Too Legit To Quit

Sydney-born comedian Jim Jefferies wasn't always beloved in his home country. It was only when he moved to the UK around the year 2000 that his darkly charismatic larrikin humour hit home. He's more regarded here as a 'shock comic', even now the rest of the world loves him; he recalls one review from the Melbourne Comedy Festival a couple of years ago that began with the disgusted sentence “I thought this was supposed to be an arts festival”.

But Jefferies' loyal and growing Aussie fanbase has ensured his upcoming whirlwind homeland tour is completely sold out before he even takes the stage. His life has changed – the Jim he is onstage, the guy with the wild, true stories about taking disabled friends to brothels and rampant alcoholism, is a front. He's doing well. He's lived in LA for four years now. He's got a stable relationship and a beautiful six-month-old baby boy. And his wilder days have been chronicled in his recent critically acclaimed breakout TV sitcom Legit, which has just finished airing its 13 episodes in the US and been renewed for a second series. The only problem is his die-hard fans now think he's betrayed them. “People who watch the TV show and see me in a shopping mall in America with my son, they look at me like I'm a fraud, like I've made the show up,” Jefferies laughs.

For Legit, Jefferies has dramatised some of his best-known stand-up bits. He plays a skewed version of himself, a comic trying to make it in LA. “How many decades did it take before we figured out that a comedian didn't have to play a mailman, or a fireman... just let funny people be themselves,” he says. In the show he rooms with a childhood friend and his brother, who has muscular dystrophy. That was a way in to a sharply-written, tender yet funny portrayal of the wider disabled community. 

“We thought it was going to be our biggest problem, that we'd get a lot of flak,” Jefferies says. “But the opposite happened. We're now seen as this sappy show, almost. We are the number one employer of disabled actors in Hollywood. It's not a joke, we really are. There's an agency that only takes care of disabled actors and they normally just hire them out for public service announcements, and Hallmark movies where there's this poor Down syndrome kid who's being picked on at school – never for a comedy. And we've used all of them!”

When Jefferies returns to LA after his Australian tour he plans to bunker down and start writing Legit's second series, limiting himself to two stand-up gigs a month while putting in 50-hour writing weeks. At the end he'll reward himself with some 'big bookings' in the US – “I can't tell you where, but think of the most famous place in New York,” he teases, “then go down one step.” He plans to adapt more of his stand-up into scripts for the show, possibly bringing in his parents – and who knows, maybe even an analogy for baby son Hank. It seems, though, he has firmly and happily settled into LA life.

“I have a house now in the Hollywood Hills, and it's all very wanky and stuff, but LA is a fun place... if you've made it,” he laughs. “I think it could be the most horrible place in the world if you were struggling. Just to be in the business and have an agent and support and all that stuff is a lot easier than if you went over there and just tried to get a leg in somewhere. I assume it's a fucking nightmare. I would have hated to start doing stand-up in America. In England, you do a show, every comic gets $200. Happy days, we all have the same money, let's go drinking and meet girls. In America, one comic gets $5000, one gets $100 and one gets $10. That's how bitching happens. There's no camaraderie in that dressing room!”