Usually, you'll have a show like the 'King of Queens,' and there'll be one really fat guy, but at least he has a beautiful wife - they balance it out.
— Billy Eichner
No one puts higher expectations on themselves than I do.
I grew up in Queens, which is the most diverse borough: the rich and the poor and homeless and people of every sexual orientation and gender and age group. Everyone is saying we live in this bubble, and there's some truth to that. But I do not think it is healthy to all of a sudden invalidate the way we live in New York.
It's been a very strange trajectory because I struggled for so many years. I mean, I was doing these videos, I was doing these live shows, I had a lot of fans in New York, the press would write about me, but I couldn't get a paying job, and so my father and I were really like a team.
Entertainment, Hollywood, award shows - these are the things that really captivated me.
It's one thing to hear that someone likes your show; it's a completely different thing to have them come take their time and film something with you on a sidewalk.
There are certain people you're allowed to pick apart and certain people you're not.
Award shows are fun but completely arbitrary and absurd. And yet, I will watch every single one of them.
I did a live late-night talk show called 'Creation Nation' with friends of mine. I had a sidekick and a band, and I wrote the whole thing. And it had the form of a late-night talk show, but we did it on stage because no one was giving me a TV show at the time.
You don't want to really pick on someone that you genuinely like. In terms of 'Billy on the Street,' there are certain actors - I don't care if they find out because I do feel that way. Though it's almost never about appearance or something out of their control. I pick on choices they've made or roles they've taken.
If you're faking it, people will know, and it's going to turn a lot of people off.
I haven't done many commercials, and I'm very picky about it because it comes down to creative control.
I'm on all the apps: Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, Scruff. I have no shame about that.
I loved all awards shows growing up, but of course, the Oscars was the biggest one.
Saying gay people shouldn't be the punchline is basically saying don't make people the punch line, which I think is ridiculous. The whole point of comedy is, on some level, to make fun of ourselves and put everything into an absurdist context.
There is no way I will survive Mike Pence doing Carpool Karaoke. What song's he gonna sing? 'I Deported Your Grandmother?'
I was a terrible waiter.
'Billy on the Street' is the hardest thing that I will ever do.
I'm a very outside-the-box kind of guy.
Things pop out of people's mouths that you wouldn't expect them to say, so I've stopped trying to guess ahead of time who might be interesting to talk to.
My mom had a heart attack, and it came out of nowhere - she was 54. My dad had leukemia for about 3 months. He was 80 when he passed. My dad had me later in life, and so he had leukemia and was alive for about 3 months between diagnosis and passing away.
If you're on TV, you can't complain, right? And I understand that, and it's true to a certain degree.
'Billy On The Street' has no doubt always been about the people we talk to. That being said, it thrills me that the show really has a dedicated following in the comedy world.
Our pop cultural likes and dislikes are still very segregated, and that is not true of 'Billy on the Street.'
I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win. I'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.
Anytime you're the creative force behind something and in front of the camera - we're not complaining, but it is an avalanche of work.
One of the first big agencies that represented me, my point person there - this was over 10 years ago, so it's no one who I work with now or have worked with recently - but he told me that I was too ambitious.
If a comedian has a strong following, and the branded segment feels different compared to what you typically do, people will know right away that it's not authentic to who you are as a comedian or performer. Brands need to keep that in mind.
People going off on politics on Grindr is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. That's an immediate sign to run in the other direction.
I grew up in New York, so I had a lot of access to all kinds of movies, and I would handwrite reviews of them on loose-leaf paper.
I took the Oscars very seriously as a child.
People saw 'Moonlight' because it was excellent.
No one was asking me to be on TV. So I made my own late-night TV talk show.
People come up to me all the time and say, 'I just found out about you!' Part of me is happy, and part of me is, like, Where the hell have you been?'
I did start out as an actor. I went to Northwestern; I did musicals. I did plays.
I don't mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but for me, New York is the ideal because of the diversity here. 'Billy on the Street' is really informed by that.
I learned early on that 'Billy on the Street' is a great lesson in 'Don't judge a book by its cover.'
We have a whole art department on 'Billy on the Street.' We give away dioramas that we've made.
Even 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.
I've never even been invited to the GLAAD awards, to sit in the audience. I don't necessarily care, and I'm sure they will one day, and it will be fine, but I've never been invited to anything like that.
The streets of New York are diverse, but when you go into a Broadway show, unless Denzel Washington is in it, or Fantasia's in it, it's a lot of old white people and gay men.
The 'Billy On The Street' persona is truly inspired by who I was as a child - obviously not having an adult perspective on the world.
All that social media hyperbole is just so fake.
I always turn to Wendy Williams when there's any type of ethical or moral crisis in our country.
I don't want to do something that's watered down. I don't want to take what I'm known for and dilute it.
I'm not a bro.
All I wanted to do as a kid was go to the post-Oscar parties I was seeing on 'Entertainment Tonight.'
It's not enough for Hollywood to make a bunch of gay movies. That's obviously a big part of the equation, but then gay people have to show up for those movies.
One thing that I love about 'Difficult People' is that Julie Klausner and our showrunner, Scott King, have written the lead character I play as a fully formed man.
I grew up worshipping Pee-wee Herman.
