Image Credit: Instagram @Ronfunch
Ron Funches is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actor known for his work on Trolls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, New Girl, Undateable, Transparent, and numerous other TV shows and films. He joins Chris Van Vliet from his home in Los Angeles to talk about how he broke into comedy, getting his first big break in the business, performing on Conan O’Brien, his voice acting work, how he was able to lose 140 pounds, his experience attending wrestling school, his podcast called “Gettin’ Better with Ron Funches” and much more!
On his podcast:
“I wanted to make a podcast, I wanted to have a home for people to come find me because I do a lot of guest stuff. I’m always a guest in other peoples homes and other projects. People tend to enjoy what I do but I didn’t have a place where people could follow what I was doing and what I was about. I wanted to do something that I liked talking about, which is my general life. A lot of my affirmations came from what I was doing at home with our son. What I wanted to do was talk about a comedic version of self help. I didn’t want to take things too seriously, because I like self help, I’ve read a lot of books about it. I just noticed that being on Twitter that there has been a shift in how I have been communicating with people.”
On why he decided to start losing weight:
“It’s a combination of things. I noticed that my knees were hurting, I was getting on flights and a lady woke me up because it sounded like I have sleep apnoea, she was a nurse and said it sounded like I wasn’t breathing. I was like I’m fine, but later I thought a stranger woke me up because they were concerned about my breathing. Then there was this Thanksgiving where my mom came to visit me and wanted to buy me clothes. She came home and said ‘It hurts me to make me buy clothes that are this size. It makes me worried about you’
Those 2 events pushed me, and the fact that I had just started working on a show where the character was supposed to be a big guy [Undateable on NBC]. The creator Bill Lawrence came up to me and said ‘hey, I’ve seen you in the gym a couple of times. I just want to let you know that we like you. If you want to be this way, I’m happy, but we don’t need the fat guy [as a character]’ He introduced me to his trainer and I was like lets get to it. It was a lot of walking and throwing up for a few months. Before it was because my health is in danger. Now I’m 38 and I want to be in the best shape of my life by the time I’m 40. I was not in the best shape when I turned 30. It’s going to be a fight after 40.”
“I was 360lbs at my heaviest, I’m at 224 right now. The first step was a lot of walking and learning. I don’t have the tools, I never grew up like that. It was always going jogging but then going to Burger King. It took a lot of learning about diet, my wife has been a lot of help. The 2 things that helped me the most were walking and water. If I could give any advice, it would be find something that you can cut out, the first one for me was soda. I made a rule and I stuck to it.
On using wrestling to help him lose weight:
“I spent 3 months at the Santino Brothers Wrestling Academy in California. My friend had passed away suddenly at 34 and it made me realize any day I could die. I’ve always wanted to do a few things. Comedy was one of them and wrestling had been another, so let me go try. It was a great experience, it was nice to try something and not be good at it. When I tried comedy for the first time, I felt like I could do this. I was a natural at it, I could hold the microphone and be on stage fine. When I was doing rolls and taking bumps, I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t get it or understand it, but I love it so I wanted to keep trying. It was when I realized that I am wasting peoples time that I decided to quit.”
“I wanted to work a match, but I also have a full comedy career. The wrestling was 3 days a week, but I would suddenly have to be out of town for 2 weeks filming. I wasn’t only hurting myself, but also hurting my partner in that time. When I come back, I’m behind and it wasn’t fair for people who were actually trying to become wrestlers.”
“We were in class and there was a show at the weekend. They recommended things like getting a part time job, travel and sleeping in your car. I’ve already done this for comedy! I’m not doing that again for wrestling.”
On how he realized that he was funny:
“Yeah but in a shy way. I wasn’t the class clown but I was in people’s ear making fun of the class clown. It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I was voted funniest person, but I was just talking trash. When you grow up in an unstable household, you learn to use humour to diffuse certain situations. I never thought comedy was a real job, it took a lot of bouncing around and my son being born and being diagnosed with autism. Then I knew that I need to pick a career.”
“I was working at a bank call center, it was my focus because my son was born. I was not good in a corporate structure, the only thing that saved me was that I was good at talking to people. Even though I wouldn’t take enough calls but I got good feedback scores. They then asked to make a training video, and they showed it at this company thing. I could hear them laughing and laughing, and I got that first rush. I was like oh I like that, and if they liked this, what if they listened to stuff I gave a crap about.”
“5 years after my first open mic. I bounced around doing a lot of part time work. We just lived very poorly for a while. My son was the breadwinner a lot of times, he was paying the rent.”
On why he moved to California:
“That would be the divorce (laughs). I didn’t have a steady place to live anymore. So I can either stay here, but I thought it would be better for me to move away. I was living in comedy flop houses and going to auditions on an empty tank of gas. It’s very dangerous, I have ran out of gas a couple of times on the freeway. Luckily, I made it to all the auditions, I didn’t make it back home. My dad had Triple A so he would call them to help me home.
On how he got to appear on Conan O’Brien:
“Conan O’Brien was my first big break. I auditioned and tried things out. I was in Portland and I got momentum from festivals and other comedians seeing me. Guys like Nick Kroll and Aziz Ansari wanted me to open for them. That taught me a lot about being professional and travelling. It was grinding and auditioning. That was how my manager Melanie Truhett saw me. She wanted to work with me and that led me to sending tapes to Conan. Eventually the producers liked it enough that we got it [the appearance].”
On his influences and meeting his hero:
“My 3 biggest influences are Lucille Ball, Mitch Hedberg and Dave Chapelle, who I actually opened for in Montreal. That was one of my biggest comedy accomplishments. They [the audience] did not want me, and by the end of it they loved me. I was like I am powerful, because they wanted Dave! I talked to him a couple of times and he has been very nice to me. He just likes to see other comedians succeed. He had his family with him, but he was very open and a very nice guy.”
On advice for upstarting comedians:
“It’s a great time to start, just get to in to it and write a bunch. Write about what makes you happy, be specific and write a bunch of stuff about what your viewpoint is. It’s like everything else, it’s just repetition and having something to say.”
On being on the Joe Rogan podcast:
“It helped a lot, it’s the biggest platform in the world right now. I could go on late night shows and not get the same reaction. I think Joe is one of the smartest business minds you could come across. He saw the podcast landscape before anyone else had one, and he used his MMA to increase his platform. That’s why I use wrestling, I look to him for a lot of influence in that. It is a double edged sword though. If I go on, my fans are mad because of guests he has had in the past. Then if I express my views, his fans get mad at me. ‘Who are you? You’re a sheep etc.’ Joe Rogan is a regular comedian, regular guy, but he is not the voice of a generation. He has no problem with me telling him things, but his fans do.”
On 3 things he is grateful for:
“My wife, my son and my home.”
Ron Funches can be sound on Twitter here and Instagram here.
Video version can be found below:
