Larry Wilmore

Larry: When we were doing The Office, everybody thought it was going to be a flop. There was a show called Couplings that was an English show that they tried to do here and it flopped. And I was talking to one of the producers and he said, "Hey, promise me one thing. Please make sure they don't take that to America and ruin it." Oh, I'll tell you one thing. If it ever goes to America, I'll have nothing to do with it. Smash cut to me working on the office. Bernie Mac show, I always had a conflict with Fox. We won every award you can win, but it didn't mean anything to them. And by the end of the second season, they kind of fired me very publicly. So here's Bill Clinton, I'll never forget this. We're talking, he's like, "Hey look, there's Pussy Riot. Let's go have a drink." I'm like, "Yeah, I'm following you, big dog. Let's go."

Daniel: My guest today belongs on the Mount Rushmore of comedy, but we'll rename it Mount Wilmore because our guest is Larry Wilmore. So Larry, thank you so much for being with us.

Larry: Thank you, Dan. Pushing me off to a mountain is exactly what Hollywood does.

Daniel: You and I have only known each other for two or three years.

Larry: Just a couple years. Yeah.

Daniel: But I sincerely feel like you're like my brother.

Larry: Dan, we hit it off so fast. First of all, our love of magic, which is interesting, but our love of talking philosophy about the world. I could tell by some of the... You're a very inquisitive person. You ask a lot of questions and I love, I don't know, exploring different things. And the combination of that, you know when you just hit it with somebody, you could just tell.

Daniel: I also love learning. And today we're going to learn from Larry Wilmore because he's a writer, a producer. I don't even understand the difference between producer, executive, producer, showrunner. We'll learn that to a comedian, a magician, but also just the way you think, which I think is very rare where you're very comfortable, challenging conventional wisdom, thinking outside the box, not being a rigid thinker. So we'll get to all of that.

Larry: Sure.

Daniel: But I want to start with a little heavy though because when I told you about builders and what we're building, we want to learn from the greats and how to become builders, I told you that I want to learn about people's setbacks and when people try to bring you down, how do you lift yourself back up? And that touched you. That was something you're like, of all the other things that I want to do about personal growth and about career related stuff, there was something that made me feel that in terms of the moment, you connected with that. Have you experienced something recently or noticed something that made you think that that's an important thing to communicate to people?

Larry: Well, I've noticed people seem more unhappy now than I've ever experienced. And Dan, one of the first significant jobs I'd ever had that changed my life was one summer I sold books door to door and I went into people's homes. And by going into people's homes, I got to experience people's happiness or unhappiness firsthand. And I decided at that moment that I wanted to do something in my life that brought me happiness rather than unhappiness. So to me, you could tell that people are unhappy and unsatisfied by the way they go into tribes very quickly. Look how quickly people are being insulted nowadays. If you disagree with somebody, it's not enough to disagree. They have to be insulted. They have to be knocked down a peg. I believe, especially from talking with young people, people really want to be inspired today more than anything else. And when you brought up your thing, I said, "Wow, I think you guys are on the right track here." What is the way we can inspire people to be better, to do things, whatever it is? Because I think when inspiration is missing from our society and from our culture, we suffer from it. Inspiration also produces aspiration. It allows people -

Daniel: And also perspiration.

Larry: And perspiration. Perspiration is the key to do things of course, especially young people. They need to be inspired by us, Daniel, by the people that have come before and by the people out there. And I'm like, "If I can do anything in my life at this point, I want to get in the business of inspiring."

Daniel: Can we go deep for a second into how that launching pad will help you create writing or product because you've done that before with the Bernie Mac show and with Insecure, with you observed something and then you found a way to turn. So imagine that you're now going to go with that moment. How do you actually create a television show from that?

Larry: Okay. So for me, when I'm creating content, part of the creative process is figuring out the point of view. So what is the story I'm actually telling here? And I'll give you an example. The Bernie Mac show, when I came up with that, the show's about Bernie taking care of his sister's kids because she was on crack and he basically took them into his house. But the show in my mind is not about that setup about taking in your sister's kids. Here's what the show is about. Children are terrorists. I don't negotiate with terrorists. That's what the show is about. So the show is about our relationship with children. I noticed in the culture, Daniel, that there was this movement going on of children were becoming emancipated and calling the shots of the house and things like this, but I didn't grow up like that. And Bernie Mac is the type of comedian who could put a check on that. So that's the show I was writing.

Daniel: What I found awesome though is that that's a very compelling story, right? That's very powerful. And what I fail at when I'm trying to entertain is I get very serious and you're very good at combining comedy with the lessons. So how did that come? So you observed that and -

Larry: Yes. The construct of it came from Bernie's standup show. He talked about when he did that. I saw it as a possibility for a TV show, but my theme wasn't in his act. My theme about children are terrorists. That was not in his act. That's me bringing my point of view to it because it can't just be the setup. I have to say, "Well, how is it a TV show? What am I writing about every week?" And when you know what the show is, the thing that it is, is in the DNA of every scene. Just how you cut a body open, you take any cell, the DNA is the same. I can pick any scene from the Bernie Mac show and the DNA of that is children are terrorists, I'll negotiate with terrorists.

Daniel: When you did that one, you already had Bernie Mac in mind because it came from that.

Larry: Correct. Well, I thought of the construct first and then I thought of the idea. I thought of it a little differently.

Daniel: Let's go back to these ones. So you're talking about like, oh my God, people need inspiration. They're tearing each other apart.

Larry: Yes.

Daniel: Make that funny.

Larry: It's my starting point of how I'm going to approach material. Okay? So what's the part that at the end of the show, we like them and we're happy that they had this intersection in our lives? So that's just in me. I don't consciously do it, Daniel, but I have to say that out loud and put it in me. So when I approach the material, I'm putting that in unconsciously.

Daniel: Tell us about your very beginnings because at the beginning of what I read about you, by the way, what's fun about this thing is you and I got to know each other and really like each other, but I've learned so much more about you. One of the things that I learned is that early in the late 80s, early 90s, the style of comedy was a little bit more like Def Comedy Jam and a bunch of stuff. And you were a lot more cerebral and a lot more... So where did you come out of?What happened in your upbringing? Tell us a little about your beginning story.

Larry: Sure. So when I started in comedy, writing comedy, Hollywood had kind of reduced its interest in Black comedians to a certain type. There was the ghetto kind of real street type of what I call Def Jam comedy thing. And that's what they were casting and they weren't interested in other types. However, when I grew up, Black comedians came in many different types. There was -

Daniel: Richard Pryor.

Larry: Well, Richard Pryor at that time was very clean. He was a very clean comedian when he first started out. He was kind of like Bill Cosby, but Bill Cosby was like a storyteller type of comedian. He told stories, not a lot of jokes in it. Flip Wilson was kind of like a vaudevillian type comedian. He told real classic joke jokes. Godfrey Cambridge was kind of a hipster type of comedian. He was there for the young crowd, kind of sly. Dick Gregory told real racial satire material, satirical racial material that was very funny and biting, very ahead of its time. And Redd Foxx was that underground dirty type of comedian. It was called party records in those days. So the black comic didn't necessarily fit into one particular style, everything from politics to storytelling to that classic vaudevillian style. So I grew up being influenced by all different styles of comedians. It didn't make a difference. Who cares if you're black or white? You could do any type of comedy that you wanted. I was influenced by absurdist comedy. I like Monty Python. One of my favorite shows was Get Smart. It's very satirical. Johnny Carson was one of my favorites, but I also liked, as I got older, the stuff Richard Pryor evolved into that stuff, George Carlin. I was inspired by so many different types of people. Steve Martin, who was kind of an absurdist comic too. All those styles influenced me. So in my standup show, I had a lot of different types of approaches in there, very writers type of standup act. I'll give you an example of one of my jokes. I would say, this is like the type of racial humor I do. People always ask me what I'm mixed with because I'm light skinned and they make that face. They go, "Are you mixed with something?" And I would say, "Look, if I was a beer, I'd be a Negro Light. And I am a third less angry than the regular Negro." And the throwaway joke at the end, a third less angry than the regular Negro, it's real racial satire in there, but it's very silly. But it's like, wait a minute.

Daniel: You're telling a point in a fun way.

Larry: Exactly.

Daniel: That's your strength.

Larry: Exactly.

Daniel: I've been fascinated as I have a social media channel to notice that certain communities are more drawn to me than... I thought I had a universal flavor, but we all have some tribal connections.

Larry: Sure, of course.

Daniel: What made you be drawn to Steve Martin also and not just Redd Foxx?

Larry: I like conceptual things, things that are... There's thought behind it. There's another layer. My all-time favorite are probably the Marx Brothers. And the Marx Brothers, if you look at the three main Marx brothers, they each have a different style of comedy that's doing something different. Groucho, who is just line after line after just funny line and satirical line and that type of thing. Chico, who just can't say a straight line to save his life. But then Harpo, this absurdist mime who's doing all this stuff, to me, it was so interesting. They all represented something different and I just couldn't get enough of it. So I've always had a love for different styles of comedy. I was always fascinated by it. I don't know. I was just lucky in that way. I just like a little different thing.

Daniel: I was just connecting the dots to your upbringing to something you were involved in creating, which I really loved. I haven't consumed all of it, but Black-ish for me is very clever. But for me, what's interesting is I never understood that there was any Black kid that wanted to be more to fit in the white society. Maybe I just missed it. All of my kids' friends and all of them, they want to be Black. They talk and try... Black culture, NBA, maybe because my kids love basketball and because of the rap and the schmap and hip hop. Is Black-ish very real and I just never understood it?

Larry: Yeah. Black-ish is Kenya Barris's story and where he realized he was Black, but his kids were Black-ish. They were next to Black. But really what that story is about, kids who just want to be like the other kids. And his son was like, "How come I can't have a bar mitzvah?" Because bar mitzvahs look like fun. Black, what does black have to do with anything, dad? You're behind the eight ball. And it's kind of the modern thinking of, "I just want to fit in." And the parent insisting that his children, they just can't drop their identity and drop their heritage, but the most he can hope for is that they're Black-ish.

Daniel: Can you walk us through, because for the humans, the mortals like me, I understand in the Bernie Mac show, you created it.

Larry: Yeah, that one I did all the heavy liftings.

Daniel: But in some shows you were the executive producer, but in some of them you were the showrunner.

Larry: Yes.

Daniel: So explain a little bit of the different roles.

Larry: Sure. Let's start with showrunner. Showrunner's the most exhaustive job because you're pretty much doing everything. And usually if you're the showrunner, you probably created the show too. Although sometimes you could be the showrunner and it's someone else creation, but maybe they don't have enough experience to run it. Because as a showrunner, you have to make every quality decision all day long, every day.

Daniel: Showrunner like CEO.

Larry: It's like CEO, exactly. Who's making all the decisions that need to be made to get the show done, whether they're in the writer's room, whether they're on the set saying, "No, I like that take. No, let's do it again." Whether it's approving costume design, whether it's approving locations, whatever the approvals are, you are the last word of approval on the show, and it's your job to make sure all of that gets done and the show is delivered on time.

Daniel: When I started Peaceworks and then Kind, I did every little job so that by the time that I was CEO of a 500 person, multi-billion dollar organization, I understood how each of those pieces were supposed to work directly. For you to become a showrunner, do you have to know a little bit about writing, a little bit about this, a little bit about that, or not necessarily?

Larry: Most showrunners are writers and writers usually by nature have kind of a broad knowledge of a lot of different things. I started in theater, so I already had a knowledge about set design, and I also studied acting, and I studied directing. So I know about cameras and I know about things like focal length or what's going to look good here, what kind of field do I want? I've studied film on my own, so I know about composition and that sort of thing. So if I'm talking to a director or I'm talking to a director photographer, I can speak their language. I'll give you an example. So when we're doing the Bernie Mac show, one of the feelings I want in the Bernie Mac show, I wanted the audience to feel like they were eavesdropping on this and that it wasn't even a TV show, that we just put cameras in a house and we were lucky to catch the action. That's the field I wanted. And so we had a handheld camera guy and he's following the dialogue and he's following line, line, line. And I said, "We have to stop." I said, "You're moving, anticipating the lines. That feels planned to me. I want you to be surprised that they're going to talk. So lag a little bit, lag behind a little bit. So let them start and then catch up to them. It's okay if it doesn't feel natural."

Daniel: In fact, that was actually more natural.

Larry: It subconsciously tells the audience that it's real. It gives a realistic feeling rather than a very well composed shot. I didn't want a well composed shot. So the showrunner, you just have to know all those things. Your most important job is the writer's room and leading the writer's room, and that's the most exhaustive job.That's where all the stories are written and all that. You are signing who may write all the episodes, but you're also the chief rewriter of everything, so you have to sign off on those scripts and sometimes you're up all night making sure a script is ready because you have to shoot tomorrow.

Daniel: The writing is the most important.

Larry: Writing's the most important thing. Everything starts with the script that tells everybody what their job is based on the script. So if the scripts are not coming in good or if you're behind in that, that affects everything. So as a showrunner, the best showrunners are people who have... They're good managers, but they're also really good, I'll say script doctors. I won't say the best writers, but they're the best doctors of script. Daniel, I'm very good at editing. I'll say we don't need that. Get it out. I'm not going to hold onto something for dear life. Why? We can come up with something else. Don't be so afraid that if that goes away, "Oh, that was so good. Who cares? Come up with another thing that's good." But right now, we don't need that. We got to get rid of it. You have to be able to edit efficiently and coldly and write with passion and love and write with all those things and it's your baby. Edit with viciousness and cold heartedness.

Daniel: One of the themes that's coming across from these interviews, what not to do is one of the hardest and most important skills that we have in everything, being able to say, "We're not going to do everything. We're going to focus." And it's very hard for some of us to do that. And so the writing and the editing is critical.

Larry: Very important. The creation of something and now the curation of something, creation versus curation. So now an executive producer who's non-writing, your job may be just to advise the showrunner or give counsel to them or maybe kind of oversee things. So someone who's just an executive producer and not the showrunner kind of has a different job. When I did Black-ish, I was the showrunner of the pilot. So I had all the duties, kind of the co-show running. Kenya and I did it together, but my job also was kind of... Kenya had never done that, was help guide him through that process. And the chief editing script job was in my head, but I also had to be respectful that it was his idea. The show. Exactly.

Daniel: I've heard that about you multiple times. The show that you just recently did with HBO Insecure, similar relationship, right? You were kind of a mentor. And I seem to think that Quinta Brunson also spoke about you as a mentor.

Larry: At the Emmys,

Daniel: Yeah.

Larry: She kind of shadowed me out at the Emmys. Quinta was somebody who I had on my show, The Nightly Show, like 10 years ago, 12 years ago. So I took a bet on Quinta when no one knew who she was, because Daniel, I love finding new talent and I love new voices, especially young people. I want to see what they're up to. Keeps you young. You see people doing new things. I loved Quinta's energy when she first came to the show and I knew in my mind, I want to work with her. She's talented. Years later, we tried to develop a TV show for CBS. It ended up not going, but the process was so good and she felt in doing that process with me that I taught her how to write a sitcom and then she went off and wrote a hit sitcom.

Daniel: Can you go in for a couple more minutes because I think all of us would like to understand because Quinta became also a superstar. For me, it's fascinating that you loved mentoring, but also how did you see that talent?

Larry: Spotting talent, I don't know how that happens, but I know that I have an eye for a particular type of talent. The type of talent I have the best eye for is voice. If you have something to say about the world that we live in, in a way that I haven't heard, that's the first thing I'm going to hear. I go, "Oh, that's interesting."

Daniel: But you have a perspective.

Larry: Daniel, it might be one joke. Sometimes you have to read a lot of scripts as a person to find out who writers are. I only need to read a couple pages of somebody's script. I don't even need to read the whole script. A couple of pages are going to tell me if you have a voice or not. If you don't have a voice, you might be okay, but I'm only going to be interested to a certain point. When I read Black-ish, first two pages I said, "This is fantastic. Yes, I'll do it." Because ABC was asking if I would do it so they would pick it up because I was writing Insecure at that time, so I was kind of busy. I knew in two pages.

Daniel: Wait, you did Black-ish and Insecure on the same time?

Larry: We were writing Insecure. We had done six drafts of the pilot and HBO's process is real slow, so we're waiting on it. ABC had called and they wanted to pick up Black-ish to do a pilot, but Kenya didn't have any experience. They asked if I'd be interested and if I was, then they would pick it up. I said, "Sure. I have a little window here because we're waiting on notes." And then Nightly Show happened when that was done. And Daniel, a year earlier, I wasn't doing anything. I'm sitting in my kitchen. I don't know what I'm going to do next.

Daniel: Is it just lock or did you wheel it into season?

Larry: That how showbiz happens. It's feast or famine sometimes. It was fame the year earlier and then feast the year after that.

Daniel: So with Quinta, what happened in your...

Larry: So when working on the show we're developing for CBS with Jermaine Fowler also, my process is both organic and hand slapping, so freedom and not freedom. So I want people to express their ideas, but also I do that very quickly when I feel they're giving me bullshit. Can I say bullshit?

Daniel: Yeah, absolutely.

Larry: I'll give you an example. So our friend David Copperfield, right? I was doing a show in Las Vegas and David Copperfield heard that I was there and he called me up. He said, "Hey Larry, you want to have dinner one night after show?" I was like, "David Copperfield? Yeah, sure. Why not?" And so he invited me to dinner and I didn't realize when David invites you to dinner, he wants to try something out or that type of thing. And he was working on this script for his moon thing, and he's reading it to me. And this is not a slam against David, but David is so famous and he's so admired and everything. Who's going to say no to David if he's pitching them an idea? In his mind, who's really going to listen to this and give me good feedback? Enter Larry. So he's telling it to me and almost immediately I go, "Nope." I go, "I don't believe it."

Daniel: This was before you and I met in his island?

Larry: Yes. And he starts saying it again. I go, "Nope, I don't believe it." I go, "Don't believe it." And he goes, "What did you don't believe?" I said, "I just don't believe it." I said, "Try again." I made him make up something. I go, "Do it again and say it differently." And he gets three words out and I go, "Nope, try again." Then he tries again, but now he's a little confused, but he's confused in a good way. He realizes he's not connected. He's disconnected. I'm trying to connect him, right? And so he starts again, but he's a little more cagey. I go, "Okay, that's closer, but it's still not a try again." So he starts, and now he's connected, and he goes to something that has meaning for him and that is real. I go, "That's it. More of that. Do that. Give me more of that." And so he starts doing it. You can see his face just changed, Daniel.

Daniel: What's powerful about what you're saying is the more you succeed in life, the more that even if you don't mean it, you get surrounded by people that want to tell you what you want to hear.

Larry: That's exactly right.

Daniel: They might be intimidated because why would they question you?

Larry: And they're good meaning. Yeah, they're good meaning.

Daniel: And before you know it, it's the emperor with no clothes.

Larry: That's exactly right.

Daniel: And when you have the courage to be yourself and provide feedback, it might even be more valuable.

Larry: Daniel, we all crave that experience, but sometimes we get into these bubbles. I felt it when I did a TV show. I remember talking to it. I said, "I'm in a job where people are afraid to not please me or say no." I said, "That's a terrible position to be in." TV shows are such a magnifying glass of that. It's very dangerous. I can see how people just lose their minds doing that.

Daniel: What do you do to keep yourself grounded?

Larry: Family, just keep it real with family. Keep your friends tied. If you're in a relationship, really work hard in that relationship you're in. Don't abandon the things that are important to you. Don't get caught up in it and just laugh off as much of that as possible and just keep your focus somewhere. But the more you can keep your group around you, who's your group, that's the best thing to do. But also take the tension off of yourself as much as possible. That's the best thing you can do. If you put the attention on yourself, it's the worst thing you can do because that's what everybody else is doing.

Daniel: What could I do? Because I say that I want to create that environment, but I notice that particularly with more junior people, I might not create the space for them to feel comfortable challenging me or I have a big ego. What do you do to make sure that people feel comfortable?

Larry: Well, for you, there's two things. Sometimes you can't do anything to that dynamic around you. That's just the way it works. So what are you going to do about yourself? That's a better question because it's going to be hard to do something for the other people. So for yourself, you have to find environments where you can get that. Sometimes it's relationship. Sometimes it's being involved in another thing while you're doing that, that kind of gives you that. I mean, you have sharks. Those sharks don't do that, right?

Daniel: Yeah.

Larry: I mean, you're one amongst equals there, which is kind of nice. I mean -

Daniel: I am the junior shark. I think I like pushing myself even this, this is very hard for me. I like pushing myself into things that I'm not good at because that's how I grow. And by the way, doing this job is one of the hardest things I've ever done. Perfect. Because I have a thousand things going in my head and I need to learn how to listen better.

Larry: That's right.

Daniel: And I think I'm getting better, but I still have a long ways to go.

Larry: Dan, that's a perfect example. Put yourself in an uncomfortable position where you genuinely need somebody's assistance and help.

Daniel: When you're okay, you're failing a little bit.

Larry: And Daniel, and when someone genuinely is better at something than you and you need their counsel, like I started doing standup again this past year back in September, going into the clubs. I started with one minute of material. I humbled myself, Daniel. A couple of times I went up and it was not good. I was watching comedians a lot, being in the clubs, hanging out with comics. Now I'm like, I'm back -

Daniel: I need to ask you about this.

Larry: In the groove of it.

Daniel: I need to ask you about this. How do you develop the guts to go back into standpoint?

Larry: Very difficult.

Daniel: A very accomplished person, won an Emmy at Peabody at this or that.

Larry: If I'm going to do something properly, Daniel, you have to humble yourself as someone that isn't there yet and you have to acknowledge that you're not there yet and that there's a process of getting there. And that place that is there is called excellence. That's the place that is there. And it's a process. It doesn't happen like that. I've done it in the magic world. I did that. I loved magic, but when I joined the Magic Castle, it was like, man, I saw the mountain I had to climb to get to where I wanted to be in terms of a performer. I spent every Friday in the Magic Library, Magic Castle in the library, studying, studying, working on things, working on things. And years later, I became

Daniel: A

Larry: Performer there.

Daniel: What I've noticed about excellence is that it takes a lot of time, but then some of us don't notice it. So when I met Danny DeVito, when I met David Copperfield, when I met you, when I met people that were good at their craft, to the best COs, they're working at it and working and working. And when they perform, you think it's just natural.

Larry: Exactly.

Daniel: But oftentimes it just took a lot of those reps to get there.

Larry: That's right. It takes a lot of reps. And for me, all the things I do help the other things, which is why I do a lot of things. So if standup is going to help me, Daniel, I can't do celebrity standup. Celebrity standup would be this. Somebody asked me to do a charity event, and Larry Wilmore's going to be there too. And I put together some jokes for that thing, and the audience is kind and it goes okay. That would be me doing celebrity. That's not standup.

Daniel: You want to keep it real.

Larry: Standup is me going up and nobody knows who I am, and I'm going up after some killers, and the audience is not kidding around, and I got to survive on that stage. Now, my stuff's got to be tight. I got to really be doing it, and that's a whole different level.

Daniel: Have you had experiences like that where when you're done, you feel like...

Larry: Absolutely.

Daniel: Do you ever cry?

Larry: Well, not now, but at the beginning of my career years ago, I had one experience where... I used to tell this story, this is kind of funny. This is way back in when I was first starting as a standup, when you don't know if you could even make it in showbiz at all, right? So it was back in those days. So I got lucky. I was at a place called the Laff Stop. I used to do open mic dinner. This is Newport Beach. And sometimes they would let me emcee during the week, the regular shows. I only had five minutes of material or whatever. I was building an act at that point, and I was trying everything. I had conceptual things in my act, one-liners, blah, blah, all kinds of stuff. Sometimes things work, sometimes it didn't. So I decided I was going to do this conceptual thing as the MC, and I think I usually wore my contacts all the time. I wore my glasses for whatever reason, and I had this robe, and I can't remember what it was. I start the show with this, Daniel. It was so bad. It was so bad. And why I decided to do this on a show show and not just a different, maybe an open mic, the audience hated me. I was flopping so bad, my glasses started fogging up. That's how bad it was. And you could just feel the audience hated me. And then I bring up the next person, the next person crushes. I have to go back on because I'm the MC. And as I go back on, I can feel the audience going, oh God, this guy again. And I want to tell them, guys, normally I'm really funny, but it didn't matter. I had to come on two more times. I think each time it was worse. I drove home that night just crying to myself, why am I -

Daniel: Literally crying.

Larry: Crying in tears. I'm like, "I can't do this. I can't do this."

Daniel: How old were you?

Larry: I was in my early 20s, but just like a three-year-old. The next week I'd forgotten it, went on stage, killing, doing great.

Daniel: Did you have advice for how to get from that grief to resilience?

Larry: You keep doing it. The advice is what I learned in selling books. You knock on the Next door.

Daniel: I really like what you said about salesmanship because that rejection -

Larry: Taught me everything.

Daniel: Builds thick skin. And when I'm looking for people, when people apply to me that were buyers of whatever it is, I'm more careful about hiring them than where they were sellers. Because if you're on the receiving end and you can say, no, no, no, you start thinking you're -

Larry: That's right.

Daniel: And maybe when you're no longer in that position, you're not. Whereas where you have to be humble then again, you develop thick skin, the tenacity, the persistence, and it's a very good skill to develop. Between that and Bernie Mac, give us some of your most dramatic moments and setbacks.

Larry: So I started as a standup comic after having that moment and trying to be an actor here and there, auditioning for things, sometimes getting small roles. And I started to do well as a standup very quickly. In just a couple of years I was headlining clubs, but I noticed because I wanted to do other things that I wasn't getting the type of auditions for things I was hoping to get. And after a while, I remember the show In Living Color came on and I couldn't get in the door to audition for In Living Color. I wasn't the type of black comic they were looking for. But I was funny and I was clever. I was able to get in the door as a writer for In Living Color.

Daniel: For those that don't know In Living Color, that was like a legend of a show.

Larry: Huge.

Daniel: It had Jim Carrey, it had -

Larry: The Wayans Brothers, Damon Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Tommy Davidson. You had Jennifer Lopez was a fly girl. Rosie Perez was a choreographer. Jamie Foxx came on third season, I think. Oscar winner.

Daniel: So this is the show that you're trying to get into.

Larry: Hollywood said, "No, Larry, you can't be on that show as a performer." But I told Hollywood, "Well, how about I get on as a writer?" So I was good enough to write the things, but not the proper type to be on it. My brain said, "Okay, here's what you need to do. You need to create the space for yourself." That's why I became a writer in television. I wanted to get the kind of clout and the experience to be able to write the space for myself because that space didn't exist. So I always had a very entrepreneurial relationship with showbiz.

Daniel: You already had the writer skills then or because of your standup comedy, you developed the writing skills or that you had them naturally?

Larry: I had joke writing skills and I studied theater in college because I was a theater major. I knew all about story and that type of thing, but I didn't have that skill yet. One of my other philosophies was get the job, then learn how to do the joke.

Daniel: Can you give us a little pointer or two, or it's not easy to do that here, on how do you, you said you know how to write jokes. Can you share a little -

Larry: How do you write jokes?

Daniel: Yeah.

Larry: It's very interesting the art of writing jokes. I always say jokes are kind of like truth concentrate.

Daniel: Truth concentrate.

Larry: It's like the most amount of truth in the least amount of words is the best type of joke.

Daniel: I love that.

Larry: Most amount of truth in the least amount of words. And there's some kind of thing you don't see coming, some kind of little surprise in there that just kind of tickles you because you recognize some truth in there.

Daniel: Talk about that last piece because that's what I always, I love twists and the expert, but how do I train myself to do that?

Larry: To think that way. Well, you can learn how to write jokes, but you can't learn how to be funny. So there are many places where in books and things that to tell you the technical aspect of writing a joke, but being funny is a little more ephemeral. Now, you could probably develop your funny side a little bit more by knowing how to do that, but I don't know if you can learn to be funny. I don't know if that's true, but you can learn to write jokes that are funny, I guess.

Daniel: Do you have devices for how to do... Do you have a section like, "Oh, these are my five variations of twists, make it too black and white, the unexpected, these are like a cheat sheet for us mortals?"

Larry: A lot of people do that. I don't follow that type of thing. I kind of do it intuitively.

Daniel: How does it come to you?

Larry: You know what? Because what did I do? Watched hours of Marx Brothers going on.

Daniel: When you were watching Marx Brothers, you were just enjoying it or you were absorbing it and analyzing it?

Larry: No, just enjoying it. But if I listen to Groucho, any speech by Groucho breaks so many rules and establishes rules of comedy. Anybody ever tell you you look like the Prince of Wales? I don't mean the president Prince of Wales, one of the old Wales. And believe me, when I say Wales, I mean Wales. I know well when I see one. Groucho's done so many jokes in there and so many different types of jokes. Can't you say what I'm trying to tell you I love you. Come on, you take me and I'll take a vacation. I'll need a vacation if we're going to be married. Can't you say what I'm trying to tell you? So Groucho to me, his rhythm was funny. The jokes he did was funny and all that stuff. And I remember loving Woody Allen's writings in his films growing up too. He had a couple of collections of New Yorker stories that were hilarious and Without Feathers and Getting Even are the two collections just from a literal -

Daniel: All of that you absorbed before getting to In Living Color?

Larry: Oh yeah.

Daniel: Arriving In Living Color, one of the things I read also is that it was a very diverse writer's room.

Larry: Very

Daniel: Diverse.

Larry: So I used to write when I was doing standup before In Living Color, I would write jokes for other comedians and many times I would just do that because they'd do something and go, "Ooh, it might be funny if you try this." And I would get ideas for other comedians and that kind of stuff and try to give them jokes. And then there was a friend of mine who was a ventriloquist and I actually wrote routines for him, just joke routines for him.

Daniel: Something came to me for one second right now. Dinner for Schmucks. There was a ventriloquist there?

Larry: Yeah, Jeff Dunham.

Daniel: But what was your role in that movie?

Larry: Jeff Dunham, who was really a ventriloquist and I worked with in clubs here before. I played one of the non-schmucks, which -

Daniel: Oh, you were like the arrogant.

Larry: I think should have been obvious that I wouldn't be a schmuck. Come in there. There were a lot of funny people on that.

Daniel: You know what I find fascinating about that movie? It's so cringey how mean they are and it delivers a message like no other about not being mean. And that is kind of like the art of your world. You have to provide those contrasts for you to bring out the message in an entertaining way.

Larry: Right, that's right.

Daniel: And it's hard for me to get there because I don't want to in the first place do that, but it's kind of like the secret to making it work.

Larry: Yeah. I mean -

Daniel: Did that make sense what I just said?

Larry: Sure, sure. You want people to enjoy. I think comedy should bring joy and relief in those things, but it shouldn't make you uptight unless -

Daniel: Or self-righteous.

Larry: Oh yeah. That's a danger too. It's funny because when I started doing The Daily Show, now I never did overtly political material. I did some. In fact, the first bit I wrote, it's still a classic bit where I was talking about politics and I did a Jesse Jackson impression in it and really a fun bit. I was going to put it online recently when he passed away, but it was my first, I'll call it classic bit, but it was very fun. It was just a fun bit. It's not biting. Do you want me to tell you what it was?

Daniel: Yeah.

Larry: The bit was this, and I did some impressions in it too. And pardon me for being older, but I would say all politicians lie. The only one that didn't was George Washington. His father asked him if he chopped down the church. He said yes. But I imagine, what if other politicians had chopped down their father's church? How would they answer that? Could you imagine if Richard Nixon was like, "Richard, come here. Did you chop down my tree?" I'd be like, "Well, you know daddy, looking in retrospect, I can firmly say that although I did authorize the initial break in of the tool shed, I must say that that in no significant way links me to the actual chopping." Carter was something like, "I chopped it in my heart." Something like that. And I would do, I can't remember the Reagan would say, "Well, there you go again." But then I would go to Jesse. I would end it with, "Jesse, come here. Did you chop down my tree?" He said, "Well, Daddy, the question is not whether or not I chopped down your tree as much as do I believe in the tree's right to exist? On that point, I do. Furthermore, Daddy, I believe in the rights of all trees. I think it's wrong to merely address the pipe of the cherry tree alone. There's the apple tree. There's the orange tree. There's the fig tree. They have been locked out of the garden. We have to include all the trees into the garden along with the rose bush, along the weeds in order to form a total strawberry coverage. They always got a huge applause. That was me. That was my first standup joke that worked.

Daniel: In?

Larry: When I was doing, this is in the 80s when I was first doing standup.

Daniel: Before In Living Color,

Larry: Before In Living Color. Years before that. This is when I knew I could do it because the audience loved it. And when you know you have something that works, it works every time. Now, it may not get here every time, but a joke that works, works every time. Jokes that don't work, work sometime, sometimes not, sometimes sometimes. Jokes that work, work every time.

Daniel: I love that one. One of the reflections that I've had lately is how news just tells you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear. And it's so divisive and so scandalous. And how can you provide people some interesting real growth? And the solution is comedy, to find a way to tell the truth. And obviously you guys figured it out with The Daily Show. Bill Maher, I think does a good job. It's slightly different. The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. If I'm trying to find a formula to entertain

Larry: And

Daniel: Inform, to help people become builders while enjoying it, can you think of a model that we

Larry: Could

Daniel: Use in that world today?

Larry: I think point of view is the first thing you have to land on. What am I trying to say? And then who's the ideal person to be saying this? To me, that's where I would start with something like that, more so than the actual construct of the show yet. That's a little cart before the horse to me.

Daniel: For example, what Bill Maher does, and you've been on his show, is one of the rarest places where I see actual thinking in a really superbly entertaining way that travels. What makes that work?

Larry: Well, keep in mind, it's been on for 20 years or so, 25 years. So it has institutional acknowledgement behind it. People accept it for what it is. You're not trying it out now.

Daniel: And it's not even as widely viewed as I'd like it to be.

Larry: Yeah, exactly. So it has its own audience for that that's already built in. Easier for a department store to add another department than for a new store to spring up and just be that thing. Easier for -

Daniel: Easier for Kind to launch another flavor than to start a new brand.

Larry: That's exactly right. I used to talk about the way that the zeitgeist... The zeitgeist is this force out there that determines what the audience wants to deal with and what they don't. It doesn't mean something isn't funny. The zeitgeist says, "Eh, audience isn't interested in this right now." Nobody knows how to control the zeitgeist. Nobody's in control of the zeitgeist. The zeitgeist is its own thing and it decides. So right now the zeitgeist is like, "You know what? You had a good run late night shows, but people just aren't that interested." Why are they not that interested? Because they have social media, they have their phones, they have all these other delivery systems and ways to get content. If Trump does something funny, how many people have done memes? If he does something at 12 o'clock, by one o'clock, there's a thousand memes of it. Your late night show is already late to the party.

Daniel: When the late show ended, did you get depressed? Did you suffer?

Larry: No.

Daniel: Why did that one not hit you hard?

Larry: No, I was kind of relieved.

Daniel: Why?

Larry: Because it was exhausting. And even though I was happy to do it and I enjoyed it, it's not the full thing of what I want to do. I'm a storyteller also. I'm not just a satirist. It's just one of the things that I do. But that show was so exhausting. I couldn't do the other things I was interested in. So getting fired kind of gave me my life back.

Daniel: I'm trying to relate to how you deal with adversity and you create the Bernie Mac show.

Larry: Okay, so the Bernie Mac show was different.

Daniel: You win the Emmy.

Larry: Yeah.

Daniel: And then they fire you from the show you created.

Larry: Then I was crushed and my marriage was in trouble then. Every arrow was down, Dan, every single arrow. It was really, really tough. One of the lowest parts of my life because I didn't know if I could work again in showbiz.

Daniel: Walk us through the facts and then tell us what you were feeling.

Larry: Okay. So at that point, the Bernie Mac show, I always had a conflict with Fox at the time. They never really understood the show and I always had to try to defend it and we always kind of fought, but the audience loved it and we won every award you can win, but it didn't mean anything to them. And by the end of the second season, they kind of fired me very publicly, but many writers in Hollywood kind of came to my rescue, sent me nice notes, everybody from famous people to whoever. It was such an amazing outpouring of emotion for me. I kind of kept the high road in the press. In the press, I said we had creative differences. I was creative and they were different.

Daniel: But when you are fired from the show you created, how the hell do you handle that? What happens? They call you? Do they even respectfully let you know that you -

Larry: No, it's always very cold when you get fired in Hollywood. Good Lord.

Daniel: Why is that the case in Hollywood?

Larry: They're the most weasely of weasels.

Daniel: Why?

Larry: Would we expect anything other than that when you think about it?

Daniel: But what do you gain from that approach?

Larry: Let me explain something to you, Daniel. Hollywood does not operate on logic or normal things that humans might consider as normal behavior. Hollywood does not act like that. But going back to your question on that, it's very difficult to deal with. It's very difficult emotionally and everything. I wasn't even doing standup at the time. Usually standup helped me to remind me that I was funny, so I wasn't even doing that. I really had to just be as simple as possible and keep my mind on moving forward. And so when my brain goes into that, I get creative.

Daniel: One of the other things that I learned, first of all, I saw a picture of your brother, your younger brother. He really looks like you.

Larry: Yeah.

Daniel: And he was in a bunch of things that you were in. You guys were both in living color.

Larry: Right. We're both writers and he became a performer in the show.

Daniel: And then you lost him and he was your younger brother.

Larry: Yeah.

Daniel: And I cannot even imagine, my younger brother's like, I love him so much. And you guys were in the same space. You're one of six, but was he the only other person in the loop?

Larry: We were the closest together. We went through all the things together because we shared a room growing up. My other brother was a lot younger, so he was kind of a half generation different, I guess.

Daniel: Did you compete with him?

Larry: No, we never competed.

Daniel: When he got to be in front of the camera and you were behind no problem?

Larry: Although he always fell to my shadow, and so he kind of suffered a little from that type of thing emotionally sometimes. People would say he's layers.

Daniel: Larry Wilmore's brother?

Larry: Exactly. Or maybe confuse him for me.

Daniel: And you lost him to COVID, right?

Larry: Yeah, we lost him during COVID. He had a lot of health problems, unfortunately, but Marc, he was such a funny person. And the real way I started in comedy was we used to make each other laugh growing up.

Daniel: You and him.

Larry: Yeah. When my parents got divorced when we were young, but they would fight a lot and we'd hear them in the background and we would play Make Me Laugh to get to sleep. We'd have to make each other laugh. And I think that's how we dealt with just a lot of that stuff going on.

Daniel: Is there anything that you do in your life when you're doing your writing, when you're doing your comedy to try to not become part of a bubble and to see things that others might not see? What techniques do you use? Because it must be so essential in writing and comedy to keep it real, right? It's just one of your things.

Larry: Absolutely.

Daniel: Do you have a technique for how to do it?

Larry: Well, like you said, keeping it real is one thing. For me personally, I've always made an effort to know what's going on on both sides, really because that's what my life is. Dan, I have so many friends on both sides of the political aisle and they're all the same to me. I don't treat people differently.

Daniel: Did it start with your parents and how they taught you or no?

Larry: Maybe. I was lucky enough to be put in a lot of different situations where I was kind of the outsider. I went to a Catholic school and I was one of the only black kids there. I always feel like I'm in a family reunion and I'm not in the family. So I had to project myself in other people's things sometimes and learn about other people. And it wasn't just the comfort of my own thing and being in that. So as someone who's naturally curious, I want to know more. I don't want to shut down speech or argument or that type of thing.

Daniel: So we're moving to the next segment and we just introduced this thing -

Larry: I'm scared.

Daniel: Called the Mexican Inquisition.

Larry: I feel like this is the only reason why I'm here.

Daniel: I'm going to spare Larry because he told me that he has arrhythmia, but unless you want to try it out.

Larry: I just want to know if it's in the country legally. That's all I know.

Daniel: It's in the country legally. In Mexico, you do this machine -

Larry: Wait, who does this? I feel like you just made this up.

Daniel: Yeah, I'm going to show it to you. Turn it on and you hold them like this.

Larry: Oh, that's like the Zoltar thing.

Daniel: And you move the dial. And as you move the dial, it starts tingling. You start feeling it. And then if I go two, three or four, we won't do it, right?

Larry: Oh, it looks like so much fun. Yeah. Keep the comedy in. That's what I say.

Daniel: All right. So we're not going to do this, but I'm going to still give you the Mexican inquisition.

Larry: I'm so disappointed I'm not going to be electrocuted on Daniel's show. Oh man. I thought you so kind about us.

Daniel: All right. Fine.

Larry: No way.

Daniel: I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions and you need to try to give me an answer swiftly, but I might have follow-ups.

Larry: Oh, okay. Good.

Daniel: Okay. Name an unsung hero who helped you get here.

Larry: Unsung hero, I would say Sy Rosen, who was my first boss in sitcoms. And Sy allowed me to sit in on every meeting that normally a young writer wouldn't sit in, whether it was editing, whether it was getting notes from the networks. And I learned everything about how to make a TV show from that job. Great man.

Daniel: But what did he do?

Larry: He allowed me to be in those meetings. He was the showrunner.

Daniel: He was a showrunner.

Larry: He was a showrunner, yeah. And he didn't have to do that. Showrunners don't have your staff writer in all these meetings.

Daniel: He was a showrunner in which show?

Larry: Sister Sister.

Daniel: What was that?

Larry: Sister Sister was a show in the '90s about these twin girls who meet each other later in life because they were both adopted when they were born. And it was with Jackée Harry and Tim Reid. It was a very cute show.

Daniel: What is a question I should have asked you?

Larry: What is Sister Sister? You should have asked that earlier because it's on my resume, Dan. I don't know how you missed that. Do you like to be electrocuted would've been a good question. Dan, there's so many questions that I filled out we missed.

Daniel: But you know what? The first jobs we get are the most meaningful things.

Larry: Sure.

Daniel: Sister, sister, those early moments.

Larry: Very meaningful.

Daniel: They matter so much. Who would you love to invite to a dinner party?

Larry: I think my go-to answer for this, and now it's great because he's American as the Pope. Love to have the Pope there. As a Catholic, and the fact that he's American, and he's from Chicago, my family's from Evanston, from Chicago. How can I not have the Pope at a dinner party?

Daniel: We're going to make that happen for you.

Larry: Well, really? That'd be amazing. See, I'll be electrocuted for that.

Daniel: I was friends with the prior Pope.

Larry: Really?

Daniel: Well, friends, too strong a word. I met him on two or three occasions. Maybe not friends.

Larry: You're in the audience going, "Hey, bud."

Daniel: I saw him once from a party. Can I tell you a funny story?

Larry: Yes.

Daniel: When I was in New York City, President Clinton and Hillary Clinton agreed to speak to a group of us. We were like a group of 200.

Larry: Right.

Daniel: And I told my parents, "I'm going to get to listen to President Clinton and Mrs. Clinton in the audience."

Larry: Yes.

Daniel: My parents call my uncle and they're like, "Oh, Daniel is meeting with President Clinton." And then my uncle calls my grandmother and they're like, "Apparently Daniel's an advisor to President Clinton."

Larry: Wow.

Daniel: Then I get to Tampico, Tamaulipas, which is the cattle country where my grandparents live. I swear to you, Larry, everybody like, "Oh my God, we heard that you're advising President Clinton that you're his senior advisor in Mexican affairs."

Larry: Oh, that's hilarious like the game of telephone.

Daniel: And also how the lore that exists from families and they're embellished till the point of... So I hear stories about my forebears and I'm like, "They must have the same book happened to them and they probably had nothing to do with this stuff."

Larry: I'll tell you my quick Clinton story. So they asked if I would host this thing for the Clinton Global Initiative. So I got there early and Bill Clinton was there. So we're backstage. I got to sit like this and just talk to him for like a half an hour. We're just shooting the shit about stuff and he's, "Yeah, you know, and blah, blah, blah." I'm asking him questions and stuff. Remember that group Pussy Riot that was like this group from Russia or whatever? They were supposedly on this thing. So here's Bill Clinton. I'll never forget this. He's like, we're talking. "Hey look, there's Pussy Riot. Let's go have a drink. "And I'm like," Oh yes. "I'm like," Thank you comedy guys. "It was the pause. "Hey look, there goes Pussy Riot. Let's go." I'm like, "Yeah, I'm following you, big dog. Let's go." And I got to talk to Hillary right after that too. And I'm like, "Hillary, did you see Pussy Riot? I feel like you missed this moment."

Daniel: Were you nervous when you were with him or you were constantly -

Larry: No, he put you at ease. He's great.

Daniel: He does?

Larry: He's great.

Daniel: Who makes you nervous?

Larry: I was nervous before the White House Correspondents' Dinner because Obama's the president. So that kind of stature, yeah, I was pretty nervous then. Yeah.

Daniel: Larry gave the comedy thing after and it was hard to follow because he had a very good thing.

Larry: He's so funny.

Daniel: He was very funny.

Larry: And he even dropped the mic. I'm like, "Thanks, Obama."

Daniel: You got a little bit in trouble in there.

Larry: I did, but what are you going to do? That's what I'm there for.

Daniel: I thought you were great. I think people -

Larry: That's the right room to get in trouble for.

Daniel: Just comedy's comedy.

Larry: It's the right room to get in trouble for.

Daniel: Yeah. Just one last follow up on the dinner party. I had our friend Jason Alexander here and I asked him if he hangs out with other comedians and he wouldn't want them in the dinner party. And Jason explained that he doesn't love having other superstars around because he gets anxious and he just wants to be with his family. For me, it seems interesting because I would imagine that comedians are always hanging around with each other. What's your ecosystem on that front?

Larry: I like hanging with my family the most, but in terms of people who I like to hang out with, I have a couple of magicians. Magic is the one. I don't really hang out with comedians, but because I have a couple of my buddies, David Regal, John Gustafero, who are both great magicians, and man, we could talk about... We're like little kids, Daniel.

Daniel: But what I love about magic, I encourage any young person to do this, it helps you think outside the box and to present to people and go solve problems. It is a really great, great, great thing for us.

Larry: And it's a community of people too.

Daniel: I don't think we have a future in being cool after the Stephen Carell scene in the 40-Year-Old Virgin. You know what I'm talking about? Where he takes out an ear, he appears an ear and the girl's like, "That means you've been carrying a plastic ear in your pocket for the last..." Wait, you did a dinner with Schmucks with him, no?

Larry: Yeah. Steve Carell. I did the -

Daniel: And also The Office.

Larry: The Office was before that.

Daniel: Yeah. Is he one of your faves or no?

Larry: Oh, Steve Carell is yes.

Daniel: You can't say no.

Larry: Steve Carell, you would never know he was in showbiz. If you didn't know who he was, you're sitting in a restaurant.

Daniel: I love him.

Larry: He's one of the most humble guys who's just super nice to, just really so funny too.

Daniel: By the way, The Office, your episode on Diversity, that was, oh my God, amazing.

Larry: I'm lucky to be part of a classic TV episode.

Daniel: Very fortunate. That was probably one of the best episodes.

Larry: If you want me back, I'll do Office Stories for you if you want to.

Daniel: Just tell us one story from now.

Larry: Okay. So Diversity Day, which a lot of people talk about, I have two things to say. First of all, when we were doing The Office in the beginning, everybody thought it was going to be a flop. There was a show called Couplings that was an English show that they tried to do here and it flopped. And people thought we were going to mess up The Office. Backstory real quick. When I did the Bernie Mac Show, I got a lot of acclaim from it and I got to do this thing in England at the time where we were kind of screening TV shows. And one of the TV shows was the English version of The Office, which I had never heard of at that time. This was years before I came over here. And I saw it and I'm like, "Wow, this thing is brilliant." And I was talking to one of the producers of it and he said, "Larry, I love your show. The Bernie Mac show is fantastic. It's really good." I go, "Oh, thanks." His name's Ash. I go, "Ash, the Office is great." It's so funny because, "Oh, thanks." I says, "Larry, promise me one thing. Please make sure they don't take that to America and ruin it." They said, "Oh, are you kidding me? I'll tell you one thing. If it ever goes to America, I'll have nothing to do with it." Smash cut to me working on The Office on Diversity Day as a producer years later. But Steve Carell and the pilot of our version of The Office, in that version, we had to use the exact same script as they did in the English version, but it didn't really suit Steve Carell's personality. Steve, he's a nice guy. Ricky Gervais, he could play that type of rogue that is just a rotten person. He can play that and it's so funny. But Steve, it's a little against who he is. So Greg Daniels, who was the showrunner, brilliantly, kind of wrote - Saw that. Yeah, he kind of wrote to Steve's kind of sweetness and that type of thing, but it really didn't start hitting its stride till season two after Steve did 40-Year-Old Virgin and he lost a little weight and we went from his hair being slicked back to comb forward. All those things went into him being likable and we thought our show was going to be canceled so many times, but then people started finding it on iTunes and we ended up making it.

Daniel: And the Diversity Day episode?

Larry: And the Diversity Day -

Daniel: That is one of the funnest episodes I ever watched.

Larry: So Steve Carell is doing that. By the way, I have a lot of outtakes from this on DVD that people have never seen.

Daniel: Invite me.

Larry: And it's Steve Carell saying he's doing that line. And I'm just standing there going, "What is happening right now?" And it was one of the funniest things because he's doing the Chris Rock joke. Oh my God, it was so funny, but it's just out of context. It's like, "What is going on with this show?" But it was one of the funniest moments on that sound stage was Steve Carell doing that Chris Rock thing.

Daniel: But the whole episode is hilarious.

Larry: Yeah. Oh yeah, the episodes.

Daniel: You were fantastic on it.

Larry: It was really good. Thank you so much.

Daniel: Okay. A historical figure who would make a great standup comedian.

Larry: Oh, it's funny. That's a great question. A great question. Okay. How about Shakespeare? I think Shakespeare would be good because he's just so good with language. Don't you hate it when thou winch duffed this?

Daniel: I'm not going to try to follow the - Yeah,

Larry: That's the setup to whatever joke is doing.

Daniel: What's one thing that broke you and eventually helped build you?

Larry: Broke is an interesting word, but I will say that going through a divorce is really difficult. If anything's going to break you, it can be that. But in that situation, I really focused on my relationship with my children and just kept that as good as possible.

Daniel: Do you have any advice for how to maintain a relationship?

Larry: Don't look at the relationship from your point of view in terms of what it needs. Look at the relationship as what the relationship needs, so what's going to help the relationship. Focus on that first. Let yourself be second to that. I don't mean deny yourself or whatever, but don't just think of yourself in Well, if I'm not getting this or if this doesn't serve me, well, what's serving the relationship? Because that's the thing you want to preserve and you want to make good. Your individuals in this thing that is, it's a separate thing than yourselves. It's the one plus one makes three, right? That's what a real relationship is. So how do you keep preserving that three? How do you preserve that? How do you make it better and work on it?

Daniel: Its own thing.

Larry: Those are the tough lessons sometimes because it's easy, especially if you have arguments to get on your side. But when you realize that the thing you have is so much more important than how you feel in a given moment, then you can get through those things.

Daniel: What's something you've changed your mind on over the last year?

Larry: This one is not as hard as I thought this question. When Trump was elected, this is going to sound surprising, I thought, okay, all these people felt this man should be president again. Let me give it a shot. Let me give it some time. I'm not going to be critical, not going to say anything. I'm just going to shut my mouth. I'm just going to watch and let's see what happens. And now I know. I gave it a shot, Daniel. The time to be silent is over.

Daniel: For me, the answer's very complex because oh my God, him getting paid $1.6 billion to himself, so wrong what he's doing with the IRS, January 6th. There's so many things, him endorsing people that are criminals. And yet there are certain things that I acknowledge are... There is a small chance, a small chance that he actually puts together a rapprochement in the Middle East that would be historic. It might be might not happen. But I'm just saying what I find troubling is that he's so polarizing that the people that support him, support him all the time and they see people that hate him, hate him all the time. And for me, he does not represent the values that I stand for. I would have never elected him. I couldn't elect him. In my last election, I voted for Nikki Haley because I thought President Biden didn't have it. I like

Larry: Him.

Daniel: But I find it tricky that people can't... It's so us versus them so polarizing. Absolutely bad. Absolutely. There's plenty of bad there. He's normalized antisocial behavior that really, really worries me. But some of his policies are not necessarily always bad. And I was starting to think of the... Well, helping the people of Iran, 43,000 murdered in the course of two days, trying to help liberate them from 47 years of oppression. Yet those who oppose Trump and Netanyahu don't give voice to those people in Iran and it's those people that suffer. So I don't know.

Larry: Here's where I'll agree with you this. And my take on this comedically is I say Trump's not always wrong. Trump's not wrong. He's just far from right in many things. And I'll give you what that means. If somebody said, "You know, Larry, during slavery, black unemployment was 0%." I would say, "You're not wrong. You're not wrong. You're just far from right." So Trump's not wrong on a lot of things, but how close is he to right? He's not wrong about Iran, but that doesn't mean he's taking the right approach. So that's how I feel about that. By the way, God bless the world if Iran became a real functioning country with the leadership that -

Daniel: But we haven't gotten there.

Larry: Yeah. But could you imagine? There's some brilliant people that come out of Iran all the time, but they have to disassociate themselves with Iran most of the time.

Daniel: What drives you?

Larry: That's a great question. Wow. You know what?

Daniel: The laugh in and of itself is awesome.

Larry: I think a better word is joy. I think joy is what it is more than laughs.

Daniel: I love that.

Larry: Because magic can bring joy too and doesn't necessarily have to bring laughs.

Daniel: Joy drives you.

Larry: Yes.

Daniel: For yourself, for others or both?

Larry: Doesn't matter.

Daniel: I love that answer.

Larry: Yep. If I bring you joy, good enough.

Daniel: That fuels you. When you unleash joy, that's your fuel.

Larry: Enough. Done enough.

Daniel: I love that. Last rapid fire. I'm going to ask you build or break and you say build if you are for it, break if you're against it.

Larry: Okay. All right.

Daniel: Build or break late night television. He's pointing sideways in case for the audio. Build or break, bombing on stage.

Larry: Oh, down.

Daniel: Down, but it builds your - Yeah,

Larry: But nobody wants to do it. Yeah. Thumbs down.

Daniel: But it makes you strong.

Larry: I don't care. Thumbs down.

Daniel: Build or break 30 Rock.

Larry: The building? 30 Rock?

Daniel: The show, is it accurate to the life of the writing room?

Larry: That's not a good question to ask me.

Daniel: Oh, break. Build or break hacks.

Larry: Hacks, thumbs up.

Daniel: Really? Really? Thumbs up?

Larry: Yeah.

Daniel: I couldn't get into it.

Larry: Yeah.

Daniel: Build or break. Obama's a comedian.

Larry: Oh, thumbs up. Yeah.

Daniel: Build or break the White House correspondents dinner. The dinner itself, not you, but the existence of it.

Larry: Dinner itself down. But for me, thumbs up because I got to have dinner next to the first lady, Michelle Obama, and we just talked about her kids. So two thumbs up for that one for me.

Daniel: Build or break, 10 episode sitcom seasons.

Larry: Down.

Daniel: Down. Can you elaborate on that?

Larry: Well, I'm OG, old school for you people. And we did 25 episodes of sitcoms back then. And man, that's how you build classics as far as I'm concerned, is you have to go beyond what your initial thought of that show was and keep defining it again and making it into something new. If Seinfeld had done 10 shows a year, it would had two seasons. That was it.

Daniel: Can I ask you one last question on that front? Why is it for commoners like me when I'm trying to get into a TV show that the first or second episode, whether it's a comedy or a drama, oftentimes... I remember when Breaking Bad was coming out and Erica, my then head of marketing told me, "You have to watch Breaking Bad." And I watched the first, the second, I stopped. I couldn't. I was like, "Erica, you drive me nuts. Why would I want to watch this guy destroy his life?" So just stay with it, just stay with it. Probably my favorite dramatic series ever.

Larry: Wow.

Daniel: Why does it take a while? Why does it often, you have to almost sit through one or two before it actually starts clicking?

Larry: I think it depends what it is.

Daniel: Why can't you guys do a better job?

Larry: Well, it depends. See, I was hooked from the beginning.

Daniel: For that one.

Larry: And Sopranos, I'm hooked episode one. If you can't get into Sopranos by two episodes, that's on you. Mad Men, episode one, I'm in on Mad Men. Have you seen Mad Men?

Daniel: I love Mad Men.

Larry: Were you in on episode one?

Daniel: I think I was in

Larry: One.

Daniel: No, I don't remember. I'm being honest.

Larry: Episode one, he does the whole Kodachrome thing with the wheel.

Daniel: I seem to think I was totally...

Larry: No. You have to be in on episode one.

Daniel: But are there some -

Larry: This is a Daniel conversation.

Daniel: Yeah, it might be a problem with me. Are there often times where you struggle the first ones or it's more from -

Larry: Yeah, there are some shows that it takes a while for them to get their thing, but the shows I love the most get me from the beginning. One of my favorite shows of all time is called The Americans.

Daniel: Yeah, that's Joel Fields and -

Larry: Yes, exactly.

Daniel: He's one of my very closest friends. We're going to have him on.

Larry: Yes. Please, please talk about the Americans. I mean, and I've talked to Joel about this.

Daniel: Oh, you have?

Larry: Yes.

Daniel: Did I introduce Jorge before?

Larry: No, I had him on my podcast before that.

Daniel: Oh

Larry: Yeah. And oh God, so good because it's about a marriage, but there's spies.

Daniel: I'm being unfair to Joel's partner. Weisberg.

Larry: Yes. Yeah. Joe Weisberg.

Daniel: Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields.

Larry: But they're both brilliant. And the show, the Americans... I mean, episode one, the way it ends, he's in the garage and everything, the spy.

Daniel: Yeah, not sexoned excellently.

Larry: Oh, it's so good. See, I love shows that catch me in the beginning. So maybe I only stay with shows that catch me at the beginning. Maybe I am more like you, because if they don't -

Daniel: Are you able to watch something and drop it?

Larry: Sure.

Daniel: I have such difficulty with that. I feel like if I start, I need to finish it before I criticize it.

Larry: Yeah.

Daniel: I need to go to a doctor.

Larry: I think it's ADHD. I think that is what it is. Yeah. I don't have that because the thing is, I'm just so busy. I'm sure you are too. I regret that I can't watch something again.

Daniel: No, my lists are so long before I never finish. I know.

Larry: That's exactly it. I do that with books a lot too, or I used to. I'd have three books of my bed stand and you could see where I stopped reading them.

Daniel: If it has five stars from everybody, whatever, and you don't connect to your drop it.

Larry: Oh yeah, absolutely. If it doesn't interest me -

Daniel: I'm not confident enough. I'm like, if they all like it, I need to give it a shot.

Larry: No, it means nothing to me.

Daniel: Larry Wilmore, I love you so much.

Larry: Oh, back at you.

Daniel: Love of my life.

Larry: Michelle Lubetzky's got to be jealous.

Daniel: Thank you for being here with us. We want you to become a builder with us. So subscribe to Build or Break Now and leave us a comment or our review. We're trying to build a movement and you can be part of it by hitting the notification bell and telling us what you think about this episode and by telling all your friends to watch too. Thank you.