Comedian Brad Williams joins Chris Van Vliet for an in-person conversation at his home in Los Angeles. He talks about his dwarfism and how he learned at an early age to embrace who he is, how attending a Carlos Mencia comedy show as a fan accidentally started his stand-up career, where he gets his inspiration from, the chances he took on himself early in his career, his friendship with Chris Jericho and how he was invited to perform on Chris Jericho’s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea, how he met his wife, becoming a father and much more!
On really being 4 foot 4:
“Dwarves can tell and I don’t want to get a lot of dwarf hate. I don’t want you to get that on your YouTube channel. If I said I was 4 ft 5, all the little people would be like, no, we know exactly. I’ve had dwarfs come up to me after the show and I’m like ‘What are you? About 3 foot 9?’ Come on, we just know. 4 foot 11 is the official cut off. If you are below that, you are legally handicapped. But I have dwarfism, which is a genetic condition. If I got above 5 feet, I would still be a dwarf because that’s my genetics.”
On growing up with dwarfism:
“My dad is not a dwarf, we don’t all come from the same tribe. When I was born, he knew I would be made fun of when I was a kid. His philosophy was that he would make fun of me first, but he would do it in a supportive way. He would say ‘Hey I just insulted you, hit me back with something.’ Even at 3 years old he would make fun of me. We would write jokes and comebacks together. On my first day at school, someone came up to me and said ‘Haha you’re little.’ I looked at him and went ‘Haha your mom doesn’t live with your dad anymore.’ We wrote good ones! My dad was preparing me for a career in stand up comedy. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I dropped out of college to pursue it. That’s when I became aware of it [dwarfism]. When you go to school, kids size you up and go OK what can we make fun of you for? If you have a mole, a bowl cut… They always latch onto that, my dad knew it would be my dwarfism. Once they hit you and you counter punch, you’re the cool guy.”
On how his parents helped him for the world:
“My mom and dad prepared me for it. Neither of them are dwarves. It’s not like you can drive down the street and go ‘Hey which house do the dwarves live in? Oh it’s that mushroom with the door on it!’ My dad has a basic philosophy of there’s the world that is and the world that should be. Many parents make the mistake of preparing their kids for the world that should be. Things like ‘Oh no one is going to make fun of you…’ which is not the case.”
On the wish to have a child that has dwarfism:
“For me personally, because my wife is tall, that’s how you know I’m successful, is 50%. I was supposed to stay neutral and not have any hopes, but selfishly I wanted my child to be a dwarf. I got that wish, my daughter is also a little person. I didn’t want a tall kid where when he’s 9 I go ‘Go to your room!’ He goes ‘F*ck you dad.’ [makes explosion noise] I don’t want that. For selfish reasons I wanted her to be a little person.”
On whether his size is a part of his routine:
“At first I didn’t, I didn’t want to [reference my size]. It’s this weird balance I have to do. If I go on stage and don’t talk about it, rather than paying attention, the entire audience is like ‘Does he know? Should we tell him?’ As a comic I try to write jokes about my life, and my life is that of a little person. I can’t write jokes in the perspective of a 6 foot 2 man, I don’t know what that life is. My stuff will always have the perspective of a dwarf. But it’s not 2 hours of ‘I can take a bath in a thimble, that’s weird.’ But you lead with that, go into other things and lead back with a tag. But that’s what people want to see, not a lot of people know a lot of little people. There’s not a lot of people who do so they are curious. I trust me to get the message out there more than another source.”
On how he accidently got into comedy:
“I took my dad to an impro show on Father’s Day. The comic [Carlos Mencia] was doing little people jokes, half the room was laughing, the half near me were like ‘uhuh.’ Then the comic goes ‘Is one of them here?’ And he invites me up on stage. I was answering his questions honestly, but it got laughs. He asked me where do I work and I answered that I worked at Disneyland. The audience then laughed, I turned to them and said ‘F*ck you! I’m not one of the seven.’ That got a laugh and that felt really good. At that moment I needed to try this and needed to do this. I did something that made an entire audience laugh.”
On how he decided to go for it:
“I’m young and dumb at the time. I thought I do a couple of open mic nights and then I will get paid for this. The vast majority don’t make it. I didn’t know how hard the job was, it was about doing the research. I found the Laugh Factory and they did open mic nights. So I’m like I should go. The first time I just went there to watch and see if I’m good enough. It became clear I was good enough. There were a lot of terrible performers who bombed, so I’m like I can do this.”
On the parallels between wrestling and stand up comedy:
“I can imagine. Indie wrestling is thankfully starting to be more popular with the rise of social media. Guys are now not wanting to go to WWE because they are making money on the indies. But when you start, you’re at the bottom of the card and you’ve got to drive God knows how long with God knows who. Build the ring, take it down, do tickets, just to take a few bumps or get squashed by the main guy. But the little victories are the biggest thing for them. Like if someone buys your T-shirt.”
On what was his big break:
“There’s a lot of breaks along the way. Getting on The Mind of Mencia show way back in the day, that was a break, because a comedy club owner saw me. There was a popular morning radio show in California. One of the guys on the show retweeted me, I don’t know how he saw it. At that point it did really good for me. the next time he did a live podcast, I brought him a bottle of whiskey to say thank you. He looks at me and goes ‘Do you want to go on the show sometime?’ I’m like yes! I go on the show, the day before, my chalkboard looked like Charlie from Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I had the conspiracy theory of answers lined up. I got plenty of sleep, got hyper on coffee and I planned it all out. I do the interview, it goes well, and at the end of the interview my twitter blows up. They then booked me on their big comedy show in April, the venue held 9,000. I go on, do my set, and end it by bringing the travel reporter from the show on stage. I give her a lap dance and the place goes ape sh*t! I get a standing ovation. The comic after me said ‘OK after Brad, we are all playing for second place here.’ That quote hit the newspapers the next day, it was the coming out party. That started circulating and it went onto Netflix, Rogan podcast, all these are big breaks.”
On how he got onto performing on the Chris Jericho cruise:
“I was doing the Tampa improv, I was headlining. I do meet and greets after the show, and this lovely blonde woman comes up to me after the show and says ‘You were really funny. My husband is in showbusiness, he would really like you.’ Whenever I hear that I’m like yeah OK, he’s done a used car commercial or something. So I go ‘OK who’s your husband?’ She says ‘Chris Jericho.’ Oh ink on my face OK! I probably geeked out and said too much. I think there’s a fun story I can tell but don’t think much of it. A few days later I get a DM on Twitter from Chris Jericho. I’m a lifelong wrestling fan, Chris is one of my favourites. Chris then asked if I wanted to do his podcast, of course yes I do! I talked with him for an hour, tried to act professional but geeked out a bit. We got on really well and after it stopped recording he talked about the cruise. I said I wanted to do it, I didn’t care about being paid. It was amazing. I went to every wrestling event, live podcast, concert. But Chris is a great guy. I was going to be on the second one but my wife got pregnant, how dare she! [laughs].”
On what he is grateful for:
“That my wife is patient, I have a healthy daughter and the vaccine.”
Brad Williams can be found on Instagram here and Twitter here.
Featured image: IMDB
