BD Freeman
BD Freeman is on a groundbreaking mission: to be the first African American host of a late night talk show. Already making waves as a stand up comic, he now feels the timing is right to pursue his long time dream. We talked with BD about comedy, hosting, and his goals for the future.
The Star Scoop:
What are you working on? Fill us in on what you're up to.
BD Freeman:
Okay, well, I just got signed by Marki Costello. I'm really excited because Marki Costello is a fantastic manager of hosts, and the thing that I've wanted since my earliest memories of wanting anything is to do a late night show, which is why I gravitated towards stand up comedy. My whole time out here in L.A. has been all towards that.
The last project I worked on was a show called What I learned From The Movies and it's fun to do those kinds of shows, as well as hosting In the Cutz, which is fantastic experience. Being signed with Marki is a huge thing, because that puts me in the arena where it is that I want to be to have that opportunity to be in that arena of late night.
The Star Scoop:
You mentioned that you do a lot of stand up comedy. How would you describe the kind of act that you put on?
Freeman:
My comedy is really about whatever it is that I'm going through, whatever it is that's happening to me at that moment. It's funny because, as you go on and you get older, especially as you move through this Hollywood experience of celebrity and whatnot, you start to really broaden out. So my comedy, it really still has that flavor of what's happened to me through the day and what's going on with me everyday, but it's gone from being just experience to what it means socially. I traveled here, I went there, I saw this, I saw that, but not only what it means to me but what it means socially to everybody. My stand up has really opened up a lot.
My stand up has gone from doing it in the clubs to doing it on camera as a host, which a lot of times is really off the cuff, where I'm just sort of out there and, yeah, there's written work, stuff that I want to talk about and everything, but a lot of it is also coming from just that moment, which I'm finding is a really great benefit and also kind of a wonderful experience that's happening in front of the cameras.
The Star Scoop:
What is the difference there, of being in front of a camera versus doing a live show?
Freeman:
That's a really good question. There are so many differences. First off, when you're in front of an audience, everything is very, very instantaneous. You know if something is funny or not, or some things are funny but they creep up on the crowd, and then you're able to use that and maybe call back to it later on or use it to build something. Or something might happen in an audience: somebody drops a glass, somebody sneezes really loud, something happens that makes you react to that and in that moment. TV is different because when you're being funny on television, you not only have to get your crowd, but you have to get through the camera and into the living room of the people that are watching, and you're always kind of aware of that.
The fun thing about working on a show without an audience for me, is that I really concentrate on breaking up the crew. They're not supposed to break up, your camera men and your sound guys, you gaffers, all these different people there. So I will a lot of times kind of play to them as well, and just try to break them up the best I can, and it makes it so interesting to watch a show where I'll say, Wait a minute, listen, listen, and then right at that moment, if you listen hard enough, you can hear the guys in the back laughing. They're not supposed to be laughing, so it's fun.
The Star Scoop:
Is there something in particular that has attracted you to hosting?
Freeman:
It started with stand up comedy. I was sick one night, and I mean, really, really, sick, maybe ten, eleven years old, and it was just a miserable time for me. My father had just passed away; I was getting sick all the time, and like I said, I was really sick on this particular night. So I'm watching TV, and on HBO, they had a show, I think it was George Carlin. I sat there watching that show, and I'm telling you right now, and I'll tell this to anybody until the day I die, I laughed myself better. By the time that show was over with, I laughed so hard, I wasn't sick anymore. And I was really sick!
After that, even being that young, and not having the analytical mind or anything, having developed that kind of thinking, just the basic idea that a guy, just one guy, standing on stage made all those people laugh so hard and made me laugh so hard and I was actually better afterwards, it seemed to be that comedy was the most important thing in the world, more important than anything. It was really, really amazing to me, so I said, that's what I want to do; I want to be a comedian.
But I had also been watching a lot of Johnny Carson, and then Jay Leno. It seemed to me that they could do anything. Everything that I wanted to do. They told jokes, they did improv sketches, they interviewed guests and while they interviewed the guests, they were funny doing it, so that you found out about your favorite celebrities, and it was funny while they did it. All this information but at the same time you were so entertained. It's everything that I want to do. It's acting, it's comedy, it's interviewing people.
When I saw that, I just started putting that together that those guys did everything that I wanted to do. I think it was '89, was when Jay Leno got the word that he was gonna be doing The Tonight Show. I was probably the only kid in America who, I mean, everybody else was cutting out pictures of chicks and putting them on their wall. I was cutting out Jay Leno and putting him on my wall.
The Star Scoop:
Some people try their hand at comedy, and they're just not very funny. What does it take to be successful as a comedian?
Freeman:
Well first, to be successful as a comic, I believe that you either have it or you don't. You have to really want to do it. I mean, to be funny, you really gotta want to be funny, because you're not gonna be funny every night, on every show and every time. Sometimes you are just gonna suck and in the beginning, oh man. My first show I ever did as an amateur, and not getting paid, I got laughs. That was the worst thing that could have happened to me, to anybody, is to get laughs, because I thought every night was going to be like that [laughs]. It was an early mistake, and that began the long, long road. I attended the University of Montana, and they didn't have any comedy clubs there. What they did have, because [it's] kind of a hippy town, they had these open mikes where you'd have poets come, and folk singers, and different people like that.
So you'd have somebody go up there and they would sing a folk song about equal rights for women, and they'd have someone else go up and they would do poetry about the evils and the horrors of war, and after these people, the MC would get up and say, And now, time for a funny guy! [laughs]. I was the only one trying to go up and do comedy, so it was hard, but it was great for me, because they say that God looks out for children and idiots, and I think that God set me up in that place because he knew that if I had went to a regular club, I was and am still a very sensitive person, and I probably would have quit. The heartbreak, it would have been too hard to actually be in a comedy club and not get laughs. But to be in this more or less folk poetry open mike kind of thing where I was the only comedian, it made me special. That memory and that feeling is still in my heart. It still stays with me to this day.
The Star Scoop:
Where do you get your ideas from, when you want to write something? What is your process?
Freeman:
My process right now is like, I just really try to, and it's really hard to do, I really just try to stay in the moment and let things happen. I'm definitely a control freak. If you're trying to control everything, you can't let things happen. I pay a lot of attention. I'm sitting there and I'm watching everybody. I look at everything. I just try to see what's there, try to take a look at the obvious as well as the obscure and take it all in like a sponge. Your conscious mind can't do it, but your unconscious mind is taking in so much more. So, when you sit down to write, you're going to regurgitate things that you don't even know that you can do. You start to work above yourself.
The Star Scoop:
To those who are reading this right now, what do you want to say specifically to them?
Freeman:
First off, I just want to thank everybody for supporting my career. I'm out to do something that's very, very hard, and honestly, quite historic, and that's to be the first Black late night host on network television. People say, Wait a minute, what about Arsenio Hall, well, Arsenio Hall was syndicated on Fox. I love Arsenio, don't get me wrong, he opened the door in a beautiful, beautiful way, and I watched his show every night, and loved it more than I could every say in this interview. But there's never been a black late night host on network television, and that's my goal.