You can't worry too much about what you think the audience wants to hear. You just have to hope that you're a likeable enough person that what you're saying will relate to other people, so they can laugh at it as well.
I'm somewhat of a socialist in the sense that I believe in housing for the homeless and medical care for all. So, for me, the American dream has been having a TV show, and being successful and having a nice house and having everything.
When I was 23, I didn't have much of an interest in politics. All of my interests were in partying and meeting girls and doing stand-up. That's all I cared about. Now, when you have a kid and stuff, you start watching the news and say, 'They shouldn't take money away from this education department.' You start having much more exact opinions.
I like to weed out the people who aren't going to enjoy me straight off the bat. If you look at all my specials, I do start more extreme and then, as I get into it, sort of at the three-quarter mark, I normally have a bit of pathos. Is pathos the right word?
I have watched every episode of 'RuPaul's Drag Race'... I know a bizarre amount of drag queens now. And it's weird because one of the guys that drives my tour bus in America drove the drag queen show before me, and I used to just sit there and hear all the stories so I could go tell my girlfriend because I knew what a big fan she was.
I don't care if people get angry about that, believing the rubbish that vaccinations cause trouble or make the child worse or something. That's not what I believe. I think it's important for me to say.
One of the flaws in the American dream is that there isn't as much of a safety net as you may get in other countries.
I still like to shock, but the jokes are less sexist. It's just that, at one point in my stories, there was some sense of pride, some enthusiasm, and now I'm just embarrassed by myself.
I can go into New York and sell out a theatre, but I didn't have to fight my way to get there: I was already a made man from television. I sold out a theatre in London without any TV exposure, just word of mouth and being a good comic, and that was a much bigger sense of accomplishment than just being a guy from telly.
I had a head injury when I was living in England; I was in the hospital for three days, and they didn't even ask for my name. I spent three days in there. And then, when I was done, I just got up and left. I wasn't a British citizen; I was there on a work permit.
There's a theory with comedy that you shouldn't do anything that's too topical in your specials because people won't be able to watch them in five years. But I look at Trump in the same way I look at Mr. T. I can watch comedy jokes about Mr. T in the '80s and still understand what they're talking about.
For me, Mr. T and Donald Trump are the same sort of phenomenon - they're guys with catchphrases and wacky hair.
