Russell Peters Reveals Why He Was Never on Letterman

So okay, so you you started to get popular in the mid 90s you said, and when did you make the transition?

So locally I was becoming popular locally in Toronto and, uh, so people would know who I was. It just... and it was strictly mostly in the black community at that time. And then I started getting interest from Indian people because they kind of, uh, shut me out at the beginning. They didn't, you know, they weren't... I'm the first guy, so they were going to be very... there was a lot of trepidation. You know the word, I said it wrong. But you know what I'm saying? Uh, they they were hesitant to accept. I think it's trepination. What—you know, whatever it is, it's—oh no, that's when you get a hole packed in your goal. Trepidation?

Yeah, it's trepidation. Okay, good idea, right? Good. Um, so they were hesitant.

So, uh, they started like edging towards me like, "Hmm, let's have him host this Indian culture show." And I would do it and then they would get offended because I wasn't... I wasn't like the other Indian kids. I wasn't the guy who's going to be like "Hello!" I didn't grow up like that, so don't expect me to all of a sudden know what your... what... what... what your customs are in India. They're not the same as what my family's customs were in India.

So, India being such a big country with so many different types of people, there's not one uniform thing. So they started to... this... I would either kill or bomb; there was no middle ground for it.

And then I started touring around. I started going to England a lot, and from England is where I started seeing the world. I started going to England in '95, and from England you would get gigs. I'd be like, "Hey Russell, do you want to go to Northern Ireland this week?" and I'm like "Hell yeah!" So I’d go Belfast and Derry, and this is at the time when the IRA were bombing garbage cans in London and stuff. They were still very much big with what they were doing.

Then you would get gigs and be like, "Hey, do you want to go to Belgium? Do you want to go to Denmark?" and I was like "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" I started going all around the world and I started really digging it. And that's when I started opening my eyes to so many different ways. And that's why I think very early in my career, I was exposed to so many different countries.

So it wasn't like being in Toronto and meeting different cultures; I was going to these places and seeing it firsthand.

So late '90s, you started to get mass audiences?

Uh, no. I started gaining audience popularity when they would start coming out specifically for me at clubs, let's say around 2004, after my 2003 special had aired. And, uh, it's funny because Yuck Yucks, where I was working, they used to... This is how scummy this business is, and this is no slight against them—I get it, you're running a business—but come on, don’t make me feel like I'm getting something when I'm not. They rely on the pay scale for a headliner was 100, 150, or 200 a show.

So it was a double A or triple A; I was a triple A.

Um, so I was getting 200 a show and, uh, they had booked me in the Mississauga Yuck Yucks and they called me into the office and said, "Russell, here's... we're going to do something for you that we've never done before. We're going to give you your 200 a show, um, but because you're selling so well, we're gonna give you an extra dollar per paid customer." And I said, "Wow, that's really cool." They were like, "Is that cool?" I go, "That's fantastic! Sure, great." And the ticket price was 17 dollars. Well, I get to the club—didn’t they raise the price to twenty dollars?

One? They got two?

Yeah, well then you were rolling in money at that point. I think I pulled out eight grand for the weekend, which at the time was a lot of money. Yeah, like nobody's pulled this much out of Yuck Yucks.

When did you start... okay, two questions: one, when did you start getting recognized randomly on the street, and was that transition difficult from not being recognized? Because I'm sure after your special—I think I watched your special; I think everybody I knew watched your special—so there must have been a transition from being recognized everywhere from not being recognized.

Well, I see the thing is I was always like out and about, and, uh, I don't want to say I was popular, but I would go out a lot. And I was also DJing at the time back then. So if I wasn't doing comedy, I was DJing at a club or something. So I always knew like the club scene, and that's really the only place you could really become popular.

And there was no social media back then, so either you were inside or you were outside. So I knew the bouncers, the owners, and I didn't drink at the time, so they never... they never had to worry about me coming to their club and getting drunk and starting problems. I was a sober guy until I was about 31, and, uh, so I always knew how to get into clubs free. So it kind of felt like I was already popular because I'd walk... there’d be a line, I'd walk up like, "Hey Russell, come on in. Who's with you?"

And, um, it was kind of always a cool feeling. So people saw that and then would talk to you in the club, "Hey man, that’s all you're talking about; you know the bouncer," but you know... and then you become friends with all these different people.

So when it started happening to him, it just started happening to me more and more frequently is what happened. So it never really came out of nowhere; it just built. And I was honest, and I'm one of those guys who loves people. So when people come and talk to me, my security guys always get annoyed because I stand and talk to a person. I don't... I don't go, "Thank you so much; keep it moving." I'm like, "Hey, what do you do? What's your name?" I genuinely want to know about the person. If you're being nice enough to come and say hi to me, the least I could do is be nice enough to have a conversation.

Yeah, well it's so... it's such an unbelievable stroke of good fortune to have perfect strangers like you.

Yeah, that's what I say. Oh man, it could be a lot worse.

Oh, yeah, you know, yeah. And I'm not the guy you want to come up with an attitude with, because I'm like, "Oh, we're going to have a problem here, pal."

And so if you go out now just for a random stroll down the street, how likely are you to be recognized in, uh, California?

Well, well you got to tell us about different places in Los Angeles. There's celebrities everywhere all the time, so that becomes who's the bigger celebrity in the room at that point. And I geek out when I see celebs sometimes, like "Holy [ __ ] that's blah blah blah."

Yeah, I was in Montreal. I was in Montreal just about '86 I guess, something like that when I just started graduate school. So I just come from Northern Alberta, Alberta, and, uh, I was walking across Sherbrooke street just south of McGill University, and Pierre Trudeau walked across the crosswalk, and we were the only two people on the street. And I went, "Holy [ __ ] it's Trudeau!"

Was he still Prime Minister then?

No, no, he was—he he wasn't at that point. But I was... you know, I know the star struck feeling, you know, and that just erupted out of me in a fit of stupidity. And I've always been, you know, mortified as a consequence of it.

I've done—I’ve said the dumbest things to people. The worst thing is when you get in this business, and you have nobody. You literally... you're the first guy in your entire family bloodline to have ever and jumped in this business. And then you're the first Indian kid. You got all these things in your head and you don't understand how this industry works if you've never been around it.

So I look at other people and how they navigate, like, "Well that's because that guy's dad was blah blah blah; they know how to move nice and smoothly." I stop and look at everything because I'm still stunned by the situations I'm in.

And I remember years ago, it's been 25 years ago in Montreal, Just for Laughs, somebody said, "Hey, that's the girl that books David Letterman." Um, and she was a very unattractive woman, let me just say that. A very unattractive woman. Anyway, so they said, "You should go be nice to her, so you know maybe she puts you on Letterman." And I'm like, "Okay."

And I'm only '96; I've only been in the business seven years. You have no business talking to people unless if you've been in the business less than 10 years, you have no business doing anything that should involve that, as far as I'm concerned.

So we're at this midnight party and everyone's dancing; there's a free buffet and everything, and, uh, I see her at the buffet. And I happen to be at the buffet, and I—I know who she is, but I'm trying to play like I don't.

So I... I don't know why I thought this would be funny or clever or witty; it was none of the above. I just went, "Wow, you must be important." She goes, "Why do you say that?" I said, "Because all the pretty girls are out there acting like idiots." [Laughter]

Uh-huh. So did you get booked on Letterman?

Never, or did you get macaroni dumped down your shirt? She goes, "What?" And I go, "Uh, I just walked away." I just walked away. What am I going to do? I'm not going to defend that.

So yes, I've stuck my foot in my mouth many times.

Well, you'd have to if you're a comedian.

Yeah, I mean that's... I think part of the process.

Yeah, well you're not going to find out what's funny until you know a bunch of things that aren't funny, and you flub up a lot. I tell people that you're not going to appreciate success until you've had failure, and how do you... are you good at coping with failure?

Like I've been fortunate, you know, because I haven't bombed in front of a large audience, and that might be because people are willing to give me more credit than I deserve, because they're—they're already viewers of mine and so on. But, like, I don't—I don't know if I could hack that. I'm not resilient in that way.

And I—I—you said that when you were first starting that you bombed in many places.

Listen, with comedy you're never above bombing. It doesn't matter who you are. Chappelle can go out and have a bad night. I mean anybody—that's the I think that's what keeps us interested in our job is that... what's tonight going to be like? We don't—people go, "You're going to kill it." I go, "We don't know that."

Yeah, I want to kill it. I don't know that it will happen; it's up to the audience. What if I get some sort of resistance from them? Last night there was some guy drunk and yelling out, and I was getting irritated by it. And, you know, I think the older I get, the more short-tempered I'm getting with with stupidity.

You know, I'm like, "Shut the [ __ ] up, dude." You know, I'm like, "Hey, what's your name?" But last night I was like, "Enough, enough kid, enough." And, uh, so you know that kind of threw the vibe of the show right off because they're like, "Oh, is he funny tonight or is he angry? What's this guy's problem?" You know?

Right, right.

Well, I have an affinity for comedians. I think partly because I hung around with a group of people when I lived in Northern Alberta, and all we ever did was try to make each other laugh. And the currency of our social group was laughter. If you could tell a good joke or say something funny, then you scored a point, and and it was great. I loved it. I... and maybe it was part of the culture too—more working-class culture.

But what I did on my lecture tour I think was very similar to what stand-up comedians do. I even attempted now and then to be funny, um, which I can be now and then. But I also had that sense of performing without a safety net, you know. It was never obvious, I think, to the audience, and it certainly wasn't obvious to me whether or not I was going to have a successful talk because I didn't know beforehand.

Right, and I think that's something that's so fun about—or so... it's so dramatically exciting about live shows like comedy shows—is there is the ever-lurking threat of disaster. And for the comedian, it's like, well you're not funny. And so then you're up there trying to be funny, and you're not funny, and it's painful for the audience and it's painful for you, and everyone knows that can happen. And part of the thrill is to be part of that and watch the potential train wreck unfold, and then everyone's so happy if you are funny.

Yeah, I mean there's a lot of... there's a lot of variables too with comedy. I remember I was doing this, um, show about 15, 14, 15 years ago was in DC, and, uh, Bono was there from U2, Michael McDonald was going to perform, and I'm sitting at Michael McDonald’s table with him, and Padma Lakshmi is there, and, uh, Ashley Judd, and it was like this AIDS, um, awareness benefit dinner thing. And I was to perform.

And for some reason, they decided they wanted to put me on first, but people are still coming in and people are talking to each other. Nobody wants to hear a comedian first, and so I'm up there doing my act, and just nobody's paying attention. Nobody—like literally nobody. And I could feel my heart beating fast. I'm like, "Mother..." I'm getting so... and I'm sweating, and I'm getting—I'm really stressing out because there's all these celebrities in this room and I'm like, "This is my chance to, you know, make a splash here," and nobody's paying attention.

Not a flop sweat splash.

Oh yeah, well I could have—I did make a splash in my armpits, and, uh, so I got so mad at them. I go, "Well, uh, you guys have been horrible. I hope you all got AIDS. Good night."