She burst onto the stand-up comedy scene 6 years ago in her first national television debut on Showtime’s “Pride Comedy Jam”. In the fall of 2018, she signed a recording deal with UPROAR Entertainment, the label responsible for launching the careers of greats Margaret Cho and Richard Pryor. Her first 1 Hour Comedy Album “Outside the Box” was picked up by Amazon Prime. She has been a regular on the Los Angeles comedy scene performing consistently at local clubs, including the Comedy Store, The Laugh Factory, and the Hollywood Improv and in April of 2015, she became a Bi-Coastal comic earning residency at NYC’s New York Comedy Club. Currently, she is in Pre-Production for her next 1 hour network TV stand-up Variety Comedy Special slated to hit the world in September of 2022. As part of We Own The Laughs.com’s Comedian of the Day, have a few laughs and get to know comedian Renee Santos. The Sandwich, Massachusetts native shares with us some of her favorite moments in stand-up comedy and lets us know how she owns the laughs.
Name: Renée Santos
Hometown: Sandwich, Massachusetts/Los Angeles, CA
Instagram/Twitter/Facebook/Snapchat/Tik-Tok: @reneesantoscomedy
Years in Comedy: 16
Haven’t we seen you somewhere before: NBC’s Last Comic Standing,
Comedic Influences: Joan Rivers, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Natasha Leggero, Whitney Cummings, Kevin Hart, Christina P., Monique Marvez, Sandra Valls, and Dana Goldberg
Favorite Comedy Album: Renée Santos “OUTSIDE THE BOX”…how could I answer that question any differently! (Laughs)
Favorite Comedy Special: Christina P. “Mother Inferior”
Favorite Comedy Movie: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Favorite Comedy TV Show: The Office
Favorite Comedic Character: Mary Catherine Gallagher
Favorite City to Perform In: I think this one is a tough one to narrow down for me because I am the happiest when I’m on the road and being in the discovery of whatever city I’m booked in. It is part of what makes me love being a comic. But so far, I’d have to say Seattle. I did the whole touristy thing when I was there and found out that Seattle is actually OZ, it’s the original Emerald City! I was absolutely infatuated with the historic culture of Seattle. Did you know the toilet was invented there?!
Favorite Topics to Joke About: I like to joke about my relationship with my mother, I do an impression of her, she has a thick Boston accent, and character voices are pretty fun for me but also the most complicated dimensional aspects of our relationship and some of her judgment of me as a person gives me comedy gold. Sometimes I don’t even feel right, writing it down, I’m like I didn’t write this joke my mother did!
Favorite Type of Audience for a Comedy Show: I love an audience that’s really loud with their laughter but not necessarily with their commentary. When an audience tries to interact too much, it can turn your comedy show into their show as opposed to you being able to do your set, that can often be frustrating, but there’s nothing better than having to pause my joke because somebody’s belly laughing!
Favorite Comedy Club: The Westside Comedy Theater in Santa Monica California. It reminds me of a lot of New York City venues because it’s kind of hidden in an alleyway but then it opens up into this really great performance space with TV screens and great acoustics. I filmed my 1 hour comedy special “ Outside the Box” there so there’s a special place in my heart for that club.
How did you discover your passion for comedy:
It weirdly chose me…in college I double majored in writing and acting and my thesis was a 1-hour performance piece I wrote, so when I moved to LA in 2002 I started doing open mics because I wanted to be able to create my own platform instead of living in the struggling actor hustle of waiting for auditions in order to get to be an artist. It’s like a musician only being able to pluck one guitar string every six months. A guitarist wants to play a whole song. So Stand-Up comedy allowed me to play the full “song” of my artistic expression. Comedy sort of merged with my writing and I became a standup comic from that intention to create, but I never, as a little girl, thought to myself…”You know what I want to be when I grow up? I wanna be a standup comic!” I just knew that I was a performing artist.
What do you remember most about your first time performing stand-up comedy:
Honestly…the first thing I remember is how incredibly bad I had cottonmouth! My upper lip got stuck to my teeth and it was glued shut. I remember when I came off stage another Comic said…” first set?” And I was like, “How could you tell?” They, very emphatically said, “It sounded like you were chewing peanut butter against the mic, next time if you put a little Vaseline on your actual teeth it’ll prevent cottonmouth from happening.” Best advice ever. So the first two years of my comedy career, like clockwork, I put Vaseline on my teeth to prevent cottonmouth. Truth be told…when I have a really big gig, I still do it, 16 years later.
How would you describe your comedic style:
I’m more of a storyteller than a set up punch. I tell anecdotes from my experience or my observations of stories. I sprinkle in impressions and musical comedy and an occasional comedy dance. I’m more of a variety act than just a comic standing in front of a mic. You surely aren’t going to be bored if you come to my 1-hour show.
Describe your process for comedic writing:
Sometimes if I’m inspired by an idea, I’ll quickly record something into my voice memos which is more of just the template of the joke. I often run my set while out walking and I just pretend to be on the phone! I also record my brainstorming sessions using the talk feature into my notes, then when I have a writing session, I have something visual to read and it’s easier for me to edit. I go back and tweak my ideas and streamline the story, getting rid of all the expository parts of my brainstorming, all of the “umms”, “likes”, brain farts, and unnecessary dramatic pauses. In the last year since the industry really moved into the virtual platform, I’ve played back some of my recorded virtual gigs and put them on paper to insert them in future sets as well.
Describe the comedy scene in your area:
In 2021 the scene has really shifted. It seems to be sort of staying as a hybrid scene. A lot of comics are still performing on Zoom and Streamyard to book more work, so I noticed that the intensity of the clubs are not as crowded here in Los Angeles right now. Also, I think audiences are feeling slightly nervous about returning to live performances so filling a packed house hasn’t been a part of my experience yet in 2021…I can’t tell if my shows are poorly attended or just socially distanced! I’m thinking by 2022 it’ll be back to normal and it’ll be a bustling-line-down-the- block-kind-of-scene-again.
How do you judge success in the world of comedy:
I think success is determined by our perseverance and our objective. I have been doing this for 16 years and my career has ebbed and flowed very often. In 2013 I booked 3 commercials, a Showtime Comedy special called “Pride Comedy Jam”, and a gig with Olivia Cruises in the Dominican Republic where I performed with Wanda Sykes. The next year, I didn’t book a single show. It was crickets. I ate a lot of Haagen Daz and Lays potato chips that year and nannied a bunch of kids for 12 hours a day while I worked to find the next gig. I’m also an actress so some of my performance success in the last 16 years has come in dramatic work in stage and film. It continues to ebb and flow, man look at 2020! I would have a great year and I would book cruises and make a butt ton of money and then the following year I didn’t book anything and I’d go back to my survival job as a supervisor at Starbucks slinging lattes. To be successful you have to be willing to lean into the fact that there is no formula. Success is living your purpose. What I’ve learned in my life is that if you do not honor your “why” it metastasizes. For every person, not just comics, success is when you know what you’re supposed to do with your life and then honor that, no matter what gets in the way.
Who are some of your comedic peers that you enjoy watching perform or inspire you personally and professionally:
My favorite comedy peer is fellow Comedian Jackie Monahan. We do a blog together called “NEVER NORMAL” we’re in pre-production for Season 3 of it and we came together working on “Pride Comedy Jam.” We also shot our 1-hour Specials a week apart from each other in Seattle and we continued to sort of stumble into each other’s comedic lives over the years. We have a lot in common personally, from our sobriety, (which I can say because that’s what our blog is about! So, I have not broken the sacred anonymity principle), to overcome PTSD and turn it into laughter. She’s one of those people that is never in competition but instead wants to elevate her peers and those are the kind of people I want to work with. As far as my predecessors and comics that I really love to watch…the classics for me are Joan Rivers and George Carlin. Their ability to be crass and raunchy really inspired me to be my authentic self. I also really love Kevin Hart because he’s a storyteller like I am, I enjoy Natasha Leggero because she is so dry, she is distinctly different from the energy I bring to a stage, but she’s also a woman that would be classified as pretty and feminine and she still stays grounded in her femininity but also in her power of being a comic with a bold voice. She’s not just a pretty girl on stage. I think this section of the interview could be 782 pages long. There are so many of my peers that inspire me. I think this art form is one of the hardest things to pursue in the world. They say the two greatest human fears are public speaking and making somebody laugh and stand-up comedy is literally the combination of those two things so anybody that has the balls to get up there and do it is my hero.
What’s been your most memorable moment in comedy:
As I have disclosed in the last question, I am a Clean and Sober Comic so I do a lot of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotic Anonymous Conventions as their entertainment. The most magical moment I’ve ever had as a Comedian was when I was doing a Convention in Washington State and I got a standing ovation from the crowd. I had a number of addicts from Recovery Houses that were in the trenches of early drug recovery that laughed for the first time in a long time. Some came up to me and personally thanked me for helping them not think about using drugs and having to get clean, in years. Through sharing my art I was able to be the conduit for a whole conventional hall of recovering addicts, to see that you can be happy, joyous, and free without drugs. That moment made me realize I was deeply living my purpose.
What have you learned most from your failures in comedy:
I’ve learned that failure doesn’t define you, it is the building block to giving you the courage to begin again. I keep my favorite quote of all time about failure on a post-it note in my wallet to re-center me when I’m scared to get in wrong… it’s from basketball player Michael Jordan…“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and miss. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
How do people react towards you when they realize that you can make people laugh:
Often times people look at me and are very surprised I am a Stand-Up Comic. I think it’s the small-framed-young-feminine-woman look that throws them off. Insert feminist plug here, but when a woman has an unassuming feminine physicality, we often get pigeon holed subconsciously by society. I have been bumped to the end of line-up a countless amount of time in my career because of my appearance. I have had bookers look me directly in the eyes and say, “We’ll give you a slot at the end of the night, we can’t afford to have anybody scoot out. They need to know they are going to get a good show.” I guess “a man” still screams. don’t worry you’ll laugh tonight. As a woman, I often have to “prove” I’m funny in order to get a chance. I will say though, it is beginning to shift significantly, the younger generations of comics and bookers are beginning to neutralize that. I think people are ready to see equality on every level. Everywhere.
Describe what it’s been like building a career in stand-up comedy:
It’s been beautiful, traumatic, wonderful, frustrating, eye-opening, revolutionary, defeating, and gloriously encompassing having the courage to be fully alive. I still fight the voices in my head that have that artistic ethos that I must struggle in order to pursue performing arts and that abundance can’t come into my experience. That internal critic that says if I am an artist, it is somehow an exchange for having a carbon footprint on the planet. I sometimes sink into the illusion that I must give up abundance and prosperity to fulfill my dream, but then I realize that’s a lie. I’ve seen my career growing everyday so I have to tell that internal bully to back off. In our society we teach that artistic professions like stand-up comedy or acting unfold two ways, either you’re unsuccessful or you’re a celebrity. There are so many of us that fall somewhere in between so sometimes it requires a lot of soul-searching to not feel like I am an imposter and to simply bend into my purpose because at the end of the day I want that to be my legacy…that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.
If you could change one thing in the world of comedy, what would it be:
I would like to see people pay more frequently for comedy. Not just the huge celebrity Theater venue performances, but each gig they go to, where professional working comics are hitting the stage. People who are producing and booking their own shows, I want them to pay for their comics and put value on our careers. I want zero admission shows to be less prominent. I had a very spirited discussion with fellow comic Dave Yates who said “I’d like for people to stop devaluing what we do.” People are hungry to get out into society and see art. During this pandemic especially, people have leaned into art, but art isn’t free to make, we deserve to be compensated. I can’t pay my rent with exposure. He concluded, and I wholeheartedly agree, “We as a community could all make a collective decision to change the landscape of comedy by shifting this perspective. I want us to stop insulting our colleagues and pay each other for our work.”
Best advice you’ve ever received from a comedian:
Write comedy in a way that if you left your written set on a table, and someone stole it, no one could perform it like you.
If you were releasing a comedy special this week, what would it be called:
“The 40-Yr-Old Version” or “Other the Better Way”
Funniest encounter you’ve ever had with a celebrity:
For years people have told me that I am Sarah Silverman‘s doppelgänger, in fact one time I was at Canters Restaurant in Los Angeles and somebody asked me for an autograph as Sarah Silverman. I told them that I was not her but they thought I was lying just trying to be incognito, so, I signed her name on a hat and informed them that they were getting a fake autograph. Then about a year later I was at “The Comedy Store” as an audience member and Sarah Silverman was performing and my fellow comedian friend said, “Dude you got to go up to her and ask her if she thinks you look like her!” So I did. At the end of the show, I approached her and said very nervously, “People say I look like you and my friends over there just wanted to get a confirmation that you agreed…sorry if that’s weird…” and she stepped backed, held my shoulders, and from a state of shock, said, “Oh my God I had no idea I had a doppelgänger and shit you do Comedy! I’d let you be my stand-in if you weren’t 5’ 4”!”
Weirdest place you’ve ever performed any forms of comedy:
I do a lot of colleges and they are the most unpredictable gigs ever because sometimes I’m in a huge proscenium theater, with 1500 seats, sometimes I’m on an impromptu stage in the gym on campus, and other times I’m in a cafeteria while people are getting their lunch. There was this one time at The University of Delaware where they placed a stage in the center of a dining hall while people were waiting in line, very close to me, getting food and twice during my set people tripped over the cord to my amp causing a loud muting sound of my guitar, it was the weirdest gig ever. I felt like a hologram no one even knew I was there. As much as I want to put good art in to the world…sometimes a gig is just a paycheck.
A Renee Santos’ Fun Fact:
Not sure if this is a “Fun Fact” but surely a surprising fact. I have a spinal degenerative disorder medically called Lumbar spinal stenosis. I’m a candidate for a spinal fusion surgery in February of next year but I still stay active with restorative yoga, swimming, and cycling while I heal. Maybe it’s not a fun fact but it’s very infrequent that people know that I have a major medical condition but I still get out there and I don’t make excuses. I share this because I want people to know you can believe the diagnosis without believing the prognosis. I have a spirited defiance to my injury while simultaneously taking care of it.
Where would you like your laughs to take you:
Ultimately, I would like to be a comedic actress like Jane Lynch or Tina Fey. I believe that Comedy is an amazing conduit to being a comedic actress but I don’t really see myself in 30 years doing stand-up comedy as frequently. I would love a sitcom like Seinfeld where I snuck in a set but primarily, I was showcasing my talent as a comedic actor.
What would you tell a potential comedian if they ask you how they can own the laughs:
Be authentic. Have a dialogue with your audience. Stand-Up comedy is a caricature of our human folly. Show your folly and fallibility and your beautiful flawed human perfection. Make fun of yourself, play joyfully in the circumstance on the stage, and don’t take yourself too seriously.
What are your thoughts on the future of comedy:
The great thing about Comedy is there isn’t really a script on how to do it, so not having a formula creates so much flexibility in establishing our own rules and allowing this industry to evolve. I think we’re beginning to transition into a space where Networks are no longer producing Content but buying already produced content. In some ways this is wonderful because we have a lot more artistic control over what we’re creating but on the downside, you’ve got to pay out of your pocket to make your work first, before somebody will buy it from you.
If you could write one episode for one classic TV sitcom which show would it be and give a brief detailed sentence on the episode:
I’d write an episode of “I Love Lucy”. Lucille Ball was an icon and she was for sure my first subconscious lesbian crush. I always noticed when I was younger that Ricki and Lucy had separate twin beds, I would write an episode where Lucy had a funny circuitous way of putting the beds together and Ricky not being able to pull them apart. Then Lucy’s best friend Ethel would get caught sleeping in the bed by Ricky… a little controversial lesbian inuendo…
If you could choose 1 comedy club and 3 comedians to perform with on your perfect comedy show, how would it go:
I would perform at “The Comedy Store” on the Sunset strip with Chelsea Handler, Wanda Sykes, and Natasha Leggero. I would be in the lineup with them instead of opening as the least known comic for the bigger group. I would want to perform with them as their peer. Oh and then at the end of the show we would announce the sitcom that we were all starting in as a reveal! Boo ya!!
What’s next for you:
I just began my 2021 Summer Comedy Tour which is basically a revamp of my 2020 tour that never happened due to Covid. Check out my website www.ReneeSantos.com for dates! I’m excited to get on the road again. I’m also in pre-production for my 3rd season of my vlog with fellow comedian Jackie Monahan called NEVER NORMAL and I’m working on producing a parody series called “Purple Hoodie Parodies” where I perform musical parodies written by me in a purple sweatshirt. Stay tuned all will be revealed before the end of this year!!!
Why should a person always laugh at life:
Another one of my favorite comedians Monique Marvez once said, “Laughter is what prevents our pain from scaring.” Being a human being is hard and being able to laugh at the trial and tribulations of life I deeply believe is the key to truly being free. None of us gets this perfect. We aren’t born with a script. So, make up your own and laugh the whole way.
Watch Renee Santos “Outside The Box” Comedy Special Trailer:
Follow Renee Santos comedic journey on these social media websites:
Instagram/Twitter/Facebook/Snapchat/Tik-Tok: @reneesantoscomedy
Youtube: Renee Santos
Personal Website: www.reneesantos.com
