1 week ago
2
Stand-up comic Matteo Lane recalls meeting Katy Perry several years ago backstage at one of her concerts in Las Vegas.
“She was very nice,” Lane says on today’s episode of “Just for Variety.” “She was very pretty, and she looked at me and her manager said, ‘Oh, this is Matteo Lane, and he is a comic and he’s performing at the Wynn.’ And she goes, ‘Oh, a comedian.’ I go, ‘Hey.’ And she goes, ‘Gay comedian?’ I was like, ‘Work.’ I have videos of us meeting each other. It was pretty funny.”
It’s just one of the stories Lane recounts in his new Hulu stand-up special, “The Al Dente Special.”
I ask Lane, who was named one of Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch in 2022, what he thinks about the “Firework” hitmaker’s recent trip to space.
“She seems pretty out of touch, I think, at this point,” he says. “I saw some interview where she was like, ‘My mom calls me Tortoise, and this ship is called Tortoise, and things are meant to be…’ I’m like, you could also take all that away and just be like, ‘Hey guys, I had a cool opportunity to go to space. I’m rich. I paid a lot of money, and it’s going to be great.’ Just kind of be honest with what it is. I think that’s overzealous in talking about how it’s like, ‘We as women,’ and ‘We’ and this and that, and Gayle King walking around being like, ‘Have you been to space?’ It all just felt not relatable.”
He didn’t, however, mind that King used a gay slur while interviewing him for CBS mornings. She made headlines when she quoted the f-word from one of his jokes in the special. “I couldn’t give a shit,” Lane says. “Gayle King can say it, Oprah can’t. Every article was, ‘Openly gay, queer comedian.’ I’m like, ‘Well, first off, who’s saying closeted gay comic? What is this?’ We’re so obsessed with the idea of being like, ‘This is an openly gay comic.’ People are trying to find drama. Who gives a shit? Gale King said ‘faggotry’ — she’s wearing a wig for God’s sakes. Who cares? She can say it.”
Lane also takes on the Catholic Church during his set. When we talked, the conclave was still meeting to decide the next pope following the death of Pope Francis. “Everything in Vatican City is the closest thing I’ve seen to Horse Meat Disco,” Lane says, referring to a popular New York City gay dance party. “It’s just another version of a bunch of gays dressed up in drag with a bunch of smoke and mist around them and some boring music I don’t understand. So to me, the idea of a [gay] circuit party and a bunch of cardinals in the Vatican trying to pick a fucking pope to me is the exact same thing. There is nothing gayer than the Catholic church.”
Lane grew up in Chicago — he lives in New York City now — with his large mostly Italian family. He lovingly cracks jokes about them on stage. In April, he released his first book, “Your Pasta Sucks: A ‘Cookbook,'” which features recipes alongside memories from his childhood.
Can a “Keeping Up With the Lanes” be far behind? “My family, I think, is insane. I think they need to be far away from cameras,” Lane says. “I don’t think we can go there. It’s too much. The Kardashians would blush at my family.”
Lane is currently working on his next stand-up hour, which he’ll debut in Australia after the summer. “I’ll probably tour for another year and a half and then film my next special,” he says. “It’s fun to be working on new jokes. It feels like a get out of jail free card. I’m so excited to try things out and test things out and see what other comics think…I’ll be at the [Comedy] Cellar every night and just working. It feels so nice. I’m free and I can write whatever the fuck I want.”
Touring does have its pitfalls. Lane says he “absolutely collapsed” following his Radio City Music Hall show in April. “I couldn’t move my neck or shoulder, and then I had to get cortisone shots to fix it,” he says. “Then they gave me something to help boost my system, and then that caused an allergic reaction. Then I went to the emergency room, then I couldn’t breathe. It was very scary.”
In other words, Lane is also taking some time off this summer with trips planned for Italy, the U.K., Thailand and Cambodia. “I’m really going for it,” he says. “I’m like, ‘I am going to have new experiences, write new stuff.’ I work my fucking ass off. I help family, I help friends. I’m like, ‘I deserve two months to just chill the fuck out.’”
You can listen to the full conversation with Lane on “Just for Variety” above or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
English (US) ·