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[0:00] Jeryl Brunner: From Shakespeare to Schwartz, from Fossey to Alvin Ellie, from Santa to Borelis, from McNally to Faye. It happened to the greats, it still happens every day. When lightning strikes is the moment you know when lightning strikes, where you're meant to go. You can stand and tell your reco, do whatever you like. You'll never forget the moment when lightning strikes. When we talk about the tingly mic drop moments that led you to becoming an artist, a comedian and writer. Leo Reich's comedy show, Literally Who Cares?!, is currently playing at Greenwich House Theatre with sold-out runs at both Edinburgh Fringe and London Soho Theatre. The show has been called biting and brilliantly funny and is a New York Times Critics Pick. Welcome, Leo.

[1:03] Leo Reich: Thank you so much. That's so nice. I that those are always my favorite bit. Just to hear my credits and be like, wow. I can go on and on and on. Can you take me to when you learned from these very fancy producers who show at Edinburgh that they wanted to bring your show to New York, your beautiful show to New York?

[1:28] Leo Reich: Yeah, it's so weird because it's so not a thing. That's so not um when you're at the Edinburgh Fringe, which is this very like it's amazing, massive arts festival, but very like ramshackle kind of um down and dirty uh sort of low-key festival where everyone performs in like the tiniest, smelliest room you've ever could ever even imagine. Um, and I did this extra show near the end of the run, and I walked out into the Pleasants Courtyard, which if you know Edinburgh, you know is like constantly packed with like the drunkest people you've ever seen. Um, and these two Americans come up to me, kind of like cartoons and go, hey kid, we loved the show. Uh, we want to take you off Broadway. What do you think?

And I was like, this is some kind of insane joke. Like what what these people are doing character comedy to me. Uh it was too, it was too on the nose to take seriously. And also I'd just done a show, so I was like, oh, thanks, that's so nice. I don't believe you. Um, but it was real, and yeah, and then it sort of like snowballed off of there.

[2:35] Jeryl Brunner: For people who might not know who these two people are. Can you say who they are?

[2:42] Leo Reich: Yeah, it's um it's Kevin McCollum and um Lucas McMahon, which they both work for Alcamation, which is a Broadway uh production company. Um, I think the reason they came to do the they came to the show in the first place is because they produced Six on Broadway, and um the co-writer of Six, Toby Marlow, is one of my oldest closest friends, and we went to university together. Um Toby wrote a bit of music for the show. So I think that's probably how they originally ended up coming. Yeah, they were. I mean, and it had never been on the agenda to try and get it to New York, really, because that's not it's just not something that you think about when you're at the um Edinburgh Fringe Festival Scotland. But it just became this, it it's sort of snowballed, yeah.

[3:33] Leo Reich: I mean, these are two theatre legends, you know, with Rent, and I mean, these are incredible. And I I heard that you were just the toast of the festival.

[3:43] Leo Reich: Yeah. It was so weird. It's so it's it's such a weird thing. Um, like the the it's such a specific atmosphere at the Edinburgh Fringe where you know, kind of two weeks in for whatever reason, like four or five people are just sort of picked, and the rest of the run sells out, and it's all very easy for them. And I felt so lucky, but also so so awkward and bad that it because it's I mean, apart from anything, it is just luck on some level of having like a nice review come out very early. And some some people get nice reviews, but they're on like the last day of the festival, and it's just like, oh god, this isn't helping anyone. But um, but yeah, it it just happened that the the stars aligned for me this last year.

[4:27] Jeryl Brunner: What was the what's the joy of doing the show in New York for you?

[4:33] Leo Reich: Oh, I mean, so many, so many joys. Part part of it when it before I came out, I was like, well, look, even if the show goes as as badly as you could possibly imagine, I'm still getting to live in New York for a month, and that's a dream. Like it's such a dream to to for some someone to fly you out to New York and put you up in an apartment. It's like this doesn't happen to people. So I've loved it on that level. Um doing it off Broadway in a proper theatre has been lovely. Like I'm very used to doing it in uh in Edinburgh, it was in a porter cabin with like wafer thin walls that everyone thought was a toilet, so it's a big step up. Uh, and also because I mean New York is like the home, the birthplace and the home of stand-up comedy, and and to be doing my show here just feels like the most incredible thing ever.

And all of the, I mean, I mean a huge percentage of the comics that really inspire me and that have directly influenced this show on New York comics or like US comics. And to be suddenly like in um in the same city as them and in the same scene as them is uh simultaneously incredibly daunting and very scary, but also really cool.

[5:49] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, I love your show. I love your sense of fearlessness. I love how you just expose yourself. I mean, figuratively in every which way. I want to talk about your lightning strikes moments when you knew you had to be an artist, when you knew this was your path.

[6:10] Leo Reich: Yeah, I mean, it's so hard. I was thinking about this because obviously I I was trying to be I was trying to pinpoint those moments. And it's so hard to to think of like those like actual turning points because it I feel like on some level it's such a um slow burn series of coincidences that mean apart from anything that you're able to do it. Like there's so much that has to fall into place um on like a sort of material structural level to even have the time and space to be like, oh, maybe I'll sit down at my desk for three days straight and write something. Um but I think a lot of it was I became like a a massive comedy fan when I was like 12 because I saw um a British comedian called Simon Amstel uh did a stand-up show called Do Nothing, um, which was this like total uh like epiphany moment for me of like, oh my god, like I could be funny.

Um, because he was this, like all at the time I was like the most introverted, awkward uh like anxious little boy. And Simon's comedy is all about kind of social anxiety and um the the simultaneous like social anxiety and egotism and sort of uh narcissism of thinking you're simultaneously worse and better than everyone.

[7:39] Leo Reich: And that was as a teenager, that was so um amazing to me to hear someone on stage talking about this stuff in a packed room of people laughing, and this guy was like famous and people loved him, and the reviews are incredible. And I was like, wait, people like this stuff. Um, and so that was just such like a I guess, even on like a personal level, just sort of validating about my own personality, but then also on a kind of uh more like mercenary level, I was like, oh, I could do this and people might like it. So that was a really amazing moment. And I I really I I remember sitting at my kitchen table just crying, laughing, watching the YouTube video of this show. Uh, and that kind of like just started the whole comedy journey for me.

Because before then I'd not really liked stand up. I'd watched it on TV, like kind of arena comics um that you see on like Saturday night television um in the UK, and I'd been like, I don't really care about this. A lot of people talking about like my wife is so annoying. And I I'm like, I don't care for that. Um, but this one show made me think, oh, maybe there's like a uh sort of niche of comedy that I could really like get into and could really speak to me.

[8:51] Leo Reich: And out of that, I started going to so many like comedy shows, comedy clubs, searching stuff out online. So that was really, I mean, I must have been 12 or or 13, but that was like a real watershed for me.

[9:02] Jeryl Brunner: So you were 12 and 13. You were living in London, right?

[9:05] Leo Reich: At the time, yeah. And and here you were you were going to comedy clubs as a kid for inspiration, and were you?

[9:12] Leo Reich: Yeah, that I guess that was another kind of a lightning strike moment was going for uh so I I I sort of looked around a bit for comedy stuff to go to. I went to a couple places that felt a bit weird or like a bit kind of middle-aged or a bit like straight. Um, and then I found this place called the Invisible Dot, which was a comedy club that that no longer exists but was in King's Cross in London, which is really close to where I live. And it's this tiny, like little box room that seats about 70 people, and they would put on these incredible alternative comedy shows. Um people like young comedians doing a full hour of comedy or like mixed bill shows where like a bunch of random people do 10 minutes, and it was always like the most like experimental, crazy, um, like character-y people wearing wigs, people wearing costumes, and then suddenly someone doing quite normal stand-up, just a real like mix of stuff.

[10:10] Leo Reich: Um, and I would sit there like with my like eyes wide, jaw on the floor, couldn't believe what I was seeing, and that was like amazing to me because these people getting up on stage to audiences of genuinely 20 people, and just kind of I mean, on some level, kind of humiliating themselves for laughter, but also doing something that I felt was so like brave and freeing and um and not confined by um certain like rules or expectations about what you should do as a comedian on stage, and that I I I spent maybe three or four years just going to that comedy club like sometimes four times a week um often by myself to just sit there and be like this is so joyous.

[10:53] Jeryl Brunner: That's so fantastic that you gave yourself that kind of master class, you know, as such a kid. And do you remember some of the first material you did in From Valladians when you got up to the city?

[11:05] Leo Reich: But I did, but I didn't I um I never performed comedy until I was 18. Um I wrote a I when I was at school, I mean, another big uh kind of moment was um deciding at school that I was gonna me and my me and my best friend Adam at the time were kind of bored and I I think felt a little bit socially isolated and a little bit um irritated at the whole sort of vibe at my all boys private school in the middle of London, um which was quite stuffy and restrictive. Uh and so we wrote we wrote a play. We wrote a sort of one hour comedy play. Um that was just, I mean, in retrospect, I have no idea why they let us put it on. Just viscerally uh like satirized the school that we were at. It was about the school that we were at, and about the kind of like venal, narcissistic, overprivileged kids and teachers at the school.

[12:05] Leo Reich: And this drama teacher, Miss Dobson, shout out if she ever listens to this, um, she's amazing. She was just like, oh yeah, we'll put this on. We'll put this on and we'll take it to the Edinburgh Fringe. So that was the first time I took a show to the Edinburgh Fringe with this play I wrote at school. Um, we took it for just a week. And it weirdly got like really good reviews, and we had an amazing time. And I was like, I think that was a moment of like, oh, I think when sometimes um it can be easy to get into the headspace of, oh, there's me doing my stuff, um like I'm an amateur, I don't know what I'm doing, and then there are professionals doing their stuff, and that's a completely different thing.

And I think that moment of like taking this show to the Edinburgh Fringe, and really just out of luck, um, getting a couple of reviews in like actual proper, like there was a review in The Scotsman, which is like a big national newspaper in Scotland, which was totally by chance, really, that the reviewer came. But it just made us go, oh my god, we can do like this is it's sort of um punching at the same level as this other stuff at the festival that the adults are doing. And at the time we were 17 and we were like, well, it's not that hard then, because we've done it, we're idiots. Um, I think that was a great, like sort of again, like a really validating moment to be like, oh, okay, so kind of you can if you just try really hard, you can just do this.

[13:34] Jeryl Brunner: So were you at Cambridge when you started doing comedy?

[13:39] Leo Reich: I was, yeah. That's the reason I wanted to go there, is because it has a uh famously, or in the UK, I think people would say infamously um good comedy scene. Um, there's a lot of like history of like the people who went and they went on to be Stephen Fry or whatever. It's that's like a bit very inbuilt into the fabric of that place. Um, so that's why I wanted to go. And then as soon as I got there, I was like, right, I only have three years, I'm gonna just dive straight in and started doing comedy um in my first term, and immediately had the best time ever. I thought it was like the most amazing thing ever. I loved it.

[14:19] Jeryl Brunner: I love that because you were a member of the Footlights, right? The very famous troupe. Um, and what was that like?

[14:29] Leo Reich: Yeah, it was great. I mean, it's the most insane thing ever. The whole university is totally nuts, and the uh the level of kind of unearned privilege that each individual student gets sort of handed to them as soon as they arrive, is crazy. Um, but once I was there, I was just like that this whole kind of infrastructure exists. It has a lot of kind of uh inherited wealth backing it up. And although, you know, maybe that isn't I mean, it definitely isn't a good thing on a sort of uh structural uh political level, I'm here now, and I I just was like, I'm gonna do it because it's so just day to day, the opportunities were crazy. Like you could do you could do two or three um comedy shows a week as a student, which is just like not possible anywhere else.

It's like an unreal level of opportunity, like sold-out comedy shows three times a week because people would just come um based off saying it was the Footlights. Um, so that was um it was amazing, and there was some I mean it was really funny on some level because of the kind of uh fame and history of that group, you get these 18-year-olds um taking it really seriously, uh and and being nowhere near good enough to take it even slightly seriously. So the kind of um the intensity of it compared to the quality of the material, there's like a massive gap. And that's his even at the time, I think I I found it hysterical. But looking back, it's so funny. The kind of like high-minded conversations we'd have in the dressing room, being like, well, no, this this style of joke needs to reference that thing, and then you get on stage and perform truly the worst sketch ever, um, to almost silence. And I love that kind of thing. That that's that's the real sweet spot, like comedy-wise, is uh people like very stupid people taking themselves incredibly seriously. It's so funny.

[16:38] Jeryl Brunner: It's funny. Well, what I love, what's genius about your comedy is that you make these pivots and you take us to these roads and then like to these corners, and you're like, oh, not really. And how you keep, you know, your delivery is so brilliant. And I thought what was your early comedy about? And how did you get that skill to...

[17:01] Leo Reich: Oh, thanks. That's so nice. Um, I I don't know. I mean, my early comedy was really, I mean, it was very directly inspired by Simon Amstel, the guy I was talking about earlier. So it was much more confessional, real stuff that's happened to me, um, like anecdotes, much more sort of traditional, I guess, than the stuff I'm doing now. Um, and much more kind of um, I guess tapping into the kind of my my more anxious uh neurotic side rather than my kind of uh insane narcissistic side, which is I think much what what I what I do at the moment. Um and I I kind of did this kind of sweet nervous energy stand up, uh, which was fun and I liked it. And but it I think uh eventually I got to the point where I I it just felt quite false, I guess, on some level to even on the level of like I'm getting on stage and telling this, telling these stories, and then sort of slightly acting as if I'm very shy.

Uh, and it just I couldn't keep up the kind of um the distance between what what I was saying I was like, you know, being sort of anxious and shy and weird or whatever, and then what I was doing, which was getting on stage night after night, performing to a bunch of people I didn't know in a very confident way. Um so I guess I thought I I at a certain point I just started being like let's get real for a second. Um I'm not that shy, clearly. There's clearly there's clearly other stuff going on here uh and trying to tap into that. And I guess that's what I'm I mean, that's kind of the the roots of what I do at the moment is like trying to trying to get to grips with what part of someone's personality um like has gone wrong, so that they feel that they need to get on stage and perform to people. And it's sort of like an analysis of that, I guess, on some level.

[19:10] Jeryl Brunner: But funny, I should say.

[19:11] Leo Reich: That makes it sound so dry. It's also funny.

[19:14] Jeryl Brunner: It's so funny. And uh dare I ask, would you say that that personal stage is you? Because it's so uh, or is it a persona or a piece of you? Or is that primary?

[19:26] Leo Reich: Yeah, this is an interesting. Yes, I would. I mean, I it's not a character show, it's not like a play. Um it's my name in the title. It is me. Uh it's like a it's like me or my it's what I fear that I am, I guess. Uh more than necessarily I I hope when people meet me, they're not like, oh my god, it's like seamless. The the you're exactly the same as what you are on stage. Um so you know, there's a bit of heightening and a bit of um uh yeah, a bit less self-awareness, I hope, on stage. Um, but it's all coming from real feelings. I think that that, or I hope that every individual joke comes from a kind of uh deep-rooted uh anxiety or feeling or hope or whatever. Um, and and those, and uh a lot of the the comedy I think that I do now trades on this kind of like simultaneous um kind of sincerity and earnestness and a like massive irony and nihilism.

And I think most of the, I mean, if you boil down the kind of comedy, it's like trying to combine those two things in one line is usually my my my joke structure. Um, because that's how I but that's because that's how I feel as a person, you know. I feel like simultaneously so romantic and hopeful, but also so like desperate and uh pessimistic, and so the the real show is just trying to square those two things, I guess.

[21:01] Jeryl Brunner: And it's this marriage of all these delicious things, like dealing with, you know, say, okay, I'm in my 20s, and you know, but what what do I really know? But I really know a lot, and you know, and I've been through a pandemic, but it's really not as bad as people who've been through the holiday.

[21:20] Leo Reich: Yeah, the way you, you know, these pivots that you make, and then you read from your memoir. What's the title of your memoir?

[21:30] Leo Reich: The memoirs will slay. Uh the the the that's the one of the things that's new for the the New York runners that the like covers of those books, which I really love. Um, but yeah, that uh I mean they're nuts. The the funny thing is, like those memoir bits uh are stuff that I used to perform as like just straight up stand-up. Um and I think that yeah, I was gonna do a show in 2020 that was like much more like anecdotal and and um traditional, and it was all kind of like self-pitying, kind of this is my story. Uh isn't life hard for me as a queer person and as a young person right now. And uh the what the show ended up being is I guess kind of a parody of the person who would want to perform a self-pitying stand-up show.

Um, and those that stuff in those memoirs I've had to put in in that kind of framing device so that it's not like the most embarrassing self-involved thing of all time, you know, and it's it's slightly self aware about the fact that that obviously my problems are minuscule compared to almost everyone else in the history of humanity.

[22:42] Jeryl Brunner: And at the same time, it's very relatable, you know, your your insecurity and and your sense of your self-worth and grappling with that, and how has it been like for your family? Because I know your dad is a wonderful producer, and that's true.

[23:00] Leo Reich: Yeah, they're they're so unbelievably supportive. It's crazy. I think that my dad has probably seen the show more times than the director. It's uh it's he comes all the time. My whole family come all the time, and they're they're so nice. They sometimes uh they know the thing that I hate most is when they like repeat lines from the show out of context. So they'll do that a lot. I think they could probably all perform it off by heart at this stage. Um and it's also funny because now when they see it, because they've seen it so many times, they'll only laugh, like they'll only like properly laugh because they know all the jokes when like I mess something up, um, or I or I do like a face that I haven't done before. And so like often if they're in the crowd, you'll know they're there because in a in a bit of total silence, they'll laugh um because I've done something weird.

[23:52] Leo Reich: Uh but yeah, they're super supportive. It's obviously like a weird thing, I think, um to see your sibling or son do. Uh but I think that's another useful thing about it being I have a sort of get out of jail free card now about with this kind of like heightened persona um that I'm doing, uh where if it ever gets too awkward, I think that they have the kind of escape route of going, well, that's not really him. It's not really him. It's a character, it's not him, you know. Um, which is which is good, I think, for everyone's mental health. But like my my grandparents have seen it, my cousins have seen like it's it's all it's everyone's seen it.

[24:35] Jeryl Brunner: In New York?

[24:36] Leo Reich: Not in New York, uh in in London, in London. Uh, but but my family came, my my parents and my my brother and sister came to New York for the first week, which was really great.

[24:47] Jeryl Brunner: That's so phil. What do you like to do when you're not working? Especially in New York.

[24:51] Leo Reich: Oh, anything. I uh I I don't know. Uh what do I like to do? That's such a this is such a um it's so telling that I've sort of forgotten who I am while I'm doing this run of shows. Uh I love to eat. I love to drink a martini, I love to um pretend I'm reading a book in a public place. I love I'm a big just good consumer of uh content as well. Like I'm I'm uh I'll watch every TV show. I go to the cinema the whole time. Um I'm always watching something. Uh even if it's like the worst thing in the world, I will watch every episode. Um so that's that's really what I do. Um and then sort of hang out with my I mean when my uh most of my friends have gone now, but when my friends were up um at the beginning of the month or beginning of the month of shows in mid-February, um, it was a lot of going to musical theatre bars and staying out really late, singing, you know, that kind of uh just getting quite drunk and screaming. That's you know, it's the it's the British way of life.

[26:00] Jeryl Brunner: And what what are you binge doing? You said you'd binge lots of stuff, you binge watch.

[26:05] Leo Reich: Yeah, I think there's something about being in New York. I was just I just re-watched the entire first series of Sex in the City, of course, you've gotta do it. Um I started there's there's still stuff that like I'm like, how have I not seen that? Like I started the show Rami the other uh a couple of days ago, which is so good. But I think I think the problem is it's not available in the UK, maybe, and that's maybe why I haven't seen it, but it's so good. And I'm like, I I'll I'll I'm gonna tear through that. I'm I'm midway through season two. I started it maybe four days ago. So that kind of stuff. What else am I watching at the moment? I'll go I'm going back and watching a lot of kind of New York y stuff, I think, because I'm just in the mindset.

So I I watched Francis Harr again the other day. Um I'm always I'm always at some point through a uh rewatch of girls or any moment in my life, you can catch me, I'll be on I'll I'll be somewhere through it. Um on a cycle. Uh but yeah, that's I mean that's enough to be getting on with really.

[27:04] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah. But um Rami's the big one that I've started watching recently. And also you're writing for TV yourself, right?

[27:13] Leo Reich: Yeah, in theory. Yeah. Uh yeah, that's the weird. I mean, that's that's uh as much as it's crazy to say doing all of these shows the whole time, that's absolutely where I feel most comfortable is writing stuff. I I I the the objective with this show originally, although it's sort of got blown wildly out of proportion now, um, was as a showcase for me as a writer more than anything. I like I really that's that's the dream. That was always the dream is to to write for TV or like write movies, um, and and much less so to be in them. Uh so I I'm I'm very uh uh thrilled and lucky that that weirdly it's this show, I think, that has that has got me in the room with people being like, Oh, I could write this, I could write this.

[28:02] Jeryl Brunner: Um, yeah.

[28:04] Leo Reich: Yeah, so where do you see yourself, you know, in a couple of I mean, do you wanna so do you want to keep writing for other people, writing for your doing more of your own shows?

[28:15] Leo Reich: Or is it the right to say I would I I think the dream for me would be to sort of keep balancing the plates as long as possible and keep doing everything. Like I I've loved doing this this live show. I'd love to carry on doing live shows. Um, I think the the system in in the UK, which people do is go to Edinburgh every year uh with a new show, which I think is insane, and I won't be able to do that. But to kind of dip in to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every now and then would be the dream with a new hour of stuff and hopefully a very different new hour of stuff. I think another nice thing about like doing a kind of more heightened persona-led stand-up show is that it you can very easily just switch up the persona because it's not like totally you.

Um so I'm hopefully gonna do something a little different next time. Um, and then yeah, and just carry on writing for other people. I love doing that. Uh I wrote a couple of episodes for a TV show that I think comes out this year um recently, and that was really fun to like just sort of let your mind be taken over by someone else's voice for once in my goddamn life.

[29:24] Jeryl Brunner: What show was that?

[29:26] Leo Reich: It's called Entitled, um, and it should I I actually don't know if there's a release date yet, but it's sometime this year, I think. Uh and it's uh it'll be on Showtime here, uh Channel 4 in the UK. Um, and it's like a fun show about uh an American Brett Gellman, who's in Stranger Things and was in Fleabag as well. He's uh he's stars in this show, and it's um about an American who unbeknownst to him inherits a English kind of aristocratic country estate, and so he flies over, and it's a sort of like culture clash kind of vibe. Um, but also with a weird supernatural mystery. There's a lot going on. Um, but it was really fun. Uh, but I think also like hopefully, I mean, the dream, as everyone's dream is, is to you know, have my own show and and hire my own room of writers and like create something. Uh, but you know, that's uh it feels like a uh a long-term plan, but but you know, we're getting there.

[30:23] Jeryl Brunner: But hell, you have your own one-hour show off Broadway.

[30:26] Leo Reich: So anyway.

[30:27] Jeryl Brunner: I know, I know, crazy.

[30:29] Leo Reich: That's a critic.

[30:31] Jeryl Brunner: And what what was your process, you know, in creating this show? Because here you have an hour over an hour of phenomenal material and size and so long.

[30:43] Leo Reich: That's actually so long to be on stage for, it's crazy. Um at the end of the hour, every day I'm like, that's so much of these people's lives that they've just wasted watching me. Um the the process was uh, I don't know. The process was it was a pandemic process, I guess, because I was locked in my childhood bedroom, and that obviously came with its own kind of psychological um baggage. And I think there was uh, you know, like I said, I was gonna do a show in 2020, it was gonna be a more sort of anecdotal kind of storytelling hour, and then I just sort of went, as soon as I was locked in my room for a bit, I was like, why on earth would I do something sort of low-key and uh uh storytelling y and kind of anonymous on some level?

Because that's what a lot of people do at the the fringe, especially is like do an hour of stand-up storytelling. And I was like, that's not really what I like watching. It's not like what I what I ideally would want to do. And suddenly I had all of this free time to be able to actually make a go of creating a show that had a bit um a bit more ambition, I guess, uh, like structurally and artistically, and and go, what about if there were songs in it? And what about if I wore this and did that and said this stuff, and um I think that space just uh not to sort of praise the pandemic too much, um, obviously, uh, because it was the worst thing ever, but um on the slight silver lining is that I had a bit more space and time to be like, wait, what do I really want to do here?

And who is it for? I think that that that was a massive thing as well, just being like, just just getting um tired and giving up on the idea that that everyone needed to like it, uh, which can be so uh suffocating as a intention. I think the just the shit the just the best decision I made was to be like, not everyone's gonna like this, and that's fine. Um maybe even it's only 10% of people who like it, maybe it's less. Uh, but to decide that I think because I was re-watching all the stuff that I really loved and going, this was made for maybe like 10 people, but those 10 people love it. Um, and that's the always the stuff that I like the most. And I think uh to have the intention of um making it not necessarily the most popular show in the world, but for the people who like it, their favorite show um was was a real sort of gear shift for me.

[33:17] Jeryl Brunner: Is it hard to put into words how this experience has changed you?

[33:22] Leo Reich: You're doing the show in New York, doing it. Yeah, I mean, it's I and I feel like you never know until it's like three years later, and you're like, oh, it changed me in that way. Uh I think it's I think it's clarifying as well on some level, it's like uh it's such a um mad rush when you're starting out as a comic or as a writer or as whatever, um, to sort of make it your job and to sort of secure enough like income and attention that you can really feel like I'm a comedian or like I'm an actor or I'm a writer. Um at the beginning it feels like such a such a long shot to even ever say that as a sentence without um without being like, well, but my day job is, you know, and even on that level, I think it's just been a massive uh like change in how secure I feel saying that.

Um, and that's like that's really fundamental. Um, but I guess on some other level, it's like, you know, as as soon as as soon as you've secured that, you can go, oh my god, I also have other things going on in my life. You know, it doesn't have to be, it can swallow all of your time at the beginning. And I think this show has done that a little bit of got of sort of taking up all of my headspace and all of my time in a really nice way. Um, and now that it's been like a success, uh, at least on a on a low level, um, it's nice to be able to go like, I I did that, and now I can be sort of a maybe a more well-rounded person who uh can do this show and also maybe see my friends, you know.

[35:01] Jeryl Brunner: Um, so I I think it's nice on that level as well, and to to uh approach everything with with a slightly less uh hysterical, desperate attitude, you know.

[35:13] Jeryl Brunner: Well, Leo, it's such a joy to talk to you congratulations on the success thank you for coming on yeah thank you for having me it's been so nice thank you thank you still happens every day when lightning strike is the moment you know the theme song was written by Tom McGovern this episode was edited by Kyle Moore this episode was produced by Alice Strahm when lightning strikes