Photography by Friedman Bergman
In a world where uttering expletives has become a substitute for actual personality traits, comedian Brian Regan’s family-friendly act can seem almost revolutionary. He’s been getting laughs for decades without swearing or delving into material that might mortify you if your tween walked in, but it’s not watered-down, consolation-prize comedy. Lately, he’s been all over Netflix, with his special Nunchucks and Flamethrowers currently streaming and another on deck for the end of 2020, as well as his four-episode standup and sketch comedy show, Standup and Away! with Brian Regan, executive produced by Jerry Seinfeld. And, in a departure from his usual fare, Regan plays a much scruffier character than his fans are used to in Peter Farrelly’s Loudermilk, starring Ron Livingston, on DirecTV's Audience Network. This Saturday, September 7, Regan brings his observational humor to the Stifel Theater. We recently caught up with him by phone from his home in Las Vegas.
How has streaming changed the business of standup? The business of comedy has changed dramatically throughout my career. Used to be there was a tougher vetting process—you know, getting on television wasn’t easy. You had to show what you were all about. You had to fail along the way. And you’d get lucky enough to do The Tonight Show, and maybe they’d give you an HBO special. Fewer comedians had the opportunity to go wide. Now, with Netflix and YouTube and everything, it’s much much easier to get your content out there, so it’s good in that way, but it’s bad in that it’s very challenging trying to get noticed when you’re in a sea of content. Literally, there’s a standup special per week on Netflix. It’s like wave after wave after wave crashing on the shore—I forget the comedian I saw a week ago!
Loudermilk is a departure for you. It’s a show about people in recovery from substance abuse. It’s weird for me because it’s not clean—I’m in somebody else’s creative vision. It’s also very good; it’s hard for me to explain it to my fans. Some of my fans don’t want to watch that, and I respect that. People who can like things outside of the clean world as well—to them, I would say I hope you check it out. I think it’s a head scratcher for a lot of people who knew me. I enjoy acting; I can serve somebody else’s creative vision. My character is Mugsy, and Mugsy is a mess. When I was reading it, I was like,"‘Who do they think I am? They got me mixed up with the wrong guy." I had to do my best to rise to the occasion and get it done.
How do you stay positive in an increasingly coarse world? Well, I try to be careful. I think there’s a line in the sand, and you can try to figure out what people want, or you can try to figure out what you want to say. Once you cross the line of going, "What do those people want? Then I’ll do that," that’s not interesting. To me it’s much more interesting when people say what they want to say. I like to perform the way I like to perform because it’s challenging. I like to see how much mileage I can get without saying certain words or hitting certain subjects. It’s fun for me. Sometimes people think if you’re not using foul language, you’re not using freedom of speech. That’s part of freedom of speech! Sometimes it’s fun to watch people who have some parameters. I love using analogies: You watch a game of football; there are rules! They can go out here with bulldozers, I suppose. How well can this team do within the rules? I like that, but I also like the crazy side of things. I believe in a big tent. People should do whatever they want to do.
