For the first several years of his career, stand-up comedian Matteo Lane would open his sets by telling the audience, “Obviously, I’m gay.” At a certain point, he got tired of coming out to a room of strangers every night and instead begins his new Hulu hour ‘The Al Dente Special’ by making fun of the way white women talk—a bit that delighted Gayle King and led to one of the more awkwardly hilarious morning TV moments in recent history. In this episode, Lane explains why he decided to give the ‘CBS Mornings’ host a pass for repeating the “f-slur” back to him and reveals how King’s fellow astronaut Katy Perry ended up being part of his special as well. And as Pride Month comes to a close, he discusses why he’s sick of people expecting gay comedians to relive their trauma, shares why he avoids talking politics on stage, and calls out TV bookers for keeping him off of late-night TV because they deemed his act “too gay.”

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Highlights from this episode and others at The Daily Beast

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Over the course of his 40-year career, Larry Charles has had two central creative relationships with Larry David (‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’) and Sacha Baron Cohen (‘Borat’ and ‘Brüno’). Now, he reveals in a new memoir that he hasn’t spoken to either man in years. In his return to The Last Laugh podcast, Charles breaks down how it all fell apart with two comedians he still considers complicated geniuses. He shares stories about how ‘Seinfeld’ solved its early Elaine problem after Julia Louis-Dreyfus came to the creators sobbing and reveals why a young David Sedaris turned down an offer to write for ‘Seinfeld.’ Charles also discloses what exactly it was about his HBO documentary that Larry David couldn’t stand, shares his thoughts about friends Bill Maher and Cheryl Hines flirting with MAGA, explains why there was a time he would have literally “died” for Sacha Baron Cohen and what went so wrong with their final collaboration ‘The Dictator.’

Buy Larry Charles’ new memoir ‘Comedy Samurai: Forty Years of Blood, Guts, and Laughter’

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Justine Lupe thought there was no way she’d ever be able to top the experience of playing Willa on HBO’s ‘Succession.’ Then she got cast as Morgan, one of the “loser siblings” on the runaway Netflix hit ‘Nobody Wants This.’ They are two very different roles on two very different shows, but she says on this episode that she feels extremely “lucky” to get the opportunity to show both comedic and dramatic sides of herself on each. Fresh off of wrapping filming for Season 2 of ‘Nobody Wants This,’ Lupe talks about the pressure of satisfying fan expectations for her character’s complicated relationship with Timothy Simons’ Sascha. And she opens up about her deeply rewarding experience on ‘Succession,’ which was only supposed to be a handful of episodes before Willa became a central character, and even part of the Roy family, all the way until the very end.

Follow Justine Lupe on Instagram @mejustinelupe

Follow Matt Wilstein on Bluesky @mattwilstein

Follow The Last Laugh on Instagram @lastlaughpod

Highlights from this episode and others at The Daily Beast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.