INTERVIEW: Russell Peters travels to Mumbai to show ‘love and respect’
Photo: Russell Peters’ new comedy special on Amazon is called Russell Peters: Deported. Photo courtesy of Amazon Prime Video / Provided with permission.
When Russell Peters is not making his fans laugh uproariously in arenas and theaters, he’s perfecting his craft in small clubs that remind him of the good old days. Keeping this balance has allowed Peters, a native of Toronto, to evolve his comedic chops over the past three decades, constantly morphing his live act to address whatever his new reality might be.
His new reality these days involves fatherhood and adulthood, a far cry from the youthful angst of his early career.
“You can only talk about what you know and what’s happening around you,” Peters said in a recent phone interview. “I mean, if you look at my act over the past 31 years, you’ll see, oh yeah, he grew from a teenage boy, into a young adult, into a man, into a father, and now a guy who is on the other side of that scale where death is closer than life.”
Some of this new material can be found in Peters’ latest comedy special, called Russell Peters: Deported, now available on Amazon Prime Video. The special evening of laughs was actually filmed over a couple nights at the NSCI Stadium in Mumbai. It was a particularly important show for Peters, whose heritage goes back to India.
“Over the years, I’ve made a joke or two about being Indian or spoken about my people,” Peters said with a laugh. “I wanted to shoot it in India to let them know this was all done out of love and respect, and I wanted to pay it back to them and let them know, look, here’s how much I love and respect you. I want to lock in this moment in history and time in front of you.”
Peters appreciated the opportunity to film the special for Amazon, and he thinks he landed the best jokes on night two of the engagement. Sometimes it takes getting one’s feet wet before a crowd to see where the chuckles will be, where the guffaws might reside, where the bonafide hilarity exists.
When he tells jokes about his new fatherhood, for example, Peters is particularly careful not to follow down the same path that other comics have taken. He knows there are many funny stories about being a new dad, but he wants to hold on to the comedy style that first propelled him into the spotlight — again a balancing act between what he was and what he has become.
“I’ve seen comics get up and talk about their family, and they were comics that maybe were edgy before, and now they kind of seem more tame because they’re talking about their families,” he said. “I get kind of bored when I watch them, so I’m a little cognizant of not wanting to go down that road too much either. It’s more like I tell you that I’m a father now so that you understand why I may or may not do certain things anymore. I don’t want to dwell on it too much on stage because it gets boring for the people that don’t have families, that are like, ‘Eh, I don’t get it. Don’t have kids, don’t get it.'”
To keep him on track, Peters will sometimes sit down and look at footage of his old comedy bits, especially when he’s feeling like his current comedy is drifting away from who he is as a person and a performer.
“I look at that guy like he’s a completely different person, but then I’m able to get back in that guy’s head,” Peters said. “There I am. There’s my essence right there, and then I try to take it back with me.”
Peters has earned many of the top comedic accolades in the business, including having Rolling Stone name him to the top 50 Best Comics of All Time. He got his start at Toronto comedy clubs, according to press notes, and he expanded his craft across the country and into the United States. He was the first comic to sell out Toronto’s Air Canada Centre in 2007, and his tours have been immortalized on Showtime and Comedy Central.
All of this success has not changed him — or if it has, he’s got a plan to get back to his roots.
“The more you do it, the more you change,” Peters said. “It’s like a black hole. The more your gravitational pull starts to suck things in around you, you’ve got to remember who you are. You’ve got to go back to who you are. Anytime I do get a chance to go back to Canada, I always drive through my old neighborhood, just to jog my memory as to who was I, what was I doing, what did I do in this place, when was I in this particular time and space, and it keeps you honest because it brings you back to your essence.”
Today, now that he’s a global brand of comedy, he is hitting markets all around the globe, yet he still saves his Toronto gigs for a special spot on the itinerary.
“I always try to do it at the tail-end of the Canadian tour, so that way I’m all revved up and I’ve got all the kinks out of it,” he said. “And I don’t want to miss anything, and I hit it the way I want to hit it.”
Peters admitted that there is a certain Canadian comedic sensibility, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. As one example, he said it can be more difficult to make a Canadian audience laugh, so he needs to be on his A game at all times.
“I think that’s why you get so many comedians or comedic talent out of Canada because we have to work that much harder to get the laugh,” Peters said.
Growing up in the country, Peters would often use comedy as a defense mechanism, mostly because he was bullied quite a lot. He said he was a small child and didn’t know how to fight for himself.
“Nor was I inclined that way to be an offensive type of person, so I would use comedy to try to distract you from what it is you thought you didn’t like,” he said. “It’s now just part of my fabric. It’s who I am. It’s just become part of me. I’ve been doing it so long then I just don’t know any other way of not doing it.”
Over the past 31 years, Peters has seen the comedy world change quite a few times. For example, in recent years, male comedians have been questioned about their jokes in light of the #MeToo movement.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily going to change my comedy,” Peters said. “It may change the way you speak a little bit, and that’s indicative of change in life in general. I don’t think that’s going to dictate every move I make, but you do have to be conscious of what’s happening around you. It’s just the sign of the times. You kind of have to go with the times. That doesn’t mean you’re going to censor yourself. I think it just makes it more of a challenge for us on how to figure out how to word the certain things we’re trying to say and still say them.”
As Russell Peters: Deported displays, Peters has found that difficult balance between sticking to his roots and shaping a live act that is readymade for the 21st-century adult. To achieve this balance, he needs to practice, practice, practice.
“I think my new tour will start in June, and right now I’m in the process of doing clubs every week,” Peters said. “I just did 18 shows in Florida at a bunch of different improvs. I always say you’ve got to take it back to what your essence is, what started you, what made you this person, so I go back to the clubs. That’s what made me a hard-working comic.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Russell Peters: Deported is now available from Amazon Prime Video. Click here for more information.
