By Brendan O’Meara
“You build good habits, but the terrain going forward should be unknown to you.” —Connor Ratliff (@connorratliff on Twitter)
Check this out. This is Connor Ratliff’s bio on the Upright Citizens Brigade website:
Connor Ratliff can be seen every Friday night performing with The Stepfathers, and every Sunday night performing in UCBT’s longest-running show, ASSSSCAT 3000. He is the creator of The George Lucas Talk Show, where real guests are interviewed by him while he pretends to be George Lucas. He was the warm-up comedian for The Chris Gethard Show on TruTV, as well as a frequent contributor to MNN version, where he launched his 2012 Presidential campaign and for which he co-created a series of experimental and animated shorts with award-winning artist Maelle Doliveux called The Lone Cornmeal Machine. He is also the co-star and co-creator of the web series I’m Too Fragile For This with Cathryn Mudon, and starred in the IFC web series, Bottled, and the current Comedy Central web series, Dollar Store Therapist. TV credits include Orange Is The New Black, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Search Party, The President Show, Debate Wars, The Characters, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Broad City, VEEP and hosting an episode of season 2 of The UCB Show on Starz. Feature films include Mike Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice, Netflix teen thriller Coin Heist and The Discovery, as well as the upcoming Standing Up, Falling Down (with Billy Crystal & Ben Schwartz). He has also appeared on This American Life and the Comedy Bang Bang podcast. You can hear Connor as the co-host of the podcast “12 Hour Day with JD & Connor” which is a 12-hour long podcast where every episode consists of an uncut and unedited twelve-hour conversation between himself and JD Amato. The Spirit Of Ratliff, his album of Secular XMAS songs & anti-Summer anthems written with singer/songwriter Mikey Erg is available as a limited edition 12″ Secular Red vinyl LP from State Champion Records. One time he got stuck on a train and Huffington Post and NBC News speculated that he had lost his mind. Google it, it was a real news story.
What an amazing body of work!
But it was his essay in Paste that made me reach out to him so we could talk about its themes. In it he wrote:
I’ve seen people struggle as they watch their peers and friends become more successful, and I’ve seen people get bitter about it and burn out. I’ve also seen people leave the bliss of doing potentially the best and most satisfying work of their lives—in a grocery store basement in Chelsea— to book big-time gigs that give them plenty of money, but also a fair amount of misery.
Connor Ratliff has worked with the likes of Chris Gethard, Amy Poehler, Jason Mantzoukas, Zach Woods, and countless others at UCB.
For long time listeners of this show, you know that I love Don’t Think Twice means a lot to me because so many of the themes of that movie apply to the questions I ask of the artists on this show.
Connor had a small role in that movie, gave notes on early drafts of that script, and in the essay writes about many of the themes I like to dig into in this show. So he graciously agreed to come on the show to talk about his career, how things started happening for him when he stopped trying so hard, and how improv made him a better listener.
Keep the conversation going by pinging me @BrendanOMeara and @CNFPod.
