Comedian Josh Johnson sits down with WIRED Senior Writer Jason Parham for The Big Interview, breaking down his creative process, the modern world, and staying healthy and sane as a performer in the age of near-endless social media content.
Josh Johnson: Josh Johnson is an Emmy-nominated writer, stand-up comedian, actor, and NAACP award-winner from Louisiana by way of Chicago. He was just named as the newest correspondent on Comedy Central’s Emmy & Peabody Award-winning program The Daily Show where he was previously a writer for the past six years. Johnson is also a former writer and performer on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he made his late-night debut in 2017. In addition, he is Comedy Central’s ‘most watched comedian ever’ with 40M+ views to date across their platforms.
As a stand-up, Johnson headlines theaters, clubs, colleges, and festivals around the world. In 2015, he was named one of Comedy Central’s “Comic to Watch”, in 2016 a “New Face” at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, in 2018 the winner of the “New York’s Funniest” competition at the New York Comedy Festival and in 2021 he was named one of Variety’s “10 Comics to Watch”.
Johnson’s most recent stand-up special, Josh Johnson: Up Here Killing Myself, premiered on Peacock earlier this year to rave reviews touting Josh as a “naturally gifted story teller”. Comedy Central released Johnson’s first hour-long special #(Hashtag) in June 2021.
Johnson’s self-released comedy and music mixtape album Elusive, was described by Vanyaland as “live stand-up observational humor with musical compositions. Both elements wade in and out of political and social waters between the two “arcs” of the multi-genre epic”. Johnson also co-hosts the weekly podcast, The Josh Johnson Show (with fellow stand-up Logan Nielsen).
Johnson’s other credits include, CONAN (TBS), @Midnight, Kevin Hart’s Hart of The City, The New Negroes, and This Week at The Comedy Cellar on Comedy Central and @fter Midnight on CBS.
Johnson lives in New York, but you can catch him on his Sophomore Tour across the country.
