Interview with Caleb Hearon
Thursday / October 1, 2026
About Caleb Hearon
Stand-up comedian and writer from Missouri. Host of the So True podcast, writer on Netflix's Human Resources, and star of the HBO special Model Comedian.
Source: Vulture on YouTube
These answers are taken from Caleb Hearon Is Happy Whether You Like It or Not | Good One Podcast on Vulture's YouTube channel. You! Backstage did not conduct this interview.
What drew you to a career as a comedian?
Mo'Nique, specifically her Queens of Comedy set. The whole set is like a master class to me. I grew up watching Carlin and Pryor and very, very kind of offensive, edgy comics. And Mo'Nique had an element of that, but to see a woman do it in a way that a woman or a gay person would do it was in many ways similar, but just different enough that I was like, “Ooh, something else is going on.” And a fat woman up there owning the room like that. I didn't know at the time that I was like, “Oh, I could do that.” But it felt so good and affirming.
Stand-up was kind of my first foray into being a solo act at all. I was doing improv and I was doing sketch and I was doing all these group things. And stand-up was where I really found my solo, singular voice.
What do you enjoy most about comedy?
For the first couple years of my career I was pretty anti-recording stand-up. I said no to every opportunity to record a stand-up set for years, because I feel that stand-up is meant to be in the room. It's supposed to be an in-the-room art form. In the room is the point.
I care deeply about community. If I could pinpoint one problem that we have, it's the isolation. Everyone feels so separate from each other and I want us to feel together. When I think about community on tour, I think, well, look, there's 1,500 people in this room who all have at least something in common. Either they like my stuff or their girlfriend does. I'm always trying to get people to make a friend and exchange phone numbers. I experimented at a Bell House show recently where I got $500 cash before the show and I went around the room and I said, “Who's sitting next to someone they don't know?” And then I paired people up and I was like, “I'll give you $100 cash if you promise me you'll use it on going out together.” I want to do more stuff like that. I want to find ways to help people connect.
What was a great moment for you as a comedian?
I was in Chicago. It was like 2019. I was doing characters and improv and working day jobs, and I did a character showcase at iO Chicago. It was like five or 600 people would do the first round. Then the second round would be like a hundred people. And then the third round would be like 25 people that would go in front of the producers and Lorne Michaels and the writers when they came to town.
I had been prepping for it for like a year, because I worked at the theater as an intern and I knew that they were coming up, and I was like, “I'm going to start practicing now.” And that first year I did it, I got all the way through to the round in front of the producers and, to be honest, I killed. I just really murdered that night. It doesn't always go that way for you, but it was a good night for me and they loved my stuff. Then they flew three of us out to screen test, and you go to New York and you screen test on the stage and everything.
How did your career as a comedian unfold?
I would have killed for that job the first time. I had no career. I had no followers. I had no team. I was just making comedy in Chicago. It would have changed my life. Glad I didn't get it. And when they didn't hire me, if anything lit a fire under my ass, it was that. I was pissed. But I started making videos right away. I want to say that was late summer, early fall of 2019, and I had maybe 3,000 followers on Twitter from college. I started posting videos, and by the end of that year I had like 120,000 followers, a team, agents and a manager.
To be 100% honest, the hour was ready long before it sold. And then I was at this point in my career where I was just like, “I'm tired of waiting around. I need to make some things happen for myself.” So I started the podcast hoping that it would over time help out a little bit. And then it randomly did very well right out of the gate, and then all of a sudden two, three people want to buy it and make it.
Has your career as a comedian progressed the way you expected?
I don't know that I had any conception of my career going this way, necessarily. Certainly not at the time when my dad was alive.
I genuinely mean it when I say the two best things that ever happened to me are that I didn't get that [SNL] job twice, because I am not meant for that place. I don't like being told what to do. I don't like routine. I don't like crazy schedules. The way that it all worked out for me, that I get to be in charge, that I get to hire the people I want to work with, way better.
It's unfortunate but true. Everything I get to do in acting and writing at this point is bankrolled by the fact that I do podcasting and internet stuff. And I don't love that. I would love to just go act in three movies a year and make incredible money, and then the rest of the time be reading and writing and thinking. But that's not the reality and that's not the landscape that we're in right now.
Of all the specials, sets and projects you have done, which is your favorite?
Haunted Mirror was my favorite bit at the time that I auditioned the first time. It's just this Southern woman talking about how she has a haunted mirror, and she's being very blasé about it. The joke was just kind of the way that Southern and Midwestern people, women in particular, will talk about the most harrowing things. I think maybe the first time I tested it was a woman coming home from the grocery store and talking about how she got shot. And she was like, “I couldn't find the ham I wanted, but this guy shot me in the leg.” “What?” “Oh yeah, I got shot while I was down there.” It's so blasé, like anything else is more important than what I'm going through. Haunted Mirror was my first big closer for a character set.
Who is your favorite comedian, and why?
Mo'Nique always. And then I do always have to just be honest: Roseanne. The original Roseanne, before she became new Roseanne. New Roseanne, we are not tight. But the original Roseanne was everything to me. She was so goddamn funny on that show. DNA can't deny it funny. And the show was so great, and they cast it so perfectly, and John Goodman in it.
There was this period of time in high school and college where me and my friends were just watching everything. Zach Galifianakis, his Live at the Purple Onion special is one of my all-time North Star favorite comedy specials. Zach's comedy was so pivotal to me when I was figuring out comedy. This guy is on the Mount Rushmore of comedy as far as I'm concerned. I just think he's so brilliant. And I love the way he does his life as well. He's just on a farm in North Carolina with his family, pops out and does a movie. I really think he figured it out.
Describe your style.
I have a very conversational style. Look, we did the show twice that night. If we had done it seven more times, we would have gotten seven different hours. I change so much on the fly, even in the recording, which I love about my style.
The reality is I want to joke in public the way I joke with my friends in private, and that's what I am trying to do. I'm making fun of us. I'm kidding around about people like me. I'm trying to have a nice time and just joke around about the way that we are. I think we're funny. I don't want to cut anyone out of the joke, because if I'm cutting someone out of a joke in my personal life, it's because I don't like them. So I want everyone to be in on the joke, and they can joke about me, too.
Tell me about a bit or a project that was hard to get right. What was it and why was it challenging?
The section about my dad. A big question for me during that section of the hour was: who cares and why? I don't want people to enjoy this just because they're a fan of mine and they want to hear more about me. I want this to hopefully appeal to somebody who doesn't know who I am and doesn't care about my life. So I tried to hone in on the interesting parts: loving someone who you had a complicated relationship with, loving someone even though they were quite bad at being a parent.
When you bring up the bad thing first, then you have to do this kind of saving-the-room energy, where you go, “Don't worry guys, it's going to be okay.” The tense was something I debated for a long time. There was a while on tour where I tried it as “is,” and then when it got to the part to bring up his death, I would actually say, “You know, I've been saying is, but it's actually was, because he's dead.” And getting into it that way felt like too much of a device, and felt dishonest.
Tell me something I may not know from reading your credits.
One thing that was a really interesting experiment that I did on Twitter, after I got some followers, was a storytelling series of gossiping to a co-worker about your weekend. The story never ends. It's one long story. Every video is about two minutes and it ends on a cliffhanger. And then I wouldn't say when I would do the next one. A week or two or three weeks later, I'd pop up and do another addition to the thread. It was me trying to test the limits of: can I get people to care about a story in a sustained way on a platform that's not designed for it? I had a lot of fun with it.
People go, “This podcaster is branching out into stand-up and acting.” And it's not the truth. I was on TV before I was on TikTok. And I was doing stand-up before I was on Twitter.
What are some of your professional goals for the future?
I don't want to forecast. I don't know what I'm going to want. I like making movies. I've directed a little bit. I'd like to do more of that. There's going to be at least a year or more period in the very near future where I'd like to f*** off entirely and do nothing and no one hear from me. Maybe during that time I write some projects, or write a book or something. There's a book idea I've been working on for a while.
Stand-up special, who knows? If I go on tour again and I find material that feels like a piece, I will do it, but I'm not interested in cashing in on that. I would just like to make sure that it's something I actually believe in. So if there's another hour I believe in, I'll make it, if someone will make it with me.
Caleb Hearon's Full Biography
Caleb Hearon is an American stand-up comedian acting and writing for Netflix's upcoming animated series "Human Resources," a spinoff of "Big Mouth." Caleb is originally from Missouri and studied Sociopolitical Communication at Missouri State University. After college he lived and performed in Chicago for a few years, where his viral character videos attracted attention on Twitter. Caleb lives in Los Angeles now and was recently named one of Variety's 10 Comics to Watch.