Four years ago in the midst of a global pandemic, Sam Morril’s aptly named comedy special I Got This garnered over 10 million views on YouTube alone.
Realizing he had some real momentum to cook with, the New York native wasn’t closing shop for anything; prompting him to do what he does best atop building roof-tops in his third special, Up on the Roof.
Morril’s signature light-but-dark style and relentless ethic for his art grabbed the attention of comedy fans, critics, and execs at all the major streaming platforms; getting him a Netflix hour, Same Time Tomorrow in 2022, and You’ve Changed, his brand-new special releasing today on Prime Video.
As a man who eats, sleeps, and breathes comedy, Morril has learnt through experience that sometimes, you just have to pave your own way.
“It’s a ridiculous pursuit”, he says, on a career in creativity and stand-up. This, extending into his work writing and creating scripts for future television and film projects. “If I had to go the independent route with stand up which I’m fairly established in, why wouldn’t I with the other stuff that I haven’t proven myself with?”
“If I have to keep proving myself, I’m gonna do it anyway”, he adds.
With a catalogue of work which cements him as one of the sharpest comics in the game today, Morril’s newest hour promises to be no exception. Premiering on Prime Video July 9th, You’ve Changed explores the laughable side of Fox news, the New York experience, complications of getting older, and a killer story about the worst person he’s ever dated.
“I really should change my number”, Morril says bashfully during our conversation.
With Morril getting behind the camera and producing two specials this past year in Dina Hashem’s Dark Little Whispers and Gary Vider’s It Could Be Worse, that number probably works better for talking comedy than anything else.
As someone who finds it “very hard to shut off situations that could potentially be bits”, it’s less than likely that Morril will get ever around to a number-change.
One thing’s for sure though- this latest special proves that no matter how much things change, Sam Morril’s gonna make you laugh.
ESQUIRE: As someone who reps New York so hard, who are your top three New York icons of all time?
Sam Morril: My mind goes to sports unfortunately. like Joe DiMaggio and Walt Frazier are so “New York”. And then, although this is probably not a politically correct answer, but I do think Woody Allen. The opening to Manhattan is such a love letter to New York so it’s hard not to. Woody is such a fixture of New York. But you know, Martin Scorsese is another great one. It’s tough to narrow it down to three because it is the birthplace to so many incredible figures.
As someone who did a stand-up routine at your high school in senior year and pursued a made-up major in comedy at NYU, it’s hard to picture you doing anything else. What do you think you’d be today if you weren’t a comedian?
That’s a good question- I really don’t know. I love stand up so much and I gave myself into it pretty quickly so I didn’t really have a chance to pursue something else that interested me. Maybe I’d be working in a job I didn’t like, maybe I would be working in sports somehow, maybe a writer? I like the life of a writer, I like the isolation and I think I already live in my head so much.
Did you learn anything valuable in studying ‘Ancient Greek comedy’? What can a young comic take from 4000BC Aristophanes?
I was just trying to make my parents proud, I don’t know! I would say that the types of things used as punchlines has never really changed. There’s certain language differences obviously, but in 4000BC Greece, they were still making jokes about their d**ks and making jokes about farting. It’s literally the same type of humor.
Aristophanes, who you just mentioned, I think his most famous work is Lysistrata, which is about women refusing to f*** their husbands until the war ends. I mean, that is so “comic”, it’s ridiculous. Ultimately, we comedians like to think we’re reinventing the wheel, but it’s always been relatively the same. There’s something comforting about that.
Do you feel like you’ve ‘made it’ as a comedian? If so, when was that realization for you?
You never really feel comfortable as a comic because you need that next hour. So I feel like things are going well and I’m incredibly grateful, but I am also aware that you’re only as good as your last hour.
I think this one is pretty good and I’m pretty happy with it. But then it becomes, “Okay, well what about my next hour?” and you live a little bit in fear of that next joke in “can I get this together?” The process takes a lot of bombing and a lot of tinkering. It feels like you’re kind of drowning until you get to like, 30 minutes and then you’re like, “Alright, I’m treading water, I can kind of hang”. But I need at least a new 25-30 I think until I feel good.
To match the special name – you’ve changed your look. Did putting on a suit influence the way you performed at all?
I was never a “suit comic” but I thought for this special it just felt right. You have to be a little conscious not to mess it up at a taping because I did four shows so that feels different. I wanted it to feel more like a detective suit from the ’70s and not to look like an I-Banker or something. Maybe I’ll mix it up and do a different type of one for the next special.
We heard that you’re writing a movie with Mark Normand. Is that a real passion project?
Mark and I know how to be funny, but we’re smart enough to know that we’re not that smart. We don’t really have experience writing full-length screenplays, so we enlisted help from the people who wrote on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – they’ve been great.
Essentially, it’s just a silly comedy about friendship, which is something that I don’t think you see that much of anymore – so I do think there’s a hunger for it. People don’t really go to the movie theater to watch comedies anymore but that doesn’t mean that they won’t watch a comedy if you get it on one of the streamers.
The set on your podcast has a wall with pictures of famous comedians who have passed away. Who’s one you would bring back to have a conversation with or see live?
I would like to hear Bill Hicks talk about this election. There’s so many people on that wall but Bill Hicks was just so young when he passed away. I would love to see what he turned into. Greg Geraldo’s social commentary was so phenomenal. I miss comedians like those two who I think could have great political takes, but put humor and being funny before an agenda. I think that is sorely missing from the discourse on political comedy.
You do ‘recs’ [requests] on your podcast We Might Be Drunk. Do you have any ‘recs’ for the Esquire audience?
One of my all time favorite movies is from 1944, its called Laura. It’s a film noir with Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb, directed by Otto Preminger who’s one of the great directors. Such a good movie; really witty dialogue. I’m always really impressed when a movie can be almost 100 years old and feel contemporary and hasn’t aged really. The only reason it feels old is that it’s in black and white.
You can just tell they were limited in what they could do, but sometimes being limited works to a script’s advantage because you have to have a really good script. That’s why I love old movies so much. I just feel like the writing has to be crisp.
I also rec A Simple Plan with Billy Bob Thornton and Bridget Fonda a lot, because I think it’s such a good movie, and I’ll throw in a third one, Jackie Brown. It’s probably my favorite Tarantino movie, so check it out if you haven’t seen it.
Find out if Sam is coming to a city near you at sammorril.com