- Hey everybody, this is Gabriel Iglesias, that's right.
Oh my God, he is so cute.
Yes, I am.
And I'm here to tell you, how I got started.
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I was born in San Diego, California.
And little by little, my mom and I migrated north
till we got to Long Beach.
I say migrated 'cause when you move, you have a destination.
There's a deposit, a moving truck, people that help you.
When you migrate, you pretty much leave
in the middle of the night and you wake up in a new city.
So yeah, that's how mom rolled.
My comedy heroes and influencers were Eddie Murphy,
Robin Williams, Paul Rodriguez
and this is going to surprise a lot of people.
I don't think he gets enough credit, Billy Crystal.
I would watch comedy specials on you know, whenever I could.
It was either in the form of a VHS or HBO,
if I stayed up late, and yeah, those are the ones
I'm like, wow.
Yeah, real funny.
I was 10 years old, I did a school talent show
and I told the joke on stage.
The joke was, why do the chicken cross the road?
And the answer was, to check out the chicks.
And that's cute when you're 10,
it's creepy if you're 43.
So just (laughs) that was the first joke
I ever told on stage.
And then I followed it up with impressions
and characters of just you know,
things that I experienced in my life.
The first time I went on stage as a stand up comic
not as a child going up in front of you know,
other kids was April 10th of 1997.
I know the date exactly,
'cause that was when everything just changed.
I wasn't supposed to go up on stage,
they had a show and the emcee didn't show up.
And a friend of mine was friends with the promoter
and they're like, what are we gonna do?
We need somebody to host this show.
My buddy was like, hey dude, they need an emcee,
you should go up there.
You've always talked about wanting to do comedy,
here's your chance.
And I'm like, no, no.
And he was not taking no for an answer.
And he physically pushed me up on stage
I had nothing prepared when I went up there.
I was just so scared and nervous.
Like it was just like, whoa, all right,
let's see what happens.
That night, the guy who books a comedy show
was there and that was my first paid gig.
He goes, dude, if you come back here next week,
I'll give you 20 bucks to go up on stage.
So just like that after my first gig I got offered money
which I like wow, here we go.
Believe it or not, I had a really, really good day job
that paid me a lot of money and benefits.
And I used to sell cell phones,
I was clearing at the time in 1996,
about five grand a month and for a 20 year old,
even now, that's insane.
So imagine back then I was living rich,
I had a leather jacket and a new car, it was awesome.
So to give that up to pursue a career in comedy,
it was it was a big risk.
Sometimes in life, you got to take a step backwards
to take two steps forward you know,
you gotta give something up.
You gotta get uncomfortable,
I'm trying to work on that with dieting
and it's just not working out.
I started off just being the comic.
All I wanted to do is do comedy but then you know,
people are like, well, if you're able to do comedy,
the way that you do it,
you could probably get into television,
get into film, get into voiceover, get into radio.
And I'm like, I just wanted to tell jokes (laughs)
come on.
And so I think that's why I find myself
doing different things in order to support the main thing.
My main thing is always stand up comedy.
So whatever I need to do to secure the safety of my baby,
which is stand up comedy, I'll do.
Keep your face up there, stay relevant.
Keep yourself in the mix,
so that you can support your baby here.
All that was my first regular television show.
You know, a lot of people don't know,
Gabriel Iglesias was a child star.
A child star at the age of 21,
'cause that's how old I was when I was on the show.
But since I had braces and I looked younger,
it worked out.
And they would always dress me and drag,
that always every episode, I was wearing a dress,
'cause I could always do the girl voice.
So they said, Oh, we gotta play this up.
And then one of the shows I got knocked unconscious
'cause I was wearing a wig and I had bangs
and I ran up on stage and there was beams.
And I ran into one of the beams
and I woke up on the floor with a fireman standing over me.
So next thing I know I'm on a gurney,
I'm on my way to the hospital,
could they let me change?
No, so there you go into a hospital
in drag and word gets spread around town
that there was an artist who suffered a head injury
on a Nickelodeon lot and everybody thought
it was Enrique Iglesias.
And so you know,
the news started showing up to the hospital.
And it was basically me coming out with a, you know,
still in my clothes.
I got offered a role years ago
and I passed on it because my manager at the time,
thought it was a bad idea.
It was a voiceover for a film.
They said that if I were to do this movie,
I would get 700 bucks and back end,
back end means I get a percentage
if the movie grossed over like 150 million.
And manager said, guess what?
You're getting an offer in Texas to go do some shows.
That's more your speed, more with your time,
this is a stupid idea, it's not gonna do anything
and so I passed on the movie.
And the movie turned out to be a blockbuster.
I passed up the chance to co star in the movie Happy Feet.
I was not happy when I found out that it did what it did.
And the person who took my part.
Well, he didn't take it but I gave it up
and he stepped in was Robin Williams.
To have one of your comedy heroes come
like you gave up something and your comedy hero came in
and he did it and you want to talk about feeling this small.
I mean, I was just like, oh my god,
that was not a good conversation for my manager that day.
I've worked in different times and done different things.
And little by little, it's just been growing
and growing and growing.
So to have a specific, the big break.
I think there's been so many.
There hasn't been one main thing that has been that,
oh, man, now we're here.
'Cause people say, Oh my god, you made it.
When did you know you made it?
And I've always tried to not say,
I made it because I feel like if you say you made it,
you're gonna stop working, you plateau.
So always stay hungry,
always stay like you're just reaching and going and going.
But if you're playing at Madison Square Garden
and you got a full arena of people,
it's hard to stay humble.
So that night when I said next time someone asked me,
when did you know you made it?
I said, I'm gonna have a date,
April 17 2015, Madison Square Garden in New York City.
And when I said that, the whole arena.
Then I started crying I'm like oh my god,
you know, it was a happy moment and a scary moment
at the same time because I'm like,
Oh my God I just said it out loud.
I said it out loud that I made it
and I'm like so now, now what?
Hey guys, thanks for listening.
I've been your guest, Gabriel Iglesias.
Check out my comedy special, One Show Fits All.
I'm Sorry for What I Said When I Was Hungry
or my TV show series Mr. Iglesias
and hit me up on line of you need a code, I know people.
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