“Money is my motivation,” declares controversial Australian comedian Jim Jefferies as I guffaw in an undignified manner down the phone. We’re talking work ethic ahead of Jefferies’ 2015 show for the Sydney Comedy Festival. Between touring, bringing out comedy specials every year and a half and writing TV shows, the man doesn’t seem to stop. Suffice to say, he has a lot to say on the topic.
“I get bored of my jokes. Once I’ve recorded them I don’t think it’s fair to ever do them again. Besides bringing out an hour of new stuff a year and trying to write some TV shows, what else do I have to do? It’s my job.”
He continues, “I don’t understand comedians who stay with the same set for years. I mean, haven’t they come up with new material by accident? They had to write that initial set. You have guys like Jerry Seinfeld who owned, and owned, and owned his jokes and I’m like, ‘Oh fuck!’ By the time I’ve done a joke a few hundred times, I’m fucking sick of it.”
Since we’re on the topic of work, I ask whether he is writing any new TV material in the wake of his show Legit getting cancelled.
“I just sold a new script over here, but I can’t tell you which network yet. But it’s still a long way from getting onto the television. It’s gotta get approved, then it’s gotta go to a pilot, then pilot has to go to a series – there are a lot of hurdles.”
Despite his former reputation as one of the partying bad boys of the comedy circuit, Jefferies is now a father. It was interesting to hear how he was finding this endeavor.
“Well he’s two, so they’re all pricks – him included,” he says. “It’s the terrible twos, so they’re not particularly nice people. They’re basically the same as an angry person with cerebral palsy; they can’t out what they want to get to and can’t quite talk. They live in a frustrated world where they can’t express themselves so they just throw tantrums. All of his friends are the same, they’re just assholes.”
Jefferies is known for not shying away from material that may offend. In fact, it’s almost safe to say that he probably even enjoys baiting audience members. Some of his best work takes aim at religion and gun laws in the USA, but his offensive edge has almost been lost by his offensive reputation.
“It would be different if I wasn’t famous,” he says. “If I was just doing those jokes at a comedy club, people would turn up not knowing what to expect. But now people are just coming to see me, so I tend to have the same audiences wherever I go. Occasionally I’ll catch someone off guard with a new routine and they’ll storm out; I still have that happen at every gig. But with a few thousand people at every gig, two or three leaving isn’t a big deal.”
And what of the people he has offended?
“I get threats every day from people into guns mostly, and some religious people. I can’t take it too seriously because I’m the guy telling people not to have guns and everyone is threatening to kill me. I’m probably the one person who should have a gun,” he laughs.
Jim Jeffries Liveis onWednesday April 15 – Sunday April 19 atEnmore Theatre,as part of Sydney Comedy Festival 2015.
