ethical or moral crisis in our country.
One of the first big agencies that represented me, my point person there - this was over 10 years ago, so it's no one who I work with now or have worked with recently - but he told me that I was too ambitious.
You don't want to really pick on someone that you genuinely like. In terms of 'Billy on the Street,' there are certain actors - I don't care if they find out because I do feel that way. Though it's almost never about appearance or something out of their control. I pick on choices they've made or roles they've taken.
All that social media hyperbole is just so fake.
Anytime you're the creative force behind something and in front of the camera - we're not complaining, but it is an avalanche of work.
I did a live late-night talk show called 'Creation Nation' with friends of mine. I had a sidekick and a band, and I wrote the whole thing. And it had the form of a late-night talk show, but we did it on stage because no one was giving me a TV show at the time.
The 'Billy On The Street' persona is truly inspired by who I was as a child - obviously not having an adult perspective on the world.
I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win. I'd be doing Oscar predictions months ahead of time, and not only for the Oscars, for the Grammys. This is just what excited me as a kid.
Award shows are fun but completely arbitrary and absurd. And yet, I will watch every single one of them.
The streets of New York are diverse, but when you go into a Broadway show, unless Denzel Washington is in it, or Fantasia's in it, it's a lot of old white people and gay men.
Our pop cultural likes and dislikes are still very segregated, and that is not true of 'Billy on the Street.'