Jim Jeffries: From England with love, and hate

by Emma Kat Richardson

Jim Jeffries was born in Australia, honed his comedy chops in England and will show us the glorious results May 16 on HBO in his one-hour special I Swear to God.

For a man whose comic persona thrives upon so much fiery anger, Jim Jeffries is astonishingly modest. Humility seems no simple feat, either, for a brash, impassioned young Aussie on the verge of taking a nation defined by harsh judgment and skepticism (America, for you know-nothing wankers out there) by storm. In his first hour-long HBO comedy special, I Swear to God, premiering on Saturday, May 16, the thunder from down under, well, thunders unrelentingly about nearly every facet of existence, from religious bigotry to the joy of overweight sex.

A wide-scale American tour looms large, too, with prominent pit stops at Comedy Works in Denver, Caroline’s in New York, and the Crofoot in Detroit. Although his is a stage persona that is consistently fierce and fearlessly funny, Jeffries checks in with Punchline Magazine and portrays a surprisingly calm, polite demeanor. Will the special be successful, he frets.

Will he blow up big in America? If I Swear to God’s laugh-a-minute delivery and legions of fans worldwide is any indication, Jeffries may just be giving fellow Oceania jesters Flight of a Conchords a run for their American money.

Your act is driven by a lot of anger. Where does your anger come from?
A lot of its manufactured. The thing about comedy is that you have stage anger – like in a play – but in reality, things only make me angry for a small amount of time. [The trick] is to harness it and recreate it onstage. I’m not constantly angry, you know, walking around. I get pissed off about something when I see it in the news or when some religious group has kicked off a protest of some type because of Jesus or whatever, but I’m not angry all the time.

So is the stage your outlet for the anger that doesn’t necessarily come out in reality?
Yeah, it’s the same thing as if you’d go to therapy. You’re on a little couch when you talk to your therapist, you know, and the stage is a little forum where you can express whatever you’re angry about, whether it be religion or some crappy thing said by a family member or whatever.

Your HBO special delves a lot into sex and religion. How do you make these tired subjects fresh and funny?
I don’t know if I did. I tried to, but these are topics that have been done to death. But I think doing these subjects, or doing something like going on an airplane flight are all things that can unite us as people. They’re all things that everyone does, and I don’t like that quirky comedy where the people are talking weirdly and crap. You know what I mean; these surreal comics, and all of a sudden, that’s become the norm? We should be talking about the things that all affect us: sex, and getting on an airplane, all these things that have been called to attention for so long.

What drives an Aussie boy to take up stand-up?
The thing is, when I was growing up, stand-up comedy wasn’t actually very popular in Australia. It’s only really popular on television, and we never had the population to have a really thriving live scene. When I was young, there was a hell-of-a lot of them on TV, and there was this big gig that was on Channel Two every Saturday. I was always watching that, the whole time, and that featured comics from all around the world. Starting in Australia, it’s very difficult to get up and run because of the fact that there aren’t many [clubs] to play in. In Perth, there was only one club that on a Wednesday people used to go to.

That must have made for a very competitive atmosphere.
Actually, it was quite supportive.

Does making it as a performer in America mean something significant on the wide-scale entertainment field, or is that an ethnocentric misconception of the American media?
No, it does mean something. It does, yeah; it definitely does. If I made it in Australian stand-up out here, I’d probably be the first one to really make it [in America]. It does mean something, but I’ve never really chased it – it sort of seemed to be the direction that, after I went and did one show and started doing a bit of radio and stuff, it just seemed like the natural progression of going to America and trying my luck.

I was very happy in my career in Australia, but I think anyone who says they don’t care about making it in America is a despot. You know why? You always hear [British pop singer] Robbie Williams saying, “I don’t care if I ever make it in America.” That’s bullshit, man. Why do you keep on giving it a go, then? Why are you living in L.A. then, shithead? Go back and live in England if you don’t care.

Is there a conception that American audiences will react to indifference?
I don’t know; there is a conception that American crowds are different and that sort of stuff, but funny’s funny across the world. I’ve played gigs in Holland where English is their second language, and [I’m] doing stand-up comedy to them in English, and they’re still getting all the jokes. Americans, sometimes when you talk about things… I think Americans can have very fixed opinions on certain subjects, such as religion, and sometimes when you’re in the clubs you will get a few more walk outs.

I’ve seen people who are pissed off, but they won’t heckle half as much as the British will. The British will really yell stuff out at you. But what I dislike most about American crowds has nothing to do with the crowd; it’s the fact that while you’re doing stand-up, you have waitresses going around to the tables getting drinks. Elsewhere around the world in clubs people get up to get their own drinks. It’s very distracting in America. Everybody’s getting their bill and talking loudly about it; it bugs the hell out of me, but I’m getting used to it. You have to adapt to your current situation.

Since your HBO special is your big debut over on this side of the pond, what one thing would you want American audiences to know about you before they watch it?
I would prefer it if they didn’t know too much at all, if they’re going to watch it, you know what I mean? If I have to entice them into watching it, then I’d like them to know that I’m a storytelling comic. A lot of the parts about me revolve around that I’m a finch; in my opinion, anyway. What I see are the stories; I’d like you all to know that. It’s more about the storytelling then about the events.

But if you’re going to watch it anyway, I’d like you just to go in there with no preconceptions. Go in there, have a watch, and see what you think. If you’ve seen the posters and you’ve read all the bios, you’re going to go in there and two things are going to happen to you: you’ll either be too shocked or not shocked enough. The amount of people who have come and seen me and afterwards have gone, ‘I thought it would be dirtier,’ it’s like well, I never said I was going to be that dirty. I’ve had friends who’ve told audiences that I’m really dirty, so they’ve gone in and braced themselves for so much filth, and then they’re disappointed in you.

Do you think that your act will translate well with American audiences?
I hope so. It’s been going well in the clubs; whether it goes well on TV or not, I won’t be able to tell until the 16th. I must admit, I’m quite nervous about performing on television. I just don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if it’s going to come on television, that’ll be it and it’ll go – no one will remember it the next day – or it will cause a big splash for all the wrong reasons, and everyone will read into it the wrong way and be like, ‘What the fuck is this dude up to?’ I don’t know what’s going to happen; all I know is that I’m happy with it – I think I did a good job – and I think it’s a fine show.

What single experience can you pinpoint as a moment for developing your comic persona?
Developing it… onstage, or in real life?

Whichever makes the more interesting story.
I don’t know if I could pinpoint one moment, but growing up, my mum yelled a lot. Like, a lot. She still does; she’ll deny it, but she yells a lot, now and in my childhood, and I think that’s come out a lot in my act. Sometimes, she’d say some pretty funny things, and me and my brothers doing impersonations of her, I guess that’s really where the persona came from, as such.

Also, watching Eddie Murphy’s Delirious when I was eight; that was like a really big deal. I remember that was so bad for me to see that it was like pornography, and my brothers had a copy on beta max. Any chance I would get when I was alone in that house, or in a room or whatever, I’d put that on and I’d watch two minutes of it, or whatever amount of time I had. I thought it was awesome: he was swearing and messing around in, like, a leather suit, and if you watch my special, I’m kind of done up with a jacket and swearing, so I think Eddie Murphy influenced me a little bit.

Is Eddie Murphy somebody you would turn to for stand-up advice, if you wanted it?
Not so much anymore. You gotta remember, I was eight. Eddie Murphy hasn’t done stand-up for a long time, but I think if he chose to do it again he’d be very good at it. I bought Delirious and Raw not too long ago, and noticed that the stand-up routines are rather dated. If you watch Richard Pryor, you can still be able to watch that in 50 years time and still find it very funny; it’s an old recording also] but it seems to stand up a lot better.

Richard Pryor was more material-based, and Eddie Murphy’s Delirious – he was like 21 or 22 – and it just seems like it was all a bit more rock star-y than comedy if you watch it again. You had the audience yelling out ‘Eddie Murphy!’ and those pictures of him in a tour bus with all that stuff, but if you watch Pryor or George Carlin, it’s all about straight stand-up and less about the flash of being a celebrity.

Is that timeless, relevant quality something you strive for in your own stand-up?
I’d love for that to happen. Whether it will or not, I don’t know, and whether this special for HBO will stand the test of time— I think a lot of it will? I don’t know if all of it will, you know? I couldn’t tell you which bits will and which bits won’t; a lot of the stuff I do about smoking probably won’t make sense in 20 years, and some of it may seem very mild and the sex stuff might seem more outrageous. I think stories about my childhood should stand up and get recognition, because they’re stories about my childhood. You can’t write better stories about growing up, but you can write different ones.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
Where I see myself and where I’d like to see myself are two totally different things. I will continue to be a good working comic; hopefully the special will go well, and hopefully I’ll get to have a crack at a lot more gigs in my line of work. I hope to get into movies – I’ve auditioned, but no one’s cast me for anything yet, so we’ll see, you know?

I’ll never give up stand-up, but I’d like to do some films. I don’t want to start off by being a major player in a movie; I’d like to get a second or third role, you know? If my career can go somewhere like where Flight of the Conchords career went, I’d be over the moon. Will that happen? I don’t know, but maybe. I don’t know what’s going to happen in 10 years; I don’t know what’s going to happen on the 17th.

For more info check out jim-jeffries.com or his official MySpace.