How do you walk onstage and say some words that make a room full of a few dozen strangers laugh? That is the impossible conundrum every stand-up faces when they start out. How do you do that for more than 45,000 people? That is a question very few stand-ups ever had to figure out. In May of this year, Gabriel “Fluffy†Iglesias joined those select few by selling out Dodger Stadium — twice. In October, those nearly three-hour sets were released on Netflix as his new stand-up special Stadium Fluffy.
On Good One, Iglesias talks about relating the story of a not-very-tiny bug to a not-very-tiny crowd. Read some excerpts from the interview below or listen to the full episode of Good One wherever you get your podcasts.
Good One
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In this special, you’re playing for one of the biggest comedy audiences ever assembled by any comedian ever. Why? What is the value of it to you?
Having bigger audiences and having a show as big as Dodger Stadium, it’s not just for me. I love comedy so much I want comedy to be as respected as everything else. A lot of times, people use comedy as a stepping stone. But I’m like, Why use it as a stepping stone? Comedy’s freakin’ awesome! Being able to take comedy to a different place, that’s what it’s all about right there: showing that comedy belongs on this level, that it can be presented at this level.
There are certain times where if you’re doing a show, you want to keep a certain flow. You don’t want to lose the momentum of the people laughing and having fun. The last thing you want to do is stop it and have to start over. That’s why hecklers can ruin things, because if you stop a set to address a heckler, then it’s like, Ugh! But that night, when I saw the blimp going over my head, I was just like, You know what? This will never happen again. Let me just stop for a second. And I go, “I’ve been heckled, I’ve had things happen, but I’ve never been heckled by a blimp with my name and my face on it!†And everybody’s just like, Yeah, I think I would stop my show too to acknowledge the fact that there’s a blimp flying overhead.
Back in 2020, you were on tour, building toward the two-special deal you had with Netflix; then COVID hit. How close were you to filming a special before everything shut down?Â
I want to say we were probably about five months away.
Did any of that material stick around through the pandemic?Â
I’d say maybe 55 percent of that material stuck around, and I didn’t feel like it was relevant enough to keep it in.
So you have this idea of doing the run for the special in San Antonio before you get COVID, before you ended up getting COVID there. Was it exciting to feel like you’re collaborating with one city, that this special was going to be a you–and–San Antonio special?Â
I had never spent so much time in one city just doing shows, but the goal was, It’s been over a year since you’ve been onstage, and Netflix wants you to deliver a special ASAP. Since everyone kept saying, “You got to stay in your COVID bubble,†we did that: We decided to do a residency in San Antonio where we rented a house and it was just the same people together. To be in one place for a month — it’s a city that I love that I’ve been going to for many years — was actually a lot of fun. Every day I was able to throw one more thing in there to get to where I wanted to be. And of course, that’s when that roach story happened.
When a thing like that cockroach thing happens, what makes you think, Oh, this is a thing worth talking about?
I went up onstage that night, and I told a story about this giant roach that was in the Airbnb we were staying in, and my tour manager trying to kill the roach, and how the roach would not die. I’ve never been so intimidated by an insect, and so consequently I did not stay in that room anymore. I actually went and slept on the bus for the remainder of the tour.
Oh, really?Â
Yes. I didn’t tell that onstage! But yeah, I wound up staying on the bus because I was terrified. I’m like, What if I fall asleep with my mouth open and that roach is like, “Hey, that looks comfy!â€
Well, right after it happens, do you go, like, Oh, I’m going to tell that onstage?
Absolutely. And I had recorded it too. So I thought it was funny because when my tour manager goes, “I’ll kill it,†I go, “I gotta …†and I pulled out my phone and I recorded her getting up on a little thing and then hitting it with the shoe and then it running. And I was just like, Oh, that is too funny.
So you just tell it as it happened, see where people are interested in it, and have fun with it?
When you’re sharing a story of a situation where you’re uncomfortable, people can relate to you being uncomfortable. Whether it’s, Oh, you’re in court, or you’re in a crowded room and someone says your name and you’re like, “Oh, hi,†and you realize there’s a person with the same name next to you, people relate to moments of being a fish out of water. I share stories. If it’s funny, if it clicks, then it stays.
In the joke, you go back and forth between calling it a “cockroach†and a “roach†and a “cucaracha†and a “cuca.†You will throw in Spanish words here and there in general. How do you figure out whether you can speak to your audiences in Spanish?
I don’t think about it. It’s very much how I’m feeling. I am mindful of where I’m at, so the fact that I’m on a stage in Los Angeles, yeah, you’re probably going to hear more Spanish words thrown in here and there because I’m more comfortable. It’s home, so I feel like you talk the way that you talk at home. If I’m in, let’s say, Saudi Arabia, I probably won’t do any Spanish because it won’t make sense to anyone. It’s that whole I Love Lucy, Ricky Ricardo getting upset, “Aye, Lucy!†You can tell you’re laughing more so at the way that it sounds versus what it means. But at the same time, if I say something, I always like to just follow it up with “This is what I’m saying†or “You know what I’m saying†based on the way that I’m reacting to the moment.
In the joke, you do an impression of your tour manager. Would you say it’s accurate? Are you going for accuracy?
Well, first you’ve gotta make sure that whatever you’re presenting to the audience is something that’s clear, it’s understandable. Then, is there a sound that you can do to make this more animated? She’s five-foot-two, she’s a small person. She speaks clearly, but she’s a little ghetto. With the voice I did for the special, I was just trying to be clear more than anything versus trying to make her sound more hood. But the fact that I’m having her call me “fool†and saying “Move out of the way,†the act-outs and stuff like that paint a pretty good picture for that moment.
It’s a strong person, it’s an independent person. They’re there to run shit, they’re not afraid of roaches: Move out of the way, let me handle this because I’ve got other things to do. I’m more focused on making sure that I create that right moment versus making it a funny voice. Now if it’s somebody that has something very distinct about their voice — if it’s an influx, or there’s some people that speak with a whistle, or some people that have a certain little tic or mannerism when they speak — you catch onto some of those things, then I’ll try to mimic that.
The very first time I did a Comedy Central half-hour special — I want to say it was 2001, 2002 — they insisted that I turn in a written transcript of my whole set. And I’m like, “Uh, I don’t have anything in writing.†So my manager at the time had to actually sit and listen to one of my sets and write the whole thing out. Then when I did the half-hour, it was so off of what she had written, and they were like, “Hey, this isn’t what you turned in!†and she said, “Look, I’m sorry, the kid’s all over the place.†That was just me for the longest time: I knew what I wanted to do, but it was never verbatim. I’d always get to the finish line, but my paths were always different. A buddy of mine, who would always listen to my sets, once told me, “Dude, you can have a bit that’ll last 15 minutes, and do it tomorrow and it’ll last five, and then the next night it’ll be 20. I don’t know how the hell you do that.â€
And in my last special, before the Dodger Stadium one, I started working with a couple guys. They weren’t writing for me, but they’d listen to my set and break it down with time codes and talk about good segues and ways I can get in and out of these bits. They would help me structure it. It was all about staying on point, because it was homework: I didn’t want to do homework, but I knew that it was beneficial. And any time you’re working on a special, you need to get close to the time. You want to make sure that you hit your mark and that you’re able to get all of your material in and not have it edited out.
One of my favorite moments in the special is right before she hits the cockroach for a second time and you know the roach is gonna fly. You have this pause before you’re about to say what happens. What’s it like to have a stadium of people waiting for what you’re about to say next?
Whether you’re telling a story to one person or 10,000, or 20,000, you’re sharing a moment, but you’re also reflecting on it. You’re reflecting on the fact that you were freaked out. “Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, and then next thing I know …†and then you think about that moment and you pause because you’re taking in that moment with the people, and the people can see that: Oh, shit … Whatever it is, it’s crazy. The first time I shared this story with people offstage about what happened, you could see in their eyes: So what happened? “That shit started flying!†And they’re like, “Oh my God!â€
I’m not thinking about it as I’m doing it. This is probably the most I’ve thought about it, because we’re having a conversation about pauses and stuff. I never think about what I should do: I should pause here, or I should do this, or I should do that. None of that is part of that collaboration process of structuring. It’s more so just, Hey, stay on point with the time, and don’t forget there’s certain things that you need to put in the story so that it gives more context to what you’re talking about. And if there’s potential for a callback later, you need to make sure you have certain things you can pull from.
It’s funny, because this joke could not have been finished until you got COVID at the end of the run. So you were probably doing this story during the run, and then you had to do a new ending based on the fact that the real ending is that you got COVID from the cockroach.
Well, the original ending was just, “Hey, it started flying.†That was it, and that was a huge laugh, and that was perfect. The story’s over.
This interview excerpt has been condensed and edited.
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