Comedian Brian Regan opens up about OCD
Brian Regan has been performing stand-up comedy for decades. But some of his newer material might surprise even his longtime fans.
“I’ve been in my career for many years, and I never discussed it,” Regan said of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder. “It’s a new thing for me.”
You might recognize one of Regan’s fans and frequent collaborators: Jerry Seinfeld, who has touted him as “one of my favorite, favorite stand-up comedians.”
Two years ago, Regan began incorporating jokes about his daily life with OCD into his routines, which are known for being family-friendly. Since then, he’s discussed his OCD on radio shows, podcasts and national television.
Recently, he talked about his organizational habits and having trouble selfdiagnosing the OCD on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.”
The benefits of discussing OCD
“(OCD is) something that I’ve dealt
with my whole life,” Regan told The Arizona Republic. “I’m on the manageable side of the tracks.”
While he doesn’t have an official diagnosis, “It’s something I realized through my own research.”
Even as he’s making light of his symptoms, Regan wants to be clear that he’s not making fun of people who have been diagnosed with OCD.
“I try to be careful not to laugh at OCD. I’m not trying to make fun of it but have fun with it,” he said. “It’s something that I have, but I like to find humor in things, too. It helps to go through life, to be able to laugh at yourself.”
In explaining to audiences what it’s like to have OCD, Regan hopes to inform people who don’t have experience with mental illness.
“I’ve always felt that more information is better than less information,” he said. “It can help people in life to know that they’re not alone.”
What OCD means for Regan
Jokes about organization and repetitive tasks aside, OCD is “something that I’ve learned to work with in my life.”
When it comes to being detail-oriented, having OCD has been beneficial for his comedy, Regan said.
“Comedy requires being very particular about words and lengths of time,” he said.
Then there are the disruptions that the disorder causes in one’s daily life.
“To try to control everything is an admirable goal, but it’s also impossible to achieve. It’s a constant quest to figure out a healthy balance in life,” he said. “You know if you don’t deal with it properly it could be debilitating.”
His tour ‘is always happening’
Regan performs stand-up for half of all weekends in a given year, totaling about 100 shows.
“It sounds like a lot, but that means 265 days off,” he said. “My tour … started decades and decades ago.”
Every couple of years, Regan comes up with a new hour of material that can be heard on CDs and seen in specials such as “Brian Regan: Nunchucks and Flamethrowers” on Netflix and “Brian Regan: Live from Radio City Music Hall” on Comedy Central. The four-episode Netflix series “Stand Up and Away! With Brian Regan” shows him trying out a new format that incorporates sketch comedy and stand-up.
On Netflix, Regan’s comedy is categorized as “clean-cut,” “goofy” and “bluecollar.”
Regan’s first hour-long CD, “Brian Regan Live,” was released in 1997. Before that, he made appearances on “The Pat Sajak Show,” “The Dennis Miller Show” and “Late Show With David Letterman.”
“It’s a fun process to gradually move away from material and replace it with new material and come up with a new hour,” he said.
What to expect from Regan’s Phoenix show
Regan’s set at Arizona Federal Theatre (the recently renamed Comerica Theatre) on Dec. 31 will be a preview of his “Nunchucks and Flamethrowers” follow-up on Netflix, which will be available in late 2020, he said.
Though he’s looking forward sharing to New Year’s Eve with his Phoenix audience, he clarified that it won’t be a New Year-themed show.
And it wouldn’t be unusual to see Regan at a local comedy club after his set, seeking the camaraderie he felt in the early days when he was working the rounds with other up-and-comers.
“I miss that sometimes,” he said.