Maniscalo's Comedy Sweat Is Paying Off

LA-via-Chicago stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco is mid-tour and about to cross the country for a show in Buffalo, New York when The Music catches up with him, the Italian-American funnyman no stranger to hard work in recent times as his career bounces from strength to strength.

"This has been probably one of my busiest years yet," the affable Maniscalco offers. "We started this tour in January and then I took some time to do a little pilot for NBC called Sebastian Says, which stars myself, Tony Danza and Vanessa Lachey, and now I'm back on the tour leading up to the Showtime special — which will be my third — at the Beacon Theatre in New York, and then in June I'll be in Australia for the first time. I'm bringing my wife and I'm really excited about the trip, it's something I've always wanted to do and what better way to go there than making people laugh."

"No one really tells you in school to be a stand-up comedian so you really just go out there and test the waters, do open mic nights, and here I am 18 years later touring the world and doing a TV show."

Add to this full dance card a memoir and numerous movie roles in the pipeline and it seems that years of hard work are bearing fruit all at once.

"Yeah, it's great," Maniscalco chuckles. "I've been doing stand-up comedy since 1998 and when I moved out to Los Angeles from Chicago I didn't have anyone in the business — any family or friends — so I kind of just jumped in the water and survived I guess. I didn't know what to do — no one really tells you in school to be a stand-up comedian so you really just go out there and test the waters, do open mic nights, and here I am 18 years later touring the world and doing a TV show. Not bad from a kid who grew up with a father who was a hair stylist and a mother who was a secretary!"

Given he was contemplating a stand-up career at school it's no surprise that Maniscalco has always wanted to make people laugh.

"I was always a huge fan of stand-up comedy," he tells. "Back in the '80s there was the 'big boom': there was a comedy club on every block and every time you turned on cable TV there was a comedy special, so I watched all of that stuff growing up. I was fascinated by Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show, and when career day came at second grade and they asked what everyone wanted to do I said I wanted to do stand-up comedy because that's the only thing that I was really interested in watching.

"And I was a funny guy around my parents — not necessarily around strangers, I was a shy kid growing up — but I was never the class clown. I always like to observe people's behaviour and discuss it at the dinner table, that's kinda my first stage. Then when I was 24 years old I moved out to LA and said, 'Let's give this a shot,' and it's been great man. You gotta be patient in any business to get your shot: you don't become a bodybuilder the first day you walk into the gym, it takes some work."