Jim Jefferies

Jim Jefferies: From England with Love, and Hate

By Emma Kat Richardson
May 14, 2009

Jim Jefferies was born in Australia, honed his comedy chops in England and will show us the glorious results May 16 on HBO in his one-hour special I Swear to God.

For a man whose comic persona thrives upon so much fiery anger, Jim Jefferies is astonishingly modest. Humility seems no simple feat, either, for a brash, impassioned young Aussie on the verge of taking a nation defined by harsh judgment and skepticism (America, for you know-nothing wankers out there) by storm. In his first hour-long HBO comedy special, I Swear to God, premiering on Saturday, May 16, the thunder from down under, well, thunders unrelentingly about nearly every facet of existence, from religious bigotry to the joy of overweight sex.
A wide-scale American tour looms large, too, with prominent pit stops at Comedy Works in Denver, Caroline’s in New York, and the Crofoot in Detroit. Although his is a stage persona that is consistently fierce and fearlessly funny, Jefferies checks in with Punchline Magazine and portrays a surprisingly calm, polite demeanor. Will the special be successful, he frets.

Will he blow up big in America? If I Swear to God’s laugh-a-minute delivery and legions of fans worldwide is any indication, Jefferies may just be giving fellow Oceania jesters Flight of a Conchords a run for their American money.

Your act is driven by a lot of anger. Where does your anger come from?
A lot of its manufactured. The thing about comedy is that you have stage anger - like in a play - but in reality, things only make me angry for a small amount of time. [The trick] is to harness it and recreate it onstage. I’m not constantly angry, you know, walking around. I get pissed off about something when I see it in the news or when some religious group has kicked off a protest of some type because of Jesus or whatever, but I’m not angry all the time.

So is the stage your outlet for the anger that doesn’t necessarily come out in reality?
Yeah, it’s the same thing as if you’d go to therapy. You’re on a little couch when you talk to your therapist, you know, and the stage is a little forum where you can express whatever you’re angry about, whether it be religion or some crappy thing said by a family member or whatever.

Your HBO special delves a lot into sex and religion. How do you make these tired subjects fresh and funny?
I don’t know if I did. I tried to, but these are topics that have been done to death. But I think doing these subjects, or doing something like going on an airplane flight are all things that can unite us as people. They’re all things that everyone does, and I don’t like that quirky comedy where the people are talking weirdly and crap. You know what I mean; these surreal comics, and all of a sudden, that’s become the norm? We should be talking about the things that all affect us: sex, and getting on an airplane, all these things that have been called to attention for so long.

What drives an Aussie boy to take up stand-up?
The thing is, when I was growing up, stand-up comedy wasn’t actually very popular in Australia. It’s only really popular on television, and we never had the population to have a really thriving live scene. When I was young, there was a hell-of-a lot of them on TV, and there was this big gig that was on Channel Two every Saturday. I was always watching that, the whole time, and that featured comics from all around the world. Starting in Australia, it’s very difficult to get up and run because of the fact that there aren’t many [clubs] to play in. In Perth, there was only one club that on a Wednesday people used to go to.
That must have made for a very competitive atmosphere.
Actually, it was quite supportive.
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