- I think I have a lot of anxiety in the creation of a thing, but there's something about getting on stage where I'm just sort of like, "Who cares?"
- I'm drawing you as a cartoon.
- Thank God, someone's gotta.
- Demi, thank you so much for drawing with me.
- I'm so excited to be here.
I'm terrible at drawing.
- Can you imagine I'm actually a judge and I'm just like, "That sucks."
- I'm so used to, if I'm like drawing or painting something, like it's a still image or one that's not moving.
And so I'm like, just having to do that while talking and moving, I'm gonna be like, "Wait, stop talking," and like you can't do that.
- Were you like in art classes in school?
Yeah.
I actually am now remembering I have like a folder in my parents' house that is like art that I did in high school when I did a painting class.
I remember looking back at it and being like, "Wow, I really can't do anything without that grid."
No, no, no- - Actually, I am done with that.
- I'm off to the races.
It's too late.
I mean, I'll put it back here, but I'm going freehand.
- Where did you grow up?
- I grew up in Plano, Texas.
- Wow.
- A town that I feel nothing about.
Where'd you grow up?
- I've never been to Plano.
I grew up in Normal, Illinois.
- Wow.
- Yeah, which feels like Plano.
I've never been there- - It's very, yeah, just names- - But yeah.
- That they suggest there's nothing going on there.
- Do you have siblings?
- I have a younger sister who is a gynecologist.
I keep saying that my parents got one, so I can go and be silly now.
- Do you have any memories since you're obviously a comedian of the first time that you made somebody laugh or within your family?
- No, I actually, I have the opposite memory of telling my parents I wanted to be a comedian.
They said sincerely, just like, "Are you funny?"
In a way of not trying to be mean, just like, "Is that a thing that you do?"
Because I feel like I was never that person to them.
And so they were very confused that I though of it as a career that even was pursuable.
- When did you start pursuing it?
- Going into college, I was truly just like, I wanted to be a TV writer and I wanted to be a filmmaker.
And they were just sort of like, "I don't understand.
Like, we thought you were pursuing computer science."
And I was like, "I said I would and I have absolutely never wanted to do that."
I think it's because I spent so much time on the computer they were like, "Ah, he's gonna, that's what he's doing."
- He's gonna major in computer.
- Yeah, he's gonna build a website.
- So what do your parents do?
- They are data scientists.
- Oh, wow.
- Yeah, computer people.
Which is why my mom was like, "Obviously you're going into the family business."
And I was like, "Mom, I wanna be a clown."
- I watched a video with your parents and it was so funny like where you asked them what their four favorite movies are and then one of your mom's choices was "Billions."
- And so not only was it "Billions," it was she said "Successions" first.
And then I was like, "I've never heard you talk about that show in your life."
And then she was like, "Oh no, it's the other one.
It's 'Billions.'"
I'm like, "So neither of these is a movie."
And then she was like, "Ugh, does that count?"
I was like, "No, you haven't said a fourth movie, but sure, we'll move on."
- Oh, no, it was so sweet because it reminded me of the relationship that I have with my mom, and my mom is so funny without trying.
- Yeah.
- And I really got that from both of your parents.
- It is so nice to get older and have a relationship with your parents where you kind of can see the charm of them.
You get older and you're less afraid of disappointing your parents and you're sort of like, "Well, I just wanna know this thing about you for real."
- What part of the creative process makes you really happy?
- I love the collaboration.
I feel like I'm coming back my first day of kindergarten every day when I just get to be like, "Oh, my coworkers said the funniest thing today," or like, "Oh, we cracked this story."
And it's just like getting to be a room where you think everyone is brilliant and you get to look around and look up to the people that you're immediately around just feels so lovely.
And when I'm on a film set or shooting a thing, I don't know how it's gonna be lit and just get to work with someone who understands light so well.
And I'm just like, "You're a genius."
You are reminded that creation is not a one-to-one experience of a tour theory of being like, "You go out and you do everything," it is deeply collaborative and you can have an idea and be like, "I don't know how to do it," and just figure it out by having people push you to do it.
- As a performer, do you have a lot of anxiety?
- I think I have a lot of anxiety in the creation of a thing, but there's something about getting on stage where I'm just sort of like, "Who cares?"
I put so much work into the things that are surrounding me on stage where it's like I'm not just up there telling jokes, I have slides, I have some sort of visual, I have sounds, I have something else that I'm getting to lean on so that if it doesn't work, I know how to save myself, it's not just me going up there alone, which is one reason that I think stand up truly just pure telling jokes, stand up.
I'm always just like, "I don't think I can do that, it scares me."
- Do you play instruments?
- I do.
I played the euphonium for three years in middle school and then they were like, "And if you go to high school, you get to do it in the sun."
And I was like, "No, why would I?"
- I think I'm good.
And I get to exercise.
- Yeah.
No, thank you.
- Euphonium.
- Such a memorable name.
- Why are there so many instruments that, so I played the trumpet growing up, and like there's so many that look like the trumpet but have different names.
- Yeah, it's just like different brass instruments.
And I'm like, is it just the tone and octave range that they're all in?
What makes them- - It should just be like trumpet, trumpet two- - I completely agree.
- Trumpet three.
Like little trumpet, big trumpet.
- I think we have too many instruments and there's not enough innovation between them.
- Yeah.
- I think the theremin was a breakthrough just being like, "There's nothing you're pressing, it's just air. "
And then after that it's like, "What do we got now?
Invent a new guitar?
No."
- Actually, I'm just hearing a sound and it is time for quick draw.
I wanna see what you think anxiety looks like.
- Whoa, okay.
- Yeah.
- And I'll do the same.
Let's see, 30 seconds.
And time.
That's beautiful.
- This is someone walking along a path and then having to decide which way they gotta go.
- That's amazing.
- Yeah.
- Here's my anxiety.
- Aw, the bloodshot eyes.
- I know.
- Do you feel like you are someone who's like, "I will pack every free moment of my day with a thing"?
- I like I tell myself at the beginning of the day, "Give yourself time."
- Yeah.
- And I love what I do so much that it's impossible.
- That's my problem.
People are always just like, "Do you ever relax?"
I'm like, "Well, I do kind of find this relaxing.
I'm enjoying it, that's the problem, it just also tires me out."
- But when I first started cartooning, I started to draw because I was feeling really anxious and depressed.
Every day I would draw and it made me feel so much better because I felt like this was before people were really going to therapy.
Now there's like- - Sure.
- Other things we can do.
- I think that's kind of how I feel about both drumming and baking, where people are just like, "You're just always baking something."
I'm like, "It is so therapeutic to have a process to focus on for three hours and have an end product where it's like I can give this to someone."
I think that's why I feel like even in comedy, like, I like the structure of being like, "I wanna be clever so that I understand when something is right, it's not a matter of taste, it's a matter of going, this fits in because it solves the puzzle from before."
- Yeah, and I know that you told me that you just shaved the goatee yesterday.
- Yeah.
- And now I'm about to draw your goatee.
- Oh, god.
- And I love that like if this only lasts for like a day that you're just gonna have a piece of art to look back at- - Yes.
- Your one day of a goatee.
- Yeah.
And it might last a day because I've gotten mixed feelings on the goatee immediately.
- The goatee, it's always characterized as villain.
- Yeah, it's never like the nice guy with the goatee.
- I do have a joke in my set where I say that my philosophy on religion is that if God had a goatee, nobody would be religious.
- When drawing a person, it always feels a little like you're about to see yourself reflected as someone else sees you.
- Yeah.
- So how does it feel to have a series of people going, "Here's how we see you."
- I love it because even when you feel like at first glance that looks nothing like me, you will always find these things where you're like, "No, that is me."
Somehow it is.
- Yeah.
- I'm gonna put them all up around my bed.
- Oh, that's nice.
- And then I'm gonna wake up and I'm just going to see like 12 mes and then I will be God.
- Well, your wife's just like, "So there's none of me in the room anymore."
- Yeah.
- I feel like you have such a style that you see and you're like, "That's a Mo Welch drawing."
Do you feel like you had the style pretty quickly or you found it over time?
- I was at my mom's house a long time ago and I was really depressed.
I drew that comic, my Blair comic, the way it was and it barely changed.
And then that's how all my comics ended up.
I like to draw comics where I feel like a five-year-old could draw my comics.
And my daughter does, you know, she's in kindergarten and- - Does she draw like you- - It's really adorable.
- Or do you like- - She could draw.
I mean, basically what I do is so elementary to her at this point, I think she's much better than I am.
- Did you always want kids?
- Yes.
You want kids?
- I talk a lot about being like, "I can handle one daughter and anything outside of that, I'm like, I'm gonna freak out.
I don't know what to do with a boy."
- I babysat boys when I was a teenager, so I always saw myself as having boys.
- Yeah.
- And I always thought, "Well, we'll just watch 'The Simpsons' together."
And that was my only plan.
- Were you and your wife like, "One is good."
- We were supposed to have two, and then I gave birth to our first child and she saw that and then was like, "No, I'm actually not gonna do that."
- Fair.
- And I was like, "Well, I'm gonna sue you."
- Wait, so the idea was that you would each give birth to a child?
- Yeah.
- Oh, I think that's beautiful structurally, but I also, it's immediately giving.
It's like being like, "We're going to get matching tattoos with a friend," and then the second person was like, "Seemed like it was really painful for you."
- That is exactly what it is.
- I think I'd be a good parent because I think the creative and fun nature of getting to teach a kid to be creative is a selfish impulse where I'm like, "That's gonna be fun for me."
- Yeah, and it will be fun because you don't know what they're gonna be into.
- No, and I will cherish anything my child wants to be, unless it's like my child wants to go into business.
No kid of mine is gonna be a business person.
- That's gonna be.
- If they're like, "Papa, I wanna do crypto."
I'm like, "You will leave this house."
- You're like, "Only if you go on 'Shark Tank,' so it's sort of entertaining."
- Yeah, and you're gonna wear a funky tie.
What's your favorite color?
- I like black, I guess.
- Well, so the reason- - Blue.
Let's say blue.
- Blue is okay.
But the reason I was asking, I was like, "I'm gonna do a thing where I make your skin the tone of your favorite color."
I was like, "So choose something other than black," but we'll do blue.
You're gonna look like a character from "Avatar."
- I think we have a fun headshot of yours that I wanted to show you.
- Oh.
Oh, my god.
- [Mo] What?
I need you to explain this.
- That is from a shoot I did with junior high, and they just had the peanut costume.
- I was just partly hoping that you were in the running for playing Mr.
Peanut somewhere.
- And it's really embarrassing that it wasn't.
- How vital do you think creativity is right now in the age of us all being extremely afraid of AI?
- There's an inherent need for creativity in trying to figure out what we're gonna do or what can AI not do?
And I've never seen anything that AI has done where I've been like, "Oh, no, they're right.
It is gonna take over," because it's always just about like every use of AI is about replicating something we've already seen and being like, "Uh-oh, Hollywood is done.
Spider-Man and Batman are kissing."
I'm like, "That's not creative.
It's every application of AI is about recreating the... That is not the color that I thought it was.
It's just about recreating other things.
And so I think AI is not gonna be a factory for creativity, it will be a factory for flattening down all the enterprises that never were creative.
The notion of creating an original concept or an original idea or an original image is never gonna be replaceable.
AI is not interested in doing that.
Creativity is not gonna die.
- Yeah.
- It'll become even more valuable as we go on and like are desperate for something that cuts through the static.
I'm someone who has always found joy in figuring out a process, so I think it's very exciting to think about the notion that I have to figure out new ways to do the things that I love.
- I just wanna know before we reveal, do you feel like you've captured me?
- Certainly captured something.
Something about you.
So I don't think anyone would ever see you in a room and then see this painting and go, "That's Mo."
But I do think that I've captured an essence about you that is very artful and I'm proud of what I've done.
- I love this.
Are you ready to see my drawing of you?
- I would love to see your drawing of me.
- Okay.
You just come on over here, I'll show you.
- All right, I'm closing my eyes.
This is not part of it, but I'm doing it.
- Yeah.
- Am I in place?
- Yes.
- Oh.
Wow, that really is me.
Oh, that's undeniably me.
That's beautiful.
- Yes.
- Wow.
- Right.
Do you feel like I captured you?
- Yeah.
Wow, and to scale too, because you can see that that's two feet, so that's got to be a little.
Yeah, that's exactly- - Are you ready for me?
- As ready as I'll ever be.
- Okay, here I go.
- And ta-da.
- [Mo] Oh, my wait, I love this.
Why?
This is me.
I get why you were saying Smurf.
- Yes, it feels- - But I love this.
- It's like a Marvel character now.
I don't know who this is.
- Yeah, I feel like we could sell this today.
Thank you so much.
- You're very welcome.
- [Mo] This is going in a frame.
- Such similar styles.
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