Interview with Robby Hoffman
Thursday / October 1, 2026
About Robby Hoffman
Stand-up comedian and writer from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, known for Hacks, Workin' Moms and her special Wake Up. She won a Daytime Emmy for writing on Odd Squad.
Source: Mike Birbiglia on YouTube
These answers are taken from Robby Hoffman | It's a New Dawn | Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out on Mike Birbiglia's YouTube channel. You! Backstage did not conduct this interview.
What was a great moment for you as a comedian?
With the Hacks thing, what was nerve-wracking about it, and this I blame them, is the process of getting it, because they called me, they wrote this part for me, obviously. But then I got to audition for it. So let's say I didn't get it. Let's say you psych yourself out, the pressure is too much. All you had to do is tap it in and you missed it. It's even worse. If I had to audition to play Meryl Streep, okay, fine, I didn't get it, you did what you could. But if it's for you? And then I'm thinking, well, what if they cast for it? Am I getting a writing credit? You told me you wrote it for me. But thank God, I dunked it, and I got the job.
I'm a very eager, hardworking, very type-A person, and my character and I have so much in common. In the show she wants to be a good assistant, she wants to keep this job, she wants to be in the industry. And in real life it was my first acting. I want to do good at it. I want to keep on the show.
How did your career as a comedian unfold?
I was writing on many things, Workin' Moms. I sold my own show. I was getting into a salary, and then I could do stand-up every night. The writing was a great supplement.
What I love about Mulaney and I is we're an odd [pair]. I was really taken aback that somebody like that likes me, or is going to throw their weight behind me, because he is buttoned up. Kind of really classy. I think he's like the classiest man I know, probably. And then I'm some rat, like I'm surprised, I feel like it is unbecoming for him to be in a room with somebody like me. But at the same time it really works. He's class all the way. Super generous. Out of nowhere [he] decides to put his weight, his power behind me. This is allyship. And I like to rough up his crowd.
What advice do you have for new comedians?
I killed at the Cellar when I started. I started really having fun, and then Noam wanted to watch me. But I've never been watched my whole life. Nobody came to a recital. Nobody came to anything. I'm not in the mood to be watched all of a sudden by somebody. And it really threw me off.
But then over the years I had to tell myself, you got to get comfortable with people watching you. I got to be like Tiger Woods, where it doesn't matter how many people are around him and he's got to make this putt. All he has to do is tap it, and that's not the hard part. It's that everybody is watching. I got to be able to do it alone. I got to be able to do it in a stadium. I got to be able to lock in no matter what.
Has your career as a comedian progressed the way you expected?
I have not been the overnight success. I have been very slow and steady. Maybe some of the last circles to know me were this old guard New York, the big pillars of the scene. But I think the hubbub and the whispers were big, Reddits and stuff like that. It was interesting that I was so well known in some places, and then in more established places I was not very known. I was kind of boiling and bubbling in a very word-of-mouth way. So I've always felt kind of known and unknown simultaneously.
I always knew. I love to come up through the rearview. It's always nice when I'm like, he doesn't know me yet, he's at the table with the big guns. Okay, I'm here. Don't worry. Sit tight. Slow and steady wins the race.
Describe your style.
I don't overperform my jokes. I don't want to be the vending machine that's doing a little dance. I just want to give you Gatorade at a fair price.
I have never purported to be the nicest person alive. In fact, if you see me, do not say hello. I come off rough around the edges. I am aggressive. I'm not approachable. I don't think anybody thinks sending me an email is going to go well. That said, it will come out one day that I'm kind. You wait and see.
And that's what I do with all my characters. Imagine Ben Stiller in different things. We are doing slightly different versions of us. I was a very sexual character in Dying for Sex. So yes, it's still going to be me, but I'm just going to be doing different roles. In Hacks I'm very eager, and in Rooster I'm a very lazy at-home grad student, and that's another part of me that I can tap into.
Tell me something I may not know from reading your credits.
I'm originally from Crown Heights. A lot of these Hasidic communities, for the most part, come from Eastern Europe, Russia, Poland, and a lot of the sects' names come from the people who originated them back in Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century. I was born into the Lubavitch community, which is what you find in Crown Heights.
My mother left. We all wanted to get out. My parents had 10 kids by 30. I'm seventh down the line. I have five brothers, and I'm really in this cluster of boys, which explains a lot. We were poor and living on top of each other. I always shared a room with multiple of my sisters. I was born into conflict.
I come from such a funny family. A bunch of them are funny. Kaya is really funny. Yodus is really funny. My brother Schmoly is so funny. We're very funny.
Robby Hoffman's Full Biography
Robby Hoffman is a writer and stand-up comedian known for The Chris Gethard Show (TruTV), Workin' Moms (Netflix), Baroness Von Sketch Show (IFC), and her one hour Just for Laughs comedy special, "I'm Nervous."
She was named one of Vulture's Top Comedians to Watch in 2020, one of Comedy Central's UP NEXT comedians, and on Conan O'Brien's Comics to Watch list. Robby won a Daytime Emmy Award for her writing work on Odd Squad (PSB).