STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY
QWhat brings you to The Jewish Comedy Festival JW3 in London? I was asked. I spent many years not being asked to do anything. Yes, it is exciting to come to London and perform but being asked was the key. And good things almost always come from saying yes. How did you manage to get asked in the first place? As with most things in life, it was a combination of events. A perfect storm. I am somewhat recognisable from various comedic performances. I played Ned Ryerson, the obnoxious insurance man Bill Murray punches out in Groundhog Day. I played the “well-endowed” Stu Beggs on Californication, which has made its naughty way across the ocean to the UK. Now I am on The Goldbergs and Silicon Valley, both very funny shows. Teenage girls recognise me from Glee. Women with tattoos recognise me from Deadwood. People who like good movies know me from Thelma and Louise and Memento. People who watch terrible movies know me from Beethoven 5.
I am the guy that no one knows by name but when I show up on screen people elbow one another and say, “Hey, it’s that guy, whoever he is!” It hasn’t been easy becoming one of the best-known unknown actors in Hollywood. There are so many new unknowns coming out every day trying to knock me out of my niche of anonymity.
I was performing my stories in Edinburgh at the Fringe Fest this year. Someone from the Jewish Comedy Festival saw me doing one of my stories and found it entertaining. She asked. I said yes. You said you were “performing a story?” What does that mean exactly? Aren’t you a comedian? I don’t do stand up. I admire that skill, but that’s not me. I tell true stories from my life. Most of them are amusing. Some are strange. Some horrific. But they are all true. I have a motto for my storytelling: True always trumps clever. Did you always tell stories? I must have. Everyone tells stories of some kind. Sometimes we tell them to amuse. Sometimes to get lucky on a date. Sometimes to avoid arrest. Telling a story is a group experience that seeks to make sense of the two main imponderables in our lives: Why was I so lucky? Why am I so cursed? Which are you? Both. I began writing my stories down after I had a terrible accident in 2008. I broke my neck riding on a horse on the side of an active volcano in Iceland. No way! Way! I know it seems incredible. Horseback riding on a volcano — what could possibly go wrong? A few days later, I got back to Los