Billy Eichner
I've never even been invited to the GLAAD awards, to sit in the audience. I don't necessarily care, and I'm sure they will one day, and it will be fine, but I've never been invited to anything like that.
'Billy On The Street' has no doubt always been about the people we talk to. That being said, it thrills me that the show really has a dedicated following in the comedy world.
It's one thing to hear that someone likes your show; it's a completely different thing to have them come take their time and film something with you on a sidewalk.
Even when I was struggling and had horrible day jobs and wanted to be successful but wasn't finding my way in, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to keep working at it and keep putting material out there, even if no one was paying me for it.
If you're on TV, you can't complain, right? And I understand that, and it's true to a certain degree.
Entertainment, Hollywood, award shows - these are the things that really captivated me.
My mom had a heart attack, and it came out of nowhere - she was 54. My dad had leukemia for about 3 months. He was 80 when he passed. My dad had me later in life, and so he had leukemia and was alive for about 3 months between diagnosis and passing away.
It's been a very strange trajectory because I struggled for so many years. I mean, I was doing these videos, I was doing these live shows, I had a lot of fans in New York, the press would write about me, but I couldn't get a paying job, and so my father and I were really like a team.
I learned early on that 'Billy on the Street' is a great lesson in 'Don't judge a book by its cover.'
Things pop out of people's mouths that you wouldn't expect them to say, so I've stopped trying to guess ahead of time who might be interesting to talk to.
I grew up in Queens, which is the most diverse borough: the rich and the poor and homeless and people of every sexual orientation and gender and age group. Everyone is saying we live in this bubble, and there's some truth to that. But I do not think it is healthy to all of a sudden invalidate the way we live in New York.
I have a medical condition, all right. It's called caring too much, and it's incurable. Also, I have eczema.Collection: Caring
I can tell when somebody recognizes me, and I try to avoid those people.Collection: People
My father and I were really like a team. I mean, he was very supportive. He'd come to every single one of my live shows.Collection: Team
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.Collection: Kids
It's crazy. I don't know how I'm not dead. People think I'm going to get punched in the face: "Something terrible is going to happen to you. You're going to get killed." That's not what's going to kill me. The show is going to kill me. The work is going to kill me. Once I'm on the street, I'm not worried about that.Collection: Crazy
I've had a lot of arguments with people, but it's never really gotten physical.Collection: People
I'm not a big reality show fan, because I just think it's too fake.Collection: Reality
Ironically, my rabbi was a bar mitzvah Nazi. So I got bar mitzvahed. And though I didn't want to, the theme of my bar mitzvah party was Madonna.Collection: Party
The most outrageous thing happened years ago in my YouTube days, when I asked an older lady - it was like a sexually flavored question and she just slapped me full-on across the face. That's the one time someone got physically aggressive with me. And it hurt.Collection: Hurt
Hotmail just picked up 12 new episodes of 'Judging Amy'.Collection: Judging
The camera guys can't mess up. God bless them, they hardly ever do. But they literally don't know what's going to happen next. None of us do. And it all has to come together and be funny.Collection: Guy
By TV standards - I'm not comparing it to manual labor by any means - by TV comedy standards, it is the hardest job I will ever, ever have. There is nothing that could be harder. I mean, when you combine the amount of writing that has to be done - sharp writing - with the fact that you then take it to the street and improvise with both celebrities who have no idea what's going to happen and real people who are not actors or comedians who don't even know I'm about to talk to them... It's lightning in a bottle every time.Collection: Jobs
I couldn't just get up every day and be miserable and complain.Collection: Complaining
I think it [ Difficult People] is for people who don't feel that they have been properly represented on TV. I think it's painting a very accurate if slightly exaggerated for comedic purposes view of the LGBT world in a way that we have never, ever seen in any television show.Collection: Thinking
I know is that the response [for Difficult People ] has been really great. I think it's for smart people. I think it's for people who obviously care about pop culture or know about it, even if it's to a fault. I think it's for outsiders.Collection: Smart
We're really fleshing out the whole world of the show [Difficult People]. It's more of an ensemble now, whereas last season we were very focused on establishing the Billy/Julie friendship. Now that that's been established, we don't question that they love each other and what the show's about. So we can meander outside of that.Collection: People
I had a lot of fans in New York. The press would write about me, but I couldn't get a paying job.Collection: Jobs
Sometimes you go up to people who look totally normal and then you talk to them for a few seconds and you are like, Oh I better get out of this, because this person is a little mentally unbalanced, and they are not going to get a joke.Collection: People
I like talking to a person who is crazy in a fun, eccentric way. I don't want to talk to a legitimate crazy person, because that's not nice.Collection: Fun
Difficult People? I don't really know. I don't have those metrics.Collection: People
We weren't rich people, but my parents and I shared an interest in the theater and so we went a lot. And that definitely inspired me.Collection: People
I never fully committed to the child actor thing. I also liked being a regular kid and being a student.Collection: Children
I am invisible in gay bars.Collection: Gay
I spend the majority of my time in New York and LA. I feel like a large part of my following and my fans are probably in New York and LA because of the work that I do is very New York-LA-centric. So people do recognize me. But it's nothing overwhelming at all.Collection: New York
It's one thing to be struggling and not really making money in your early 20s and figuring out your life. Early 30s, you start to wonder, is this ever going to happen?Collection: Struggle
If you're just really loud, people just want - will give you what you want just to get you to shut up.Collection: People
You have to fight. You know, you don't want to fight, but you have to fight to make your show your own, to make your voice be heard. You just have to sometimes.Collection: Fighting
When I opened my mouth to sing as a kid, I kind of randomly had a really good singing voice. And so that put me on the actor track and the musicals track.Collection: Kids
I started out as a very traditional actor. The first thing I ever did in terms of performance was singing.Collection: Singing
I think New Yorkers - they're media savvy. People have a sense of humor.Collection: Thinking
If someone walks away from me, I just let them walk, and I move on to the next person.Collection: Moving
Award shows are fun, but completely arbitrary and absurd. And yet, I will watch every single one of them.Collection: Fun
I have a very vivid memory.Collection: Memories
It was one of Hulu's first original shows to really go out there. Now a year has passed, and the second season is getting a great response. I think the show [Difficult People] itself creatively has evolved, has gotten much richer and tighter.Collection: Thinking
It was pop culture, entertainment, Hollywood, award shows - these are the things that really captivated me as a kid. I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win.Collection: Kids