Neal Brennan interviews Larry Wilmore (Nightly Show, Daily Show, Bernie Mac Show, Blackish, Insecure & much more) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 3:15 Dating, Marriage & Kids 7:30 Therapy by Proxy 8:26 Emotions 13:53 Providing 25:01 Sponsor: Mando 26:52 Sponsor: BetterHelp 28:00 God & Death 49:04 Sponsor: Rocket Money 50:24 Sponsor: Harry's 52:12 Procrastination & Messiness 1:04:15 Empath/Sociopath 1:17:08 Likes being alone 1:23:23 Health ---------------------------------------------------------- Follow Neal Brennan: https://www.instagram.com/nealbrennan https://twitter.com/nealbrennan https://www.tiktok.com/@mrnealbrennan Watch Neal Brennan: Crazy Good on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81728557 Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ([email protected]) Sponsors: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @shop.mando and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code [NEAL] at https://www.shopmando.com! #mandopod This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://www.betterhelp.com/neal and get on your way to being your best self. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to https://www.RocketMoney.com/NEAL today. Get the shaving products that always deliver. Get Harry’s. Normally their trial set is $13 but right now you can get it for just $3 at harrys.com/NEAL. Sponsor Blocks: https://public.liveread.io/media-kit/blocks ---------------------------------------------------------- #podcast #comedy #mentalhealth #standup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Larry Wilmore and what is his background in comedy and television?
hi guys neil brennan's the blacks podcast my guest today is a guy i've known a little bit for a long time he's a performer and writer you would know him from the nightly show in comedy central and now he makes appearances on bill maher's show and he's got a podcast called black on the mic black on the air black on the air i'm freestyling this it's all good
He was the creator of the PJs, which you haven't thought about in a while. The co-creator of Bernie Mac?
Co-creator of the PJs, creator of the Bernie Mac show. Co-creator of Insecure. Great. Helped launch Black-ish. Co-creator of Grown-ish. Wrote and produced the first three seasons of The Office. Senior black correspondent on The Daily Show. Worked on many TV shows, all that kind of stuff.
And arrogant about it.
I'm kidding. Did Obama's last White House Correspondents. Did he? That was good.
Just got a note from the president saying that if you want another drink, you should order it now because the bar will be closing down. Of course, he said the same thing about Guantanamo. So you have at least another eight years.
Larry Wilmore is what I'm trying to say. Larry Wilmore is here and I'm happy to have him. You have your blocks, which I'm happy you cooperated. You gave them to me. You've seen the block special. You understand what it's about. A lot of people, a lot of people big time me. They won't give me blocks. Really?
Yeah. That was their blocks, is they don't want to do blocks.
Well, they just don't want to. It seems like homeworking, but it makes it more interesting.
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Chapter 2: How did Larry Wilmore's experiences with dating, marriage, and kids shape his view on companionship?
Right. I think it's that arm of the people that just like to call names and react online and that type of thing. When you meet people in person, it's different. I've always considered myself, the term I use was passionate centrist. And I always said half the time I disagree with myself. It's the way that I put it. Because I always said...
I have an opinion, but if the facts trump my opinion, then I have to drop my opinion and go with the facts. That's pretty much my philosophy. So I don't have an ideology.
Most people don't. People think you need to be loyal to your own beliefs. Or it's like you have the merch. Like, I bought all the shit. I have all the arguments lined up. Whereas I think it's more interesting to just go like, what do I actually feel about this? Right.
I think, you know, you start with a set of beliefs and sometimes the world confirms that and sometimes it tells you something that you did not know that can either expand your beliefs.
Are there any that jumped to mind in your life that you were sure of and then you were like, oh.
I don't know if there's something that changed my mind, but there are things that have expanded the things that I thought of, like marriage and children, you know. marriage gave me a completely different idea of how companionship, of even what companionship is. I really- What did you think it was and what did you- I had no idea. I was so, it's the thing in my life I was the most clueless about.
Everything else I've studied, you know, I've worked at and that. That I was not prepared for by any means. Did you date a lot? Not really. I kind of did stand-up dating when I was a stand-up.
Bring him to a show, get a drink afterward. Exactly.
Don't ask me how I know. You use your comedy power until it wears off.
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Chapter 3: What role did therapy and acting play in Larry Wilmore's emotional growth?
Not really, I had maybe one during that time, but she lived in Portland, I was in LA, and it was just crazy. How did you? There was no reason for me to be, for us to be together, it was just a mess. But I realized, when I look back now, Neil, I had no interpersonal tools for a relationship. Because my parents were not a good example. They divorced when I was young.
My dad was very non-emotional, never showed my mom any emotion and stuff like that. My mom was over-emotional, that type of thing. Their relationship was very, it's just bizarre. And in fact, they divorced back then, but they're actually kind of still together now. In a sense. Yeah. That's how dysfunctional it is. Yeah, when my dad died. It becomes functional after a while.
I was like, yeah, they've been divorced, but they're still together. Exactly. So not that I can blame everything on them, but yeah. So you, and then how did you, so you, your. I met girls through standup during those years. You know, that was the way that I met women.
And then how did you end up, how long did you date the woman who became your wife?
So when I met her, I was frustrated with dating and everything. I was getting to my late 20s, and I'm like, okay. In fact, I used to do a joke about it at the time. I still remember. I said, you know, I've been looking for the right person. Then I started thinking, maybe I'm not the right person. Maybe I'm the wrong person. Maybe I have to start looking for the wrong girl. It's like...
How did it go? It was like, so what do you do, lesbian? Yes. You know, something like that. Where are you from, prison? Yes. It was that type of thing. But I remember starting, I started doing jokes about being the wrong person and me, something wrong with me rather than the people. And I remember my roommate at the time, do you know Bobby Gaylord? Did you ever know Bobby? He's a standup.
He, when we moved in together, he was going through a divorce and he was going to therapy a lot and he would come home. I would ask him about therapy, you know, and he would share his therapy session. So I was kind of getting therapy by proxy a little bit.
like i was learning all these things i think that applies to me thank you bob i'm gonna give you five dollars i had zero money for thank you bobby gaylord those types of things right no it was it was awesome and i actually learned a lot in the couple of years he was going to do it that's what podcasts are for now yeah yeah exactly no you're absolutely right you know and so i i really and it was funny i think the acting classes i was taking at the time too helped me turn inward and
One of the things, I wrote down something, empath on there, sociopath is one of it. One of the things I had realized during that time, it was very difficult for me to have my own emotions, you know, to be okay with them. My parents had split when I was a teenager and it was one of those things, this was an old saying that people used to say, you're the man of the house now.
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Chapter 4: How does Larry Wilmore describe his emotional challenges and empathic tendencies?
So would you just sort of go numb in situations where you should have been angry?
I was too, but when I say empath, I was too understanding of what happened of that person. Because I was trained to understand somebody's in trouble, somebody's hurting. My thing doesn't count. What's happening over here? Is that what your mother modeled or she actually imparted that? No, no, no. I did this all on my own. She did not ask for that or model that. She's not to blame for that.
This was me trying to help. When I look back at it now, I didn't know it at the time.
Did you grow up Christian or anything? I was Catholic. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a big part of it. Sacrificial. Yeah, I really do. I was going to Google yesterday, am I my brother's keeper? Yeah. The Bible says about I am right. You absolutely are. Because I find myself being sort of nosy. Right. And kind of like help trying to help. Right. And then people don't really like it.
And I don't think it's helpful long term maybe.
Well, the thing that is positive for me is if I view my life as a life of service, then that's helpful. Right. Because you can never fill that pot. You can always give something. Even when I give people advice on showbiz, I say, don't look at showbiz as something you can get something out of. Look at something you can put something into. Make a contribution to it.
Put something there that hasn't been there. And if you operate like that, it's more of a creative way to exist in the business rather than I'm not getting one out of it. It's a little more selfish way and it's very transactional and sometimes it works, but it can be very frustrating.
That's interesting. So you didn't really know how to have emotions. All right, now the question is like, now would you be autistic?
Would you be considered autistic, do you think? It's possible I could have been on the spectrum. My son has Asperger's. I think my dad is on the spectrum. I really do.
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Chapter 5: What are Larry Wilmore’s views on religion, God, and spirituality?
Yeah, 14 sometimes. Yeah, 14.
And then you get home and... You know what I mean? What's the solution? There's not a lot of good ones. Did you get a nanny?
Would a nanny have helped? We had help, absolutely. But it was still a lot. We had a nanny. She also cooked and everything. We had grandparents nearby. But I think it was more of what it did for her identity. And she was very dedicated too. So it's not like she could just hand the kids off. She spent a lot of quality time with the kids. And she worked too.
She did voiceover work and that kind of stuff. So that's not quite the solution. What it is is that sometimes people just need to feel that you're with them in a different way that you're not quite doing.
So you feel like you would give it lip service, but it's hard to... I just didn't relate to it because I thought I was doing my part and she was doing hers.
I thought we were each doing our parts, but she required something different than I required. I didn't require approving of anything.
I got to say, I don't love being... accused of being a bad partner yeah not not not that big a fan especially when you were working 14 hours a day yes you know exactly and you're like no big deal yeah that didn't do it that was a big trigger yeah so that that was your sort of that was the thing you had no concept of.
And now you're, you said you have a girlfriend, um, that your wife doesn't know about. Um, uh, ex wife now, but so you have a girlfriend. What have you, how are you a better partner now?
Well, I know these things now. Our communication is really good. There's some areas where, of course, in any relationship. She's very private, so I have to be mindful of the things I say right now. She doesn't like her business out in the street, but she's great. She's very sensitive. I'm not going to compare the two. Everybody's different.
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Chapter 6: How does Larry Wilmore reconcile his Catholic upbringing with his current spiritual beliefs?
Chapter 7: What insights does Larry Wilmore share about dealing with criticism and maintaining relationships?
The acting class actually helped a lot because you had to, You had to emote and that kind of stuff too. Yeah, and you kind of go, I remember taking acting classes. And you're like, oh, I don't think I've ever felt this myself. But like, interesting, okay. Right, to really tap into how you really feel about something and that kind of stuff. So I really grew as a person during that.
And it was after that I was able to attract the woman who became my wife.
so i think i had to go through that i think you have to be the right person to attract the right person yeah going back to my stand-up idea you know you i think you're going to attract the version of yourself that's going to push all the buttons and if you're in the frail button pushing mode you know that's not going to be good because you're going to pick that person the version of yourself that's going to push their buttons
No, you will always pick the person who's good at pushing your buttons. You're always going to do that. But if you have a proper relationship with those buttons, you're in a better place for the person who will push them responsibly.
What were your buttons? Or without you reacting. I think that's another big one. It's like, what were your buttons? Or feeling threatened. Right.
Yeah. What were your buttons? I never really thought of it, but looking back, I think providing was a button. You know, if you feel like you're not providing, that goes back to earlier or not taking care of.
Like you're falling short in that arena. So was it like you should plan dates, you should be more considerate, you should be.
I don't know how it manifests itself when I look back at it. And anything, that's the thing that was triggered. Now, it could be something unrelated that could actually trigger that. Like one of our big fights when we were married was my wife was very successful as an actor when she was young. And she really wanted to be a mom. And she didn't want to work full time. She wanted to be at home a lot.
And I said, hey, I'm for whatever you want to do. You want to work? We'll figure it out. And she said, no, I really want to be a mom most of the time. And she did a lot of voiceover work and that kind of stuff. But I think a lot of resentment build because that's really hard work. Being a mom? Oh, being with kids all the time?
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Chapter 8: What sponsors support this episode and what products are recommended?
Nope. Never been meaningful to me. Right.
Because marriage to you doesn't represent... But I'm totally committed.
I just think it's fake security. It's like TSA.
What if it's security to the other person?
It's TSA. It's fake security.
But what if it's fake security to you, but real security to someone else?
It's never going to be real security. It's not real security.
But what if it's real to them, but fake to you?
I don't care what you perceive. I can prove to you it's not real security. All I have to do is call a lawyer and it's over. Right. So that's not real security.
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