Felipe Esparza – What’s Up Fool?
Steven Bloom | Jul 21, 2010 | Comments 0
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An AmericasComedy.Com Interview
Listening to comedian Felipe Esparza is a cross between listening to Cheech Marin from Cheech and Chong fame and hanging out with your funniest “homeboy.” They both have the East L.A. accent and down to earth sense of humor that comes from growing up in the barrio.
We spoke to Esparza recently just after his advance to the semi-final rounds of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Season 7.
I’m not a tough guy, but I can beat up everyone at Trader Joe’s, but at Food-for-Less I shut up. They don‘t have aisles, they have alleys.
“The next step is to have a big battle between the semi-finalists in New York and Los Angeles,” Esparza said. We asked him if he anticipated any drive-by shootings in the heated East Coast/West Coast face-off.
“Naw, everyone is telling me to leave my Blackberry at home, though.”
Apparently, one of Esparza’s best friends is comedian Gabriel Iglesias, who has the distinction of being the first and only comedian kicked off the “Last Comic Standing” show in the fourth season for smuggling a cell phone into the comic’s sequestered quarters so he could text his girlfriend.
“Gabriel will always represent ‘Last Comic Standing’ to me,” he exclaimed.
The friendship between Esparza and Iglesias goes back to 1998 and we suspected that there was more to the story.
The war in Iraq is still going on and Mexico wants to help, but they need a ride.
“I was running a one nighter room in Montebello called ‘Gotham’ and Gabriel showed up one night. He wanted to meet me but at 20 years old, he was too scared or shy so he sent some kid over,” he said. “‘Gabriel really thinks you’re funny Felipe. He wants to do some time on stage’ (the kid said).
“I just told him to tell Gabe that if he wants to perform, he needs to get his scared ass over here and ask me himself. Gabriel did get up that night, did a lot of voices and killed.”
Esparza just finished a movie called, “I’m Not Like That No More” that co-stars comedy great, Paul Rodriquez as Esparza’s dad.
“We shot the movie in 9 days. It’s based on my stand up comedy and most of the plot comes from my CD called What’s Up Fool?
“I play the lead and throughout the movie, everyone will freeze while I narrate what’s going on in my head,” he said. “Then the story continues almost like (the movie) ‘Ferris Bueller.’ It’s pretty cool!”
I went to a ghetto haunted house and it was $10 to get in and $15 to get out.
“Then, I even got to make out with my co-star, Deborah Baker Jr.,” he said. “She’s a hot blond! My first sex scene!! What???”
He laughed, then paused like he was contemplating his ‘next’ sex scene.
The movie will premier at the New York Latino Film Festival in July. To see more information and view a short trailer, you can go to www.imnotlikethatnomore.com.
Esparza, who grew up in the Latino neighborhood of Boyle Heights in East LA and now hails from Echo Park, first performed on stage at a coffee shop in LA called The Natural Fudge, where the comics were required to buy food in order to get a chance to perform.
Along the way, Esparza got to perform and hang out with the likes of Alonzo Bodden, the “Last Comic Standing” winner of Season 3, and Freddy Soto, while eating his way to fame.
From there, Esparza began appearing at venues throughout the LA area including The Laugh Factory in Hollywood, which had a Latino-themed show on Mondays.
“Were you always this funny or did you have to work for it?” – we wanted to know.
“Back then my style was really ‘deadpan’ like Steven Wright. I’d talk real slow and try to enunciate but that was a really hard style in those rooms,” he said. “One room I used to work also was a biker bar. We used to have the same crowd every week so we had to come up with different jokes every week and as I got better with my comedy, the crowd got better with their heckling! It was a rough room.
“I got my first TV credit in 1996 on Showtime’s “Latino Laugh Festival” with Paul Rodriquez. You should have seen my hair back then, I was a ‘thug.’ But then I grew it out because the cops were profiling bald Hispanic people,” he said. “My first (head shot) is still on the wall at the Comedy Store right next to Gilbert Iglesias’ who’s dressed in a sweater.”
Esparza’s star just keeps shining brighter. His TV credits include: ABC’s “Comics Unleashed,” Showtime’s “Comics Without Borders,” BET‘s “Comic View,” and “One Mic Stand,” and Galavision’s “Que Locos” (where he holds the title of most appearances by any comedian) and now his opportunity to shine on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.”
You can follow Esparza’s appearances at comedy clubs, comedy festivals, television and theaters at his Official Facebook Fan Page.
You can also listen to (and buy) Esparza’s latest acclaimed CD, “Rebound Material” at Amazon and iTunes.
