11-12-25 Interview - Go See Kevin Nealon This Weekend

And if you, like me, are a child of the eighties, you remember what I like to think of as the golden years of Saturday Night Live.

And you will.

Remember the work of my next guest as one of the perfect deadpan delivers of the Weekend Update. He is appearing this weekend at Comedy Works. You should go see him. I am going to go see him. And now he's going to join us for just a little bit. Kevin Nealin, Welcome to the show.

Hi, Andy, that's my dead pan impression right there. Well, Mandy, I.

Mean, dead pan is like a little over the top, but you gave great snark in Weekend Update. And I loved that period of Saturday Night Live. And I can't say I am a lover of all the periods of Saturday Night Live, but you really were part of a golden era. When you look back at that now, do you see it that way?

I do see it that way, But like you said, there's a lot of golden eras I think on that show. But it was particularly special for me, of course, and to this day I hear people say that that was our favorite you know, cast and generation of SML.

Well, I think part of it was a function of my age because I was kind of in the sweet spot of the demographic for that, and culturally it spoke to me really really strongly. But also so much talent came out of those years. I mean, so many people that are still famous and still doing amazing things came out of those casts. Tell me the truth, who's your favorite cast member that you worked with? No one's listening. It's fine, no one will ever find out the answer.

It's a tie. I hate to pick. You know people I would say Dana Carveing, Adam Taylor.

Oh yeah, I mean come on, I mean they're practically my favorites and I don't even work with them, So that's fine.

So now, yeah, you're back on the stand up stage.

I know you've been doing stand up the entire time, but this weekend people are going to be able to come see you at Comedy works at the Landmark. Is the what is the appeal or the difference between those two things, between working with a team and doing sketch comedy and standing on stage and having that immediate feedback from the audience.

Well, that's part of it, is immediate feedback. I'm really kind of I'm about the top of my game now, because I just got an off tour with that I'm Sandler where we're playing till like, you know, twelve thousand people, fifteen thousand people a night, and that was kind of a whole different ballgame than you know, the Comedy Works. And I got to tell you, I prefer a smaller room. Like my best my most preferable audience, as at dinner party was to call.

People when you can really hold court, right, I mean I.

I just yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know, it's a little disconcerting because I put my microphone with me.

Do we need to make it big?

Do we need to respond like I have fifteen thousand person crowd on Friday and Saturday night at Comedy Works just so you feel, you know, like you're at home again.

No, I prefer not that. I would prefer just just a tone that I'm used to, which is about three hundred.

I say, yeah, it's a great venue. What is your act? What are you focusing on now? On your act?

Well, that's a good point. I just finished taking a special call loose in the crotch, and so I'm trying to shove out the old storage stuff and bring in new stuff. So it's boy, it's a confluence of, you know, some of my older kind of thoughts about things and kind of newer, you know, in relationship to the stage I'm at in my life now. I'm always been on the dark side. I kind of like the dark comedy.

Do you feel like as you've gotten older?

And I'm fifty six, so I'm kind of at that space where I realize I look back at my younger self and I think, God, you are so stupid. And now I look at I have a better able. I have the better ability rather to kind of look at the big picture. Whereas before I was focused on the trees, now I can see the forest a little better. What do you think about your your vision, your view of the stuff you're commenting on. Has has it changed and evolved in a in a similar different way?

I think I have. I listen to some past tapes of myself, which is very difficult. My voice even sounded different. It's a little a little bit higher and a little faster paced, you know, but I mean it's not like huge changes, but it's less silly and a little more observant now and still absurd though. I like the absurdity, but I like to do the stuff that people can relate to as well, So I'm trying to be inclusive and a lot of those things.

Well, somebody just hit my common spirit heals text line and said Kevin Nieling in Weeds, he was brilliant, great guest, Mandy, and that's part of your and you were the perfect every man. In my opinion, I think you were just so perfectly cast because it's a crazy show anyway, about a suburban housewife that rose weed and sells it.

But what was that role like for you and was it did you view that as.

More serious or more comedy or what was that balance there?

You know.

The strangest thing is during the awards season, our show was always up in a comedy category and I could never understand that because it's more drama with a touch of comedy as well. So yeah, that was always interesting to me. But my character was basically I got to tell you, when I auditioned for that part, it was like hey wanted me right away because I was like dead on or what Jenji Cohen, who created the show, wanted.

So so likable, that's the thing, you know what I mean, Like, ultimately, you kind of thought, if you really analyze the character, you're like, guy's kind of an a hole, right, I mean, he's he, but he was likable at the same time. And I think being able to thread that that's kind of a gift.

Yeah, I mean there's even dictators that are likable. I got some different places. Yeah, I mean, everybody's got their everybody's got their good days and they're bad days. But yeah, he was likable for his nuances and those sorts of things. But I sure did like playing that character. It was a lot of fun and people seem to like it now, And you know, it's funny as people look back on that show, I seem to be one of the characters

So you weren't in the Norm MacDonald fan club, you weren't presidenting for him being the funniest man.

O very I mean, obviously to your point.

I heard something yesterday from his version of Comedians and Cars with Jerry Seinfeld where he was sort of talking about the outrage industry in our country, and it was.

Very prescient, you know, it was.

It was very forward looking that that Now it's kind of like, holy crap. I mean, he was smarter than all of us in a way.

Yeah. At his memorial, I was one of the speakers and I said to a lot of a lot of people, you know, compliment Norm as being very brave comedian and very uh you know, courageous. And I said, I think of it more as just you know, what did I say? It was? It was oh poor judgment.

Uh.

And now he's turnings he's turning out to be right, Kevin, I got a question for you.

We had a guy on yesterday.

He's a neuro psychiatrist who studies like how to be happy as you age, and one of his big things is having a bucket list and how important that can be. And do you have a bucket list, and if so, what's on it?

By if I could just find a bucket to push that list in, I don't think we have a bucket around the house. Gosh, I'm kind of doing all my bucket list stuff right now. I'm really content with life. Travel would be. In fact, just before when I was on a hold here, I was listening to the weather and they're saying that the northern lights of the Aurora about what do you call it?

Aur Aurora borealist.

Yes, it's happening in Colorado for tonight and tomorrow night, so I might be able to see it.

Well, I hope so, because I missed it last night and last night apparently it was spectacular, but no one called me to let me know what the weather was going to be. Kevin Nealin is going to be at the Landmark Theater this weekend. Comedy Works excellent, excellent. Go to Comedyworks dot com and buy your tickets. Kevin, I'm super excited that you're here in Denver and looking forward to this weekend.

Also, yeah, me too, And also like to plug one on this. My wife and I were executive producers on a documentary that's coming out on Friday on Apple TV. It's all Come See Me in the Good Light at one Sundance festival this year and all the tons of festivals were really excited about it, so I hope people can.

What is it about? What is it about?

Well, it's about these It's a it's a love story really about these this couple who actually live in Boulder around that area there. It's the poet laureate Andrea Gibson and her and their partner Megan Folly, and it's about kind of their journey and poetry and also her being diagnosed with the terminal disease and uh and getting to do her poetry one more time. But it's not it's not one of those stories about cancer where you know

What's the name of that on Apple TV, Kevin.

It's called Come See Me in the Good Light?

All right, Kevin Nealon.

I appreciate you and lots of success with your documentary.

Will see you this weekend.

Thank you.