A good hard smack It was a punch-up with an irate audience member that launched the international career of Australian comedian Jim Jefferies. Now he gets to offend far bigger audiences around the globe, writes
Grant Smithies.
Australian stand-up comedian Jim Jefferies has been gleefully offending his audience for well over a decade now. He’s used to outraged punters shouting abuse at him, or walking out in disgust. But punching him in the face? Not so much.
‘‘Oh, that guy was offended by my material, for sure, but he was also a nutter’’, says Jefferies, referring to an infamous incident in 2007 when a burly, bullet-headed bald bloke reared up out of the crowd at the Manchester Comedy Store and started whacking him repeatedly in the head.
‘‘Actually, that sort of thing happens a lot in comedy clubs. Some drunk will get up and shout that he’s gonna punch your lights out, but then security chucks them out. But that guy was unusual, because he didn’t say anything first. He just ran on stage and starting having a go.’’
A black eye, a sore neck, assorted cuts and bruises – it was the best thing that ever happened to Jefferies. Security camera footage of the attack and Jefferies’ subsequent groggy encore (‘‘I actually hired that bloke to liven up my set . . . ’’) became a YouTube sensation, and was screened on CNN. The rest of his stand-up tour sold out, and suddenly, the boy from down under was on his way.
‘‘Yeah, mate. What can I tell you? I owe that guy a lot. A few good hard smacks in the head, and now I’m doin’ OK, thanks very much.’’
Touring here later this month, Jefferies is now a bona-fide comedy star. These days, he gets to offend substantially bigger audiences, in concert halls with sufficient security to ensure he’s less likely to get smacked in the face.
Now 39, and living in Los Angeles, he is perhaps Australia’s biggest comedy export since Barry Humphries put on a wisteria-coloured wig and took Dame Edna Everage to the world.
In America and the UK, Jefferies appears regularly on prime-time TV talk shows and sells out high-end venues such as Carnegie Hall and Brixton Academy.
Until recently, audiences have been smaller in his native Australia, where Jefferies’ crude Ocker bogan schtick is perhaps a little too close to the bone. Some major events such as the Melbourne Comedy Festival have snubbed him for years.
‘‘Yeah, well, the Melbourne Festival can suck my d…, mate!’’ he says, his Perth-bred vowels squashed flat as an unlucky ’roo on the Great Central Rd.
‘‘They were still trying to marginalise me when I was back there last year, so I just booked the biggest venue in the city, went down there without their blessing and it sold out. Audiences are a lot bigger there now, ’cos they’ve seen my American TV stuff or watched me on YouTube, but really, it’s not Australia’s fault they don’t know me as well. I didn’t gig there in my earlier years because I was already over in the UK, trying to make it. That’s where I met the Flight Of The Conchords boys, and Rhys Darby, too. Rhys is one of my best mates now, from those early years spent kicking around London together.’’
After a slow start, Jefferies is busy as a damful of beavers these days, with numerous film and TV projects on the go between stand-up tours.
He was the first Australian to have his own comedy special on HBO and has hosted three specials on Netflix. He wrote and starred in his own sitcom, Legit, which ran for two seasons on US network, FX.
His New Zealand tour was originally scheduled for October last year, but had to be postponed when he got the green-light to shoot a TV pilot for an unnamed ‘‘big American network’’.
Jefferies recently made a low-budget ‘‘oz-zom-com’’ movie called Me And My Mates Vs The Zombie Apocalypse, and mentions another unreleased project where he co-stars alongside Rhys Darby and David Hasselhoff.
But stand-up remains his first love, and the source of his reputation as a comedic boundary pusher or unrepentant sexist meathead, depending on your point-of-view.
Most of his early material was about drink, drugs, masturbation, and assorted acts of sexual debauchery, often served with a side order of vicious misogyny.
He makes rape, incest, and paedophilia jokes, and is an equal opportunities offender when it comes to religion.
All of which helped attract a young male audience for whom Jefferies was perhaps some sort of larrikin anti-hero through whom they could live vicariously: a guy who drank more, took more drugs and shagged more women than they did.
‘‘I think you’re right there, to a point. A whole lot of people who came to my shows when I was in my early 20s probably saw me as a bit more extreme than they were and were entertained by that. My routines back then largely revolved around drinking, drugs, and sex, and I still have a little bit of that in me. But I’m also a dad now, and I hate to say this, but I’ve become a bit more responsible. And hopefully my audience from those loose early days can still relate to me because they’ve matured a bit, too.
‘‘It would be pretty sad if I was still spouting the same s… as I did in my early 20s. If I was still just, like, ‘Whoa! Go out, f… chicks, take drugs, yeah!’, that would feel like I was a bit stuck, wouldn’t it? Also, you just can’t physically live like that after a while. Back then, I didn’t even get hangovers. I would go up to the Edinburgh Festival and be wasted for an entire month. Now, I need two days off the drink for every one day on, and I get debilitating hangovers.’’
Jefferies used to power though pints of lager on stage, but not any more. Enlarged liver, his doctor said. So he has slowed down, though still likes to ‘‘get hammered from time to time’’.
After eight years spent building his profile in the UK, Jefferies moved to America six years ago and now lives in the Hollywood Hills with his girlfriend, actress Kate Lubin, and their 4-yearold son Hank.
His stand-up material is mainly drawn from his own past. In his early days, Jefferies got a lot of comedy mileage out of disastrous one-night stands. But now he’s in a long-term monogamous relationship, that particular well has run dry.
There’s no shortage of material, though. Recently, he’s borrowed a few juicy tales from his girlfriend, an exmodel who claims she once had a threesome with Madonna.
He’s recycled a few fairly grim early experiences as jokes, too. While living in Manchester, he once survived a home invasion where he was tied up and had his head spliced open with a machete. The cops caught the perpetrators driving Jefferies’ stolen car and they were charged with