Facebook is weird. They have all of these seemingly random rules that I'm sure make sense to them, but don't make sense to me or any people.
Billy EichnerWhen I opened my mouth to sing as a kid, I kind of randomly had a really good singing voice. And so that put me on the actor track and the musicals track.
Billy EichnerThe camera guys can't mess up. God bless them, they hardly ever do. But they literally don't know what's going to happen next. None of us do. And it all has to come together and be funny.
Billy EichnerI thought it would be funny to go to my Korean dry cleaner and ask her about my head shot, as if it's the most important thing in the world, and as if it's something that everyone should weigh on because it's important to me.
Billy EichnerI spend the majority of my time in New York and LA. I feel like a large part of my following and my fans are probably in New York and LA because of the work that I do is very New York-LA-centric. So people do recognize me. But it's nothing overwhelming at all.
Billy EichnerI know is that the response [for Difficult People ] has been really great. I think it's for smart people. I think it's for people who obviously care about pop culture or know about it, even if it's to a fault. I think it's for outsiders.
Billy EichnerA lot of people in Hollywood, and everywhere pretty much, operate on fear. No one wants to get fired, so everyone's scared to take a chance. There's money involved, and there are careers and reputations on the line.
Billy EichnerIt's one thing to be struggling and not really making money in your early 20s and figuring out your life. Early 30s, you start to wonder, is this ever going to happen?
Billy EichnerEven when I was struggling and had horrible day jobs and wanted to be successful but wasn't finding my way in, I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to keep working at it and keep putting material out there, even if no one was paying me for it.
Billy EichnerSometimes you go up to people who look totally normal and then you talk to them for a few seconds and you are like, Oh I better get out of this, because this person is a little mentally unbalanced, and they are not going to get a joke.
Billy EichnerIt's crazy. I don't know how I'm not dead. People think I'm going to get punched in the face: "Something terrible is going to happen to you. You're going to get killed." That's not what's going to kill me. The show is going to kill me. The work is going to kill me. Once I'm on the street, I'm not worried about that.
Billy EichnerI came back to New York after college like any number of struggling performers, and you just find that niche where you can have some sort of impact. And for me that turned out to be comedy.
Billy EichnerI started out as a very traditional actor. The first thing I ever did in terms of performance was singing.
Billy EichnerI was very much an only child who was raised by the television and movies, and I grew up in New York. We weren't, like, rich people, but we were middle-class people and my parents supported this love I had for entertainment.
Billy EichnerAward shows are fun, but completely arbitrary and absurd. And yet, I will watch every single one of them.
Billy EichnerIf someone walks away from me, I just let them walk, and I move on to the next person.
Billy EichnerMy father and I were really like a team. I mean, he was very supportive. He'd come to every single one of my live shows.
Billy EichnerI'd be doing Oscar predictions months ahead of time, and not only for the Oscars, for the Grammys. This is just what excited me as a kid.
Billy EichnerYou have to fight. You know, you don't want to fight, but you have to fight to make your show your own, to make your voice be heard. You just have to sometimes.
Billy EichnerEvery actor-performer says this, and it sounds so irritating, but I'm not the most outgoing person.
Billy EichnerI have a medical condition, all right. It's called caring too much, and it's incurable. Also, I have eczema.
Billy EichnerI like talking to a person who is crazy in a fun, eccentric way. I don't want to talk to a legitimate crazy person, because that's not nice.
Billy EichnerFor some reasons, I have WWE wrestlers tweeting me all the time. Like, my biggest fans. Why they can connect with my love for Meryl Streep, I don't know.
Billy EichnerWe weren't rich people, but my parents and I shared an interest in the theater and so we went a lot. And that definitely inspired me.
Billy EichnerThere have been man-on-the-street interviews for years, but insulting people is not that funny to me.
Billy EichnerI think it [ Difficult People] is for people who don't feel that they have been properly represented on TV. I think it's painting a very accurate if slightly exaggerated for comedic purposes view of the LGBT world in a way that we have never, ever seen in any television show.
Billy EichnerA lot of comics aren't their on-screen personas; Chris Rock isn't always ranting and raving. What I do is make myself this over-the-top character that people either find endearing or they think is a joke. Then I can do anything I want.
Billy EichnerI had a lot of fans in New York. The press would write about me, but I couldn't get a paying job.
Billy EichnerI never fully committed to the child actor thing. I also liked being a regular kid and being a student.
Billy EichnerWe're really fleshing out the whole world of the show [Difficult People]. It's more of an ensemble now, whereas last season we were very focused on establishing the Billy/Julie friendship. Now that that's been established, we don't question that they love each other and what the show's about. So we can meander outside of that.
Billy EichnerIt was one of Hulu's first original shows to really go out there. Now a year has passed, and the second season is getting a great response. I think the show [Difficult People] itself creatively has evolved, has gotten much richer and tighter.
Billy EichnerIf you really think you have something good, you can't take no for an answer. You've got to get in there and ignore the people who say no.
Billy EichnerThe most outrageous thing happened years ago in my YouTube days, when I asked an older lady - it was like a sexually flavored question and she just slapped me full-on across the face. That's the one time someone got physically aggressive with me. And it hurt.
Billy EichnerIronically, my rabbi was a bar mitzvah Nazi. So I got bar mitzvahed. And though I didn't want to, the theme of my bar mitzvah party was Madonna.
Billy EichnerIf you're just really loud, people just want - will give you what you want just to get you to shut up.
Billy EichnerIt was pop culture, entertainment, Hollywood, award shows - these are the things that really captivated me as a kid. I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win.
Billy EichnerBy TV standards - I'm not comparing it to manual labor by any means - by TV comedy standards, it is the hardest job I will ever, ever have. There is nothing that could be harder. I mean, when you combine the amount of writing that has to be done - sharp writing - with the fact that you then take it to the street and improvise with both celebrities who have no idea what's going to happen and real people who are not actors or comedians who don't even know I'm about to talk to them... It's lightning in a bottle every time.
Billy Eichner