Comedian Gabriel Iglesias Wants You to Stop Talking About It and Just Do the Work
Fluffy Talks About His Career, Personal Life, and How to Find Success With Each
Gabriel Iglesias is ready to get back to stand-up.
After cancelling a portion of his “Beyond The Fluffy World Tour - Go Big Or Go Home” due to COVID-19, the comedian — known as Fluffy — is back to full health and eager to perform in a city near you now through the end of the year.
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When we connect by phone, Iglesias is patient, thoughtful, and forthcoming throughout our conversation, during which we discuss his early comedy years, finding success in stand-up, and how he’s able to balance work and personal relationships while prioritizing his own happiness.
AskMen: Growing up in Southern California, how were you first introduced to comedy?
Gabriel Iglesias: Before social media and YouTube, there was the VHS of Eddie Murphy Raw.
I was a latchkey kid and my mom would use the video store as my babysitter while she was at work. We’d go to the video store and she’d tell me to pick out whatever movies I wanted, and that was my babysitter. When I was 10 years old, we went to the video store, I grabbed my cartoon Transformers VHS tapes, and then for some reason, I grabbed Eddie Murphy Raw. Next thing I know, I’m a ten year old kid watching Eddie Murphy. It’s funny, I work relatively clean, so the fact that I got inspired by somebody who was anything but… who knew?
Was there a moment early on into stand-up that gave you the insight you might be able to pursue comedy as a career?
As far as a career, it was more of just a love, a passion, and a hobby than anything else. I don’t think I saw it as a career until probably a few months in.
I started in 1997 when I realized, “Wow, people will pay me to do this?” I then started to work the math and was like, “All I need to do is pay my rent and my car note and I’m covered.” That was the only goal I set for myself, and I knew if I could achieve it, I could live off of stand-up.
Early on, even though I decided, “Hey, I could make this work,” it was definitely not at the level I’m at now. I slept on a lot of couches and the repo guy was looking for my car. I actually had to hide my car, and a buddy and I ended up swapping cars so that I wouldn’t get mine taken away. There were a few rough years there, but eventually, things got better with the business, and I was able to go on the road.
In speaking with fellow comedian Jo Koy during a previous interview, he mentioned you were one of the most influential self-marketers and self-promoters that he’d ever come in contact with. How did you learn to market yourself so successfully in the early goings?
I had this bit about how I wasn’t fat, I was fluffy. At the end of the show, people would come up to me and say, “Hey, great show, Fluffy.” I realized my last name was already famous, I just had to work on Gabriel, and I hated the fact that people kept calling me Fluffy. But I only had so much material at the time, and that was a big chunk of it, so I didn’t want to give up the bit. Eventually, I learned to embrace the nickname.
A buddy of mine who was helping me with my website goes, “Hey, man, you should really focus on a brand. This whole Fluffy thing, it’s catchy.” I’m like, “Yeah, but I don’t want to be a parody or a character. He goes, “No, people are going to know your name, but use a nickname to brand yourself.” He introduced me to social media when it was first starting and taught me how to have an online presence. He taught me about stuff I had no idea about — collectibles, the business of autograph signing, and building awareness around what it is that you do. Before I knew it, I had a CD. The CD turned into a t-shirt, then the t-shirt turned into 10 t-shirts, and 10 t-shirts turned into filling up a garage. I grew out of the garage, wound up in a warehouse, grew out of the warehouse in a year and wound up in a double wide. I ended up having to buy a building to put merch into. Now, I have semi-trucks. Everything just kept snowballing.
Once I realized Fluffy was the brand we were going to roll with, I made sure I was consistent with my look: Always wearing the Hawaiian shirt, always wearing shorts, always having the same haircut, and always making sure I talked about being Fluffy, so there’s always that reminder when I go out there. I think a lot of times, comics are always trying to change and they’re not giving the audience an opportunity to get to know them.
The biggest thing I ever did for myself was bet on myself. A lot of times, people are scared, but if you’re going to take a gamble on anybody, it should be on you.
What gave you that confidence to bet on yourself and lean into you?
Stand-up has always been the base. Whether I do TV, film, voiceover work — anything else — stand-up has always been the reason why everything happens.
A lot of times, comics will use stand-up as a stepping stone to get into television or film or whatever else. I saw stand-up not as a stepping stone, but where I wanted to be. By focusing on stand-up and making stand-up the priority, everything else started falling into place. I’ve found the more I’ve focused on me being a comic and being the best comic I can be, the more people notice, and they’d somehow want me to be a part of whatever it was they were doing. When I did Space Jam I didn’t audition for it. The [producers] said, “We want this guy in. He’s a comic, he’s funny, and he has strong social media numbers which can help with [the movie’s] promotion.” Everything comes from focusing on stand-up.
If you try to do everything on your own, you’re going to spread yourself too thin. I surrounded myself with people who are very knowledgeable at what they do. It’s building the right team to make sure you have a great show on the road, building the right team to make sure you have a solid merchandise business — either online or on the road — and building the right team to make sure you have the best representation so that when you do want to pitch a film or TV idea to somebody, you’re not walking in with any regular Joe Schmo, you’ve got solid representation.
How do you balance and maintain a successful career with your personal life?
I didn’t, and that was a big issue right there. You try to balance everything, and unfortunately, sometimes, you get overwhelmed with one thing and you give that the majority of your attention, and you don’t spread the attention everywhere it should be. You’re not balancing it.
I’m talking about it on my show now where I was in a relationship for 13+ years, and unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. Everyone has an idea, everyone has a vision of what should be happening, and my focus and my priorities unfortunately weren't home life.
It’s challenging, and not just with relationships as far as a significant other. Relationships with friends, relationships with family members, they’re very hard because a lot of times, people don’t understand what you do. All they see is what’s happening on TV, but they don’t understand all of the inner workings and conversations that take place, the time spent traveling, the time spent working on ideas, all the back and forths. They just see the fun part. You think I work just one hour a day and the rest of the time I’m just wondering how to spend money? That’s not how it works.
How do you try to communicate to others how the backend to your operation is much more nuanced than people would be led to believe?
You can only try. You can try to explain, and if people want to understand — I have some family members asking questions so that they can get a better understanding — and there are some who have already made up their mind. You can’t please everybody, so you have to try to at least make yourself happy.
It seems like you’ve come quite a long way. What’s inspired your own personal growth, both in your career and in your personal life?
What’s caused me to grow the most is failure. Failure on stage, in marketing, merch, relationships. Not hitting the mark and not doing what I thought I should have been doing. Learning from mistakes is ultimately the only way you’re going to learn. You have to fall. It gives you a sense of appreciation for when you’re not falling, and it reminds you to not take [success] for granted and to think it’s now going to be easier. If you don’t take a chance, you’re always going to be doing the same thing.
I think feeling uncomfortable is a great way to grow, but people don’t want to do it. People do not want to feel uncomfortable or challenged. They’re happy with the norm of, “I’m good, this feels good.” I’m like, “No, man, you have to push it.”
There are also some folks who are unhappy being comfortable, not realizing that getting uncomfortable will help alleviate the unhappiness or stagnancy in their life at that time.
I think that applies to everything. Like, I hate the gym. I can’t stand the gym. I look for any and every excuse to not go to the gym. But I know ultimately, it’s going to be beneficial, and because I’ve been at it for a while, I’ve seen the results. I still hate it and it still makes me uncomfortable, but I feel like it’s made me better. That’s a physical example of being uncomfortable, but there are [other ways to be uncomfortable like having] uncomfortable conversations and challenging people. People don’t like that. Sometimes, you just need a challenge, and me as the guy who’s running things, I have to not be so afraid of hurting feelings or not making people always feel great. Sometimes they need to not feel great to realize, “Hey, man. Come on.”
In terms of someone needing a productivity boost?
Whether it’s productivity in the business or let’s say something in life. [Like] they’ve been talking about wanting to do something for a while — well, stop talking about it. Are you going to do it or not? Shit or get off the pot. All you’re doing is wasting my time talking with what ifs when there’s nothing stopping you from doing it.
You’re saying that it’s all attainable without these “things” that people think they need. Sometimes you need to create your own opportunities.
I was not allowed to perform in comedy clubs when I first started because I wasn’t a name and I didn’t have enough credibility to perform at an Improv, Laugh Factory, or Comedy Store unless it was a midnight show on a Sunday with four people in the audience. I had to create my own gigs and opportunities. That meant performing shows at bars, backyard parties, weddings — anywhere someone would allow me to grab a microphone. I had to do that until eventually I was booked to start performing in clubs.
I think people are so good at creating excuses, that if they were to just use that energy to start creating opportunities, [things would happen]. If someone is not giving you an opportunity, don’t let that person stop you, find your own way. You’re going to hear a lot of “No’s,” so make your own “Yes’s.”
Empower yourself by doing what you want to do and not let anyone or anything hold you back. Is that it?
If you follow the “rulebook,” is it really going to be your dream or is it going to be what you’ve been preprogrammed to want? I think everyone should be as informed and learn as much as possible, but don’t do it because society says you have to. Do it because it’s something you’re passionate about. If you’re going to gamble and wind up spending a ton of money, you might as well go after what your passion is. If you want to be a dancer, go be a dancer. If you want to be a rock climber, nowadays, people can find ways to monetize anything. Logan Paul is proof of that. You can hate on him all you want, but at the end of the day...
Dude is laughing his way to the bank.
Exactly. And let that be proof. If somebody like a YouTuber can just take over the world, why can’t you do it? YouTube is free!
Follow @fluffyguy and check out https://fluffyguy.com for tickets and tour dates
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