Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch: Ralph Barbosa, Jackie Fabulous and More
Since 2000, Variety has been selecting its 10 Comics to Watch, naming standups, content creators and comedians who are making an impact. Alumni include the likes of Tiffany Haddish, Kumail Nanjiani and Amy Schumer. This year’s class will be celebrated at a special event on July 16 at the Hollywood Improv.
More from Variety
Comedian Zarna Garg Launches Podcast on Heels of 'One in a Billion' Amazon Special
Variety's 10 Comics to Watch Bring Humor and Heart to Just for Laughs Montréal
Asif Ali, ‘Deli Boys’
From high-profile shows such as “WandaVision,” “The Mandalorian” and “Bojack Horseman,” to major Hollywood productions including Olivia Wilde’s “Don’t Worry Darling,” actor and club-grown stand-up comedian Ali seems to have done it all already. But one project he’s most excited about? His upcoming Hulu series, “Deli Boys,” that he proudly calls “so funny, so crazy!
“It’s the first all-South Asian-led show that I’ve ever been on,” he says. “It’s the first time in my career that I’ve been a lead in a show.”
Shot in Chicago, where Ali used to live and do standup after being raised in Phoenix by parents who immigrated from India in the 1970s, “Deli Boys” felt like a full-circle moment for him. “And it’s such a great step in the right direction,” he adds. “It doesn’t fulfill any stereotypes.”
Before his stand-up career blossomed into many different directions, Ali’s sketch group, Goat Face, put him on the professional fast track. Fellow comedians Fahim Anwar, Aristotle Athari and Hasan Minhaj are members of the L.A. group based in Los Angeles.
“Acting jobs were limited if you were a brown dude. And we wanted to do really funny stuff to show people we don’t just need to be cab drivers and stuff. That process was like an acting school — we were all writing, shooting, editing and producing together.”
To Ali, the collaborative nature of screen acting and the solitary skill set that stand-up requires complete and broaden his artistic sides. And he’s ready to build his resume even further. “I’m excited about putting out a special; I have a podcast on my YouTube channel that I’m pumped about; I’m writing a movie; and I have two TV show ideas.”
Most of all, he strives to stay inspired and have fun. “We’re all going to die. So you want to make sure that you’re having fun when you’re working.”
—Tomris Laffly
Reps: Agency: CAA; Management: Authentic Talent and Literary Management; Legal: Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher
Influences: His hometown of Phoenix, the city of Chicago, his family and Indian food
Ralph Barbosa, ‘Cowabunga’
Barbosa had a checklist of goals for his stand-up career: being on “The Tonight Show” and on Comedy Central, HBO and Netflix. “When I started with my manager and agent, they asked for my list, and within just a year, they helped me knock out all of them,” he says. That includes his 2023 Netflix special, “Cowabunga,” in which his laid-back, relatable style is on full display.
Of course, some of that credit must go to Barbosa himself. He originally dreamed of being a comedic actor. “I wasn’t even a really big stand-up fan, I just wanted to be in funny movies like Will Ferrell,” he recalls. But his theater teacher in community college told him he should explore every potential avenue and sent him to an open mic night. “I didn’t even know we had open mics in Dallas. But I immediately fell in love with stand-up.”
Barbosa became so “obsessed” that he didn’t even finish that theater course. Not that success came quickly. “I bombed so badly that first night, so I wanted to get good at it. But I think I’ve only truly found my voice recently,” says Barbosa, who has been performing for nine years. He adds that he feels comfortable enough now that he no longer writes out every joke word for word and tests it at an open mic before using it in a show. “Now I might just jot down a note first and then try out the idea on stage,” he says.
Success has brought both opportunity and challenges. “It was easier to come up with new material before, just because I was so broke. It felt like if I didn’t come up with something, I was going to starve,” he says.
He still hopes for his chance to act. “I love doing stand-up and for years I didn’t really focus on acting, but in the last couple months, I’ve definitely been trying to break into that side of the industry.”
— Stuart Miller
Reps: Agency: UTA; Management: 3 Arts
Influences: Mitch Hedberg, Dave Chappelle, Adam Sandler, Felipe Esparza, Michael Jordan
Jackie Fabulous, ‘America’s Got Talent’
Fabulous can find something funny in every situation — including death. “I did a joke at my dad’s funeral, and it killed,” she says. “The church was packed. He was right behind me in the open casket. He wouldn’t come to a show, so I was like, ‘You have a show now!’”
At age 35, Fabulous pivoted from working in law to stand-up comedy. “As soon as I got the job at Caltech, I booked my first TV gig, telling jokes for ‘Who’s Got Jokes?’” With a friend’s encouragement, she honed her craft in Judy Carter’s Comedy Workshop, following the spotlight to the Hollywood Improv and other gigs. “The day that Caltech fired me, I booked my first commercial,” she says.
In 2019, Fabulous earned a coveted spot on “America’s Got Talent,” where her reach extended to millions. “It was the first time the whole world saw me. It made me feel like, ‘Oh, maybe I am good at this.’” Yet just as her time on the show ended and a large tour was
scheduled, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She chose to innovate. “I became a Zoom aficionado,” she says. “I was able to keep the momentum, because I never stopped working.”
Fabulous’ ambition is to lift women’s voices. “If I have a chance to ask for an opener, I always ask for a female. I’ve produced a lot of shows in L.A. with an all-female lineup. I make it a point for the women to stand out. I want them to have a shine.”
Fabulous is currently making the rounds on her “I’m Coming America!” tour and hopes to launch her own sitcom. “I’ve seen the shows that are the hot wife and the chubby husband,” she says. “I’m a chubby wife, and I have the hot husband. Why can’t I have a show?!”
—Courtney Howard
Reps: Agency: Innovative; Management: Independent Artists Media; Legal: Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
Influences: Wanda Sykes, Ellen DeGeneres, Eddie Murphy
Rachel Feinstein, ‘Big Guy’
“One thing about firefighters, they can take a joke,” says Feinstein, referring to how her husband responds to her mining material from their family life for comedy. “They hurl themselves into active fires, so the last thing he’s worried about is me mocking him onstage.”
Feinstein’s Netflix special “Big Guy” documents some of that relationship and much more, showcasing her storytelling approach. “The fact that he’s an emotional desert lends itself to him also not caring that I’m talking about him onstage,” she says.
Feinstein has crafted her own style of stand-up over the years after working as an actor, doing characters onstage in theater and voicing roles in animated shows and video games. She’s appeared in films such as “Trainwreck” and “I Feel Pretty” as well as episodic television including “Crashing” and “Inside Amy Schumer.” “I didn’t know that I could do stand-up,” Feinstein says, thinking of her early perspective. “I always thought I couldn’t write a clean, clipped, monologue-style joke. I’m more of a storyteller and very autobiographical.”
Since finding her sweet spot in stand-up, performance has become indispensable to her. “Stand-up is like this bin where you place everything. Something happens to you — whether it’s humiliating or enraging, you have a place to put it,” she says. “I can’t imagine not needing that bin, not needing that place. I love doing it.”
While Feinstein looks forward to projects where she’s acting and writing, working with people she loves and enjoys, she doesn’t see stand-up as a means to an end, and doesn’t imagine she’ll ever see that part of her career receding into the rear-view mirror.
“It’s something that I’ll always do until they don’t allow me do it anymore,” she laughs. “I’ll be checking into some Days Inn in Cincinnati when I’m ancient, getting up there, rambling on and on.”
—Paul Plunkett
Reps: Agency: WME; Management: AGI
Influences: Tracey Ullman, “SNL,” Jessica Kirson, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle
Tina Friml, ‘The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’
One of Friml’s trademark punchlines points out that people think she suffers from cerebral palsy, but she corrects that notion — pointing out that she has cerebral palsy, but suffers from people.
“I never wanted to be a disabled comic; I wanted to be a comic with a disability,” she says. “The more that I kind of lean into that and let it foster my creativity and my jokes, I allow myself to be a little bit fearless.”
Friml studied journalism in college and had come from a theater background in her native Vermont. “I always attribute my career in comedy to the fact that I never wanted to pursue a career in comedy,” she says, adding that “comedy was never, never on my radar.”
After college, she had a crisis deciding what to do next. On a whim, she signed up for a stand-up comedy class, paying $150 for a six-week course at the Vermont Comedy Club in Burlington.
“It sounds cliche to say the rest is history, but it really was,” says Friml. “I developed a voice. I realized comedy was an outlet where I could start talking about my experience having an outward disability and people would listen.”
Friml found onstage that her disability wouldn’t make people so uncomfortable. “Or if it was, good! I could play off of that,” she says. “It was the first time in my life where I could speak authentically like that. And everything just clicked.”
Friml continued building her chops at the club by opening for touring comics as they came through, giving her insights into the industry and leading to more opportunities, from Montreal’s Just for Laughs to “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”
Now, whenever Friml speaks about her career, she says one of the things that drives her is what she calls a “spite for inspiration,” pointing out that “people with disabilities are very inspirational but not simply for just being.”
—P.P.
Reps: Agency: WME; Management: Mosaic; Legal: Jared Bloch
Influences: British panel shows (“8 Out of 10 Cats,” “QI,” “Taskmaster”), Emo Phillips, Maria Bamford
Troy Iwata, ‘The Daily Show’
Iwata had just finished his first segment for “The Daily Show,” investigating the world of professional cuddlers, “and then we instantly went on strike,” he notes. He eventually appeared on screen for the first time in October 2023 in a segment on book banning. By the time the cuddling piece aired, in November, “I had technically been there almost a year.”
A trained actor and singer, Iwata already had Broadway cred (“Be More Chill”), a hip Netflix show (“Dash & Lily”) and indie film bona fides (horror-comedy “Summoning Sylvia”) when he met “Daily Show” correspondent Desi Lydic while shooting the Amazon MGM film “Space Cadet.” One day she asked him if he had ever thought of auditioning for the comedy news program. “She said, ‘I like the way you say things,’” he recalls.
Those who have seen Iwata know exactly what she meant — he can deliver a killer punchline or a withering put-down with a dry irony that quickly cemented his status on the show. Though he never thought he specialized in comedy, he admits he always has “a knack for timing” and, of course, “when I first moved to New York, I took a couple improv classes like you’re supposed to.”
Iwata grew up in Lake Arrowhead, a “small, conservative, very white town” in the mountains east of L.A., where he seemed born to stand out. “Just being half-Japanese and Jewish and closeted, I had to find different avenues to connect with people,” he says. “Early on, I learned if I did something stupid, I could make people smile. So, I just kept doing it.”
He adds that life has taught him to help “pick up on what people find funny.” That doesn’t apply to his family, which doesn’t always get his humor. “Whenever I write a joke in our group chat, there’s no response or they will discredit it like I was being serious.”
—Jenelle Riley
Reps: Agency: CGF Talent; Management: Authentic; Legal: Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson McGinnis Ryan
Influences: “The Emperor’s New Groove,” growing up on multi-cam sitcoms like “Living Single,” “Roseanne,” “Will & Grace”
Preacher Lawson, ‘My Name Is Preacher’
Ever since his success on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” put him on the map in 2017, Lawson’s been a force of nature on the comedy stage. In addition to performing at sold-out clubs across the country and hosting “America’s Got Talent Live” in Las Vegas, he spearheaded the delightful canine competition series “World’s Most Amazing Dogs” on Facebook, saw his inaugural stand-up special “Get to know me” on BET, “My Name Is Preacher” air on YouTube and went on to runs at “The Champions” rounds of both “America’s Got Talent” and “Britain’s Got Talent.”
Born in Portland, Ore., and raised in Memphis, Lawson found his voice as a comedian in Orlando. He says that moving around a lot during his childhood prepared him for a comedian’s lifestyle. “I went to three different schools all the way up to eighth grade. It was weird because it was really easy to meet people, but it was hard long-term,” he remembers. “I got long-term friends when I got into comedy, because we all travel. I can’t imagine getting into comedy and then having to adjust [to that]. I’m already used to moving.”
To Lawson — whose unrivaled level of vigor just pours out of him during a set — the base of a good joke should always be laughter, simple as that. “Comedy is always evolving,” he reflects. “If it gets a laugh, then you build it up from there, getting points on originality and creativity.” And about his unstoppable stamina? “I just have a lot of energy,” he says with a laugh. “I love dancing. And stand-up is a form of dance. I feel free on stage.”
A memory Lawson cherishes? The day his mom flew all the way from China to watch him on “America’s Got Talent” in 2017. “I hadn’t seen her in years. I didn’t know she was there. That was one of the coolest moments of my life.”
—T.L.
Reps: CAA; Management: Levity Entertainment Group; Legal: Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson McGinnis Ryan
Influences: Will Smith, Michael McDonald (from “MAD TV”), SpongeBob, Justin Lawson
Leslie Liao, ‘Verified Stand-Up’
Liao went from working in human resources at Netflix to appearing in the streamer’s “Verified Stand-Up.”
Liao loves structure and accountability; she grew up dreaming of being a corporate superstar running Hollywood. Yes, she is “cut from a different cloth than most comedians,” as she puts it. “I went to film school wanting to be a power-suit executive who ran a studio and produce fun comedies.”
After graduating from USC, Liao worked as an assistant in comedy production at Universal Studios. But one night, while scouting talent, she was so unimpressed by the performers that she decided to try getting on stage herself.
But she didn’t leap right in. Being methodical meant starting with a writing class, “basically stand-up for dummies,” to learn how it was done. “I wanted and needed the structure like my corporate day job — ‘write 10 jokes this way, due Wednesday morning,’” she recalls. “I needed that accountability, to have someone watch and judge me.”
From there, she moved on to open mics and then paying gigs, working her way up to a headlining hour-long set. “When I started with 10-minute sets, I just wanted to write a good joke that makes sense,” she explains. “Longer sets give me freedom to be looser and sillier and to incorporate more storytelling.”
But even as Liao proved her chops, she kept burning the proverbial two-ended candle with her desk life, eventually moving on to Netflix in 2017. She only left her job there this year when her bosses saw her doing standup … on Netflix.
Once they learned about her secret identity, they encouraged her to take the plunge and go full time. “Still, I miss the day job, looking at my calendar and knowing exactly what’s going to happen,” she says, knowing how strange that sounds. “I do try applying that structure to my day now — to give myself an agenda and checklists so I feel like I’m accomplishing something in comedy every day.”
—S.M.
Reps: Agency: UTA; Management: Brillstein Entertainment Partners; Legal: Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman
Influences: Conan O’Brien, Bill Burr, Tig Notaro, John Mulaney, Sarah Silverman, Ali Wong
Nathan Macintosh, ‘Down With Tech’
Macintosh has sage advice for those starting out in stand-up comedy: “Be unbelievably hot, use four words and don’t move on stage, because one day you’ll have to edit your clips.”
At 10 years old, growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Macintosh fell in love with the comedic arts. “My mom really liked stand-up, so it was always on in the house, and I just thought it was the coolest thing,” he says.
It took another nine years to brave an open mic night. “I put off going because I was so horrified,” he admits. Doing shows near a homeless shelter unlocked his confidence. “They would scream at us and say things where you have to get out of the material and interact with these people in the room.”
Though the Canadian comedian is enjoying success with albums and specials like “I Wasn’t Talking” and “Down With Tech,” his fondest career memory is quite modest: “There used to be a pizza place in Toronto called Big Mama’s Boy, run by this guy who was very strict and angry. He’d put people up at the end of the regular show to test them out. For months, I would miserably bomb. But when I started to do well, he asked me to be in the actual show. My name was written on the sandwich board outside, and I was given 10 bucks. Man, that is such a ‘Whoa! My name on the sandwich board!’ and ‘$10 to do the thing I wanted to do anyway?!’”
Macintosh hopes to return to Halifax someday for a monumental homecoming show. “I would love to sell out the theater in my high school I was expelled from. I will bring my expulsion papers up on stage — blow them up. That is an absolute goal.”
— C.H.
Reps: Agency: Independent Artist Group; Management: Argyle Media
Influences: Chris Rock, George Carlin, Sam Kinison, Joan Rivers
Saul Trujillo, ‘Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents’
Trujillo was constantly cracking jokes in culinary school until his classmates told him his future was not in the kitchen. “They said, ‘You’re so funny you should try stand-up,’” Trujillo recalls.
He first hit the stage in 2010, but being naturally funny, he says, is not the same as being a stand-up, and he spent a lot of time learning how to craft jokes and structure a set. “It took 10 years to really find my voice,” he says, “to get the grasp of how to go lowbrow and then highbrow, to start a joke that seems inappropriate but take it in a different direction.”
Trujillo became so fascinated by the craft that, to this day, he will nurture a joke far longer than the average comedian. “Specials are being released so fast now that I see even great comics with jokes that could have been fleshed out more,” he says. “I honestly think it takes about two years to make a joke perfect, to squeeze every single tag out of the topic.”
The comedian with “man-child sensibilities” has appeared on “Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents,” and just finished his own hour-long special, which he’s trying to find a home for. He is also thinking about taking his writing in new directions. “Sometimes I have an idea that would work better in a sketch or something longer, so I definitely would love to try writing and acting in different formats,” he says.
But he never wants to move away from testing himself onstage. He even is afraid of becoming popular to the point where he gets laughs and cheers from fans without working for it. “I like doing sets at 1 a.m. in front of 13 people, who are exhausted, because if they laugh, I’ve earned it and know it’s a good joke,” he says.
—S.M.
Reps: Management: Independent Artists Media; Legal: Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
Influences: His father and grandmother, Dave Chappelle, “The Simpsons”
Best of Variety
