Dear audience, the film is about to start.
And that's exciting, oh boy.
And hey, remember to put your phone on silent,
if you haven't done so already.
And check that any other devices don't make any noise.
But you can make noise, that would be awesome.
Noises like laughing, clapping, crying,
be moved, sob, be like wow
or oo-oo, those are really good.
The only noise we hope you don't make is conversation.
If you're here with a friend, don't babble like
"is he the guy who was in that thing..."
No, nobody cares, talk about it later.
Now, you need to focus.
And hey, if someone needs the bathroom,
well, it's too late now. That window of opportunity is closed.
The movie has already started. You just need to hold on.
If you need to pee, too bad! Think about a dripping tap.
Plink plink. Slosh slosh.
Oh shit, now I need to go pee. Damn it.
I've seen the beginning, I'll be quick.
All right, what's going on?
What, a damn screenplay?
This is a documentary! If someone wrote something, it's me!
Two directors!
A strange solution. Wouldn't recommend that.
Which one is the head director? They'll just be fighting all the time.
Hey, there's some guy over there!
Is that the guy... No, it's me.
See! This movie is about me.
The lead.
Or no, would it be...
The protagonist!
Starring.
Wait! The hero! Yes, I want to be the hero.
Well, If I have to tell something about myself.
I'm a shy person. I'm a very shy person.
I'd say I've never started a conversation with a stranger.
Like never.
Except on gigs, but that's different.
So how is it possible for a shy, outsider Finn
to suddenly be in America doing this?
ISMO THE WORLD'S FUNNIEST OUTSIDER
FEBRUARY 16TH, 2024 NEW YORK, USA
CHAPTER 1: ORDINARY LIFE
All right, before we delve into the mystery of being shy and outsider,
with the help of the latest armchair psychological studies,
childhood analyses and others, well,
let's see what's happening now, at this very moment.
I'm just about to start a gig, and not just any gig,
but for the first time in New York in this big, fancy, lovely theater.
Sold-out New York City Town Hall. Oh yeah!
FEBRUARY 17TH, 2024 NEW YORK, USA
This is Danny. He was on the gig, opening for me, announcing me.
He will be on some other gigs with me and helping me prepare for
me filming my first comedy special in English in a week's time.
Yes, this is Gabriel Iglesias, aka Fluffy.
He's a big comedian,
so great that he's talking here, so appreciate it.
I, for one, appreciate him.
Oh, thank you, Gabriel. And moving on...
Or no, wait. Let's go back.
Let's go back properly, rewind like this.
Rewind all the way back. I'm a baby there.
I was just born there.
My mom was a lot of help there.
The place was a small village called Kuohu next to Jyväskylä.
Well, a village, I guess, we had a store.
Nowadays, they only have a road.
My family. I have my mom.
That's my dad. He won't speak in this film.
We were going to ask him, but we realized he's no longer alive.
It would have been a weird project, digging him up.
Then there was us kids and a dog at some point.
We had five chickens.
Our car was a Saab 96.
Wait a minute! Is this a bit boring?
Useless info, you don't need to know this. Just a sec.
This is my mother. She talks a lot, she likes talking.
He would climb everywhere he could, always on the go.
He always had bumps and bruises on his head.
We even thought we should make him wear a helmet.
Oh, well, nice to hear that... Thanks, mom!
DECEMBER 23RD, 2023 KUOHU, ISMO'S CHILDHOOD HOME
Wow, a lot of snow here. When did you last visit here?
-Last summer, didn't I? -Last summer.
The kitchen is open to other rooms, so we'd run around in circles here.
My childhood out in Kuohu was just awesome.
Me, my little brother,
two friends who lived like, almost next door.
It was the four of us, hanging out, playing games,
shooting funny videos.
We could be ourselves, just be there, in our own bubble.
I have to use my extra speed!
I'm a hero there, too, with my cape.
In our movies, I always played the lead, without exception.
Being a hero, you need the hero's journey.
The pattern is repeated in all great stories throughout ages
from Moses to Harry Potter.
It's divided into 12 chapters, this hero's journey.
I don't know if this applies in my story,
it's a bit far-fetched...
At some point, I had to start school.
Darn it, I didn't like it, I didn't like the whole idea.
There's going to be people. And strangers at that!
We were in biology class
and the teacher was teaching the human evolution.
Just a little side note:
The classroom is actually the classroom I attended,
but these people, they're kids from today.
We're using cinematic means to highlight it.
There was a picture with Homo habilis and Homo erectus
and the Neanderthal guy and all these dudes.
I raised my hand and asked the teacher: "Wait a minute!"
"So which one is Adam?"
And everybody in the class laughed.
I didn't ask as a joke, I was dead serious.
Maybe it's just better to stay silent,
just observe others doing stupid things
and write down the observations if you don't dare to say them out loud.
I told my mom that boys bully me at school,
they throw stones at me at recess.
Mom was like "Just let it go in one ear..."
"And out the other."
That was shit advice.
He was shy, unbelievably shy.
He was really nervous about starting school.
He just got shyer and shyer.
At 15, when his friends went out on Friday nights on the town,
to hang out with their friends,
Ismo stayed home, threw himself on the bed and cried.
I asked him why he doesn't join his friends.
"I can't go, I'm too shy. It's all dad's fault."
"Dad is shy and I became shy."
CHAPTER 2: INVITATION TO ADVENTURE
7 DAYS TO COMEDY SPECIAL SHOOT
One thing about this movie.
There are two timelines here, and they crisscross a bit.
It's obvious to most people, I guess,
but there might be some du... dim person out there.
The biggest disappointment of my life was
when I realized somewhere in my teens
that even adults don't know what life is about.
What's life, what's the meaning of life,
why are we here, what is this all about?
I always kind of assumed that everybody knows that
or at least somebody does or like adults surely know.
But it turns out nobody knows fucking anything.
That sucks. Do I have to figure out everything myself?
I went to study physics in the university.
and I must confess the reason I went there
was not that I wanted specifically to be a physicist.
I was actually more interested in supernatural phenomena,
the paranormal stuff and meaning of life.
I thought that if I learned physics and sciences,
I can study those things and solve the mystery of life.
But pretty soon I realized physics
and calculus was not really much help in that.
My notebooks did have physics formulas
but even more ideas for jokes
and a lot of stick figures fighting each other.
And cows with big, steaming piles of shit behind them.
Stand-up doesn't work in Finland, it reeks of the US.
Just like long jump reeks of sports.
This is Teemu Vesterinen. He brought stand-up to Jyväskylä.
He opened a monthly club at Ilokivi restaurant.
It was a phenomenon.
It was a great feeling that we're doing something
for the first time ever in this country and town. We can do anything.
Had he not started this,
I don't know if I had ever started stand-up.
I would have nursed my beer, thinking "I could do something sometimes".
Ismo came to the stage after about a year
of coming to the club and seeing every gig.
He had cooked up his own thing.
He'd been doing comedy since he was a kid.
He came over and asked if he could do a gig,
and we took everyone who looked about sane, we needed new talent.
My first ever gig was here, right here.
And was I nervous? Yes, super nervous.
But I also thought I had nothing to lose,
nothing at all, I can only gain things.
Then they said my name, I walked on stage
and said to the audience:
Hello, I'm Ismo,
I'm the son of a physician.
Every time I brought a girl home, it was:
"Have you been here before?"
"Take off your clothes."
"Lie down and say aaaa."
"And next."
Then he did his first gig, and he was really good.
That was it for him.
Afterwards, he told me "I made people laugh.
"That felt so good."
It was the best feeling of my life.
The fact that I take things literally and turn them into jokes,
and people laugh at them
the way they should laugh, that's the whole point of it.
He forgot about his studies,
it was such a full life for him.
The chopper murderer...
In the first years, I'd follow his gig from the back wall.
He had this joke about the chopper murderer.
Some quick puns or two-minded things.
It was such a tragic thing, but you gotta understand
there's always an Achilles' heel in chopping.
You gotta keep a cool head.
You can't be all thumbs in it.
Punchline after punchline,
and the 300-something audience went like this.
Everyone laughing in the exact same rhythm.
Their hands were not like this, but they all bent from the waist.
I thought fuck, this guy has power and energy.
This joke really splits people in two.
Stand up was like a drug.
I just wanted to do more and more, as much as possible.
Making comedy became the most important thing in my life.
I like jokes more than anything else.
Even more than people.
-Great going, Ismo! -Thanks.
Where's Ilari? He should be on stage now.
-Everything okay? -Sure, sure.
Basically all you need to know about my early career as a comedian
that after the first year, I started to realize I can make a living from it.
And on my second year, I got to be on TV.
Hyppönen-Enbuske Experience talk show.
I had a short segment every week.
People started to recognize me.
Our correspondent with beautiful hair, Ismo Leikola, is now in Jyväskylä.
Ismo, what's the situation?
I'm going to address two serious problems
about going to the movies.
Namely: you always need to pee in movie theaters.
I have evidence of holding my pee for two hours,
but the odds of that coinciding with a movie are slim.
Like the Lord of the Rings movies: three and half hours!
And gazillion scenes with waterfalls.
CHAPTER 3: HESITATION
It's difficult to describe how important being funny is to me.
It is a serious thing.
For me, it's the most important value.
If I come up with something funny,
not saying it out loud is very hard, almost impossible,
even though there's risk of making someone mad or ruining the mood.
But if you came up with a crazy, fun thing, you have to express it.
I've sacrificed things to the altar of funniness.
Romantic moments and others.
FLIGHT FROM WASHINGTON DC TO L.A.
6 DAYS TO COMEDY SPECIAL SHOOT
Shit, I caught a yawn from myself!
How is this even possible? It's a never-ending vicious cycle.
ISMO'S HOME LOS ANGELES, USA
I have trouble sleeping as my brain is always on overdrive.
I always come up with new ideas or worries.
I don't understand how some people
can just turn off their brain and sleep.
My brain does not have an off button.
Let's go back to the second timeline.
We're in Tampere now. I'll do a gig here
and then zoom in my car to Hämeenlinna for another one. Bye.
I had been doing comedy in Finland for years,
and things had been going well.
Gradually, I got thinking that maybe Finland is a bit small.
So it was 2005, and I did my first gig in English.
I would say about half of the jokes hit home,
and I thought, okay, I could do more stuff in English.
And I did, and then it went better and better,
and then I moved to Los Angeles.
Wait a minute! It's as if I forgot something.
I feel I forgot something, but what could that be?
Yes, at some point, I got married.
I think that's important. Is it? Yes, it is.
I have to say something about that.
Hey, actually, I'll text her and see if she wants to say something.
Her name is Angelika.
CHAPTER 4: THE MENTOR
I was booking artists to a club, I was the program director.
One comedian said we should open a stand-up club,
it was a new thing in Finland.
He suggested Ismo Leikola to open it, had I heard of him?
I said I'd seen glimpses of him on Hyppönen-Enbuske.
Then we met and clicked immediately.
I was like wow, what a genius!
Yes, definitely a genius!
-And a hero! -We had a one-night stand.
Must have been great to hump a hero!
And we became good friends for a year.
After a year of friendship, we started dating and became a couple.
We were a power couple, really,
a term familiar in the US
but not so established vocabulary in Finland.
Angelika and I became a tight-knit unit.
She believed in me and supported in everything in Finland
and encouraged to do material in English and go abroad.
At this stage of the hero's journey, there's always a mentor.
A person who will advise, help and teach the hero,
but can't do the journey for the hero.
For Frodo, that was Gandalf, the mentor in the Lord of the Rings.
Usually, they're some bearded dudes.
So basically, Angelika is a good fit there.
Luckily, she didn't have a beard.
CHAPTER 5: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
2007 IRELAND
Talking about dick signs, that's quite a boner there.
"Talking about them.."
You're the only one talking about them.
Doing stand-up in English was exciting and invigorating.
I went to London and Edinburgh for gigs,
and they went really well.
I got this hunch that it might be possible to conquer the world.
Then in 2008,
I took my one-hour solo show to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.
The gigs went fine and there were nice reviews,
but the halls were practically empty.
I did this one gig for one person, a German tourist.
I'm handing out fliers: Welcome to Ismo show.
Trying to get two people in.
We did it day and night, both crying, exhausted.
Ismo is crying on the bed: "I can't fucking take this anymore."
We lost money, time, energy and sleep.
I was way too stressed out.
I thought I'd forget this international thing
and focus on Finland.
This is way too hard. Goodbye.
CHAPTER 6: GOD'S HAND
So Angelika and I built a house in Sipoo.
We designed it ourselves, it was to be our forever home.
That was maybe in 2014,
we'd lived there for a couple of years. I was trimming bush in the backyard,
listening to a podcast by an American comic.
Well, of course this is not 2014.
And not even my backyard, but there are bushes.
So anyway, in that podcast,
the American comedians were talking about the history of stand-up and such,
and suddenly, I had this very strong vision.
Like this premonition, this feeling
that I should be there with those guys.
Like the whole universe would have said to me all of a sudden:
Hey, what the fuck are you doing there?
Did you hear me? What the fuck are you doing there?
As I said, this is not my backyard.
They're my trees!
Then, about a year after that, something happened.
Something totally incredible.
Jamie moved to the US as a teenager
and now he's about 104.
He still has a slight accent.
I'm not gonna get rid of my accent, I've only been there for a few years.
They were looking for comedians from around the world, and I thought: why not.
The competition was online and I did pretty well in the first rounds.
Then I made it to the final, and that's awesome, great.
And the final was in: oh wow!
In Hollywood! All right, where's my passport?
I guess I can't take the train there.
From my hotel room to tonight's gig.
How did I end up here?
I kind of came here myself,
but then again, no, I ended up here.
Let's go backstage.
I just didn't actively resist the chain of events
that put me here.
That's how the hero is brought from home to some lion's den.
ISMO'S PERFORMANCE, FUNNIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD CONTEST
People around the world could vote
and turns out I won the whole shebang.
That was a bit encouraging that this could work.
That's my ad!
Oh my god! Some old geezer is choking.
Go help him!
Wait, he's Jay Leno!
Well, what does our hero have to say now?
At the risk of sounding overly dramatic
or nonsense or silly,
I kind of feel that it was like the hand of God or fate
who just picked me up from Finland and dropped in the US.
I'm not a person who packs his bags, moves to another country
and starts knocking on doors.
I'm not like that, I would never have gotten around to this.
But someone wanted me here.
And at the risk of sounding even more melodramatic or crazy,
I kind of feel the whole contest was arranged to get me to the US.
That's how I sometimes feel. Did that sound crazy? A little.
CHAPTER 7: NEW CHALLENGES AND ALLIES
Then our hero finds new allies.
For example, Luke Skywalker finds Han Solo,
Princess Leia and Chewbacca.
What about me? We'll see if we can find something.
Uh, it was December 2015
when Angelika, I and Kity the dog packed our bags and came to L.A.
We decided to stay for 6 months and see how it goes.
When we arrived in Hollywood, it was like a dream.
We were welcomed by red carpets, movie stars,
glamour, parties, and...
Well, not quite.
We were welcomed by tents, the homeless and outpatients
and streets with damn big potholes to trip on.
Last night, an unarmed black guy was shot here.
The news and the police have been here all day,
the street is filled with memorial words.
That happened last night here in Venice Beach, California, Los Angeles.
Push this in.
This starts the washing machine. That's how it works here.
I was completely out of it for half of the time.
Everything was different: people, the customs,
the environment, shopping, food.
Maybe I'll microwave the turkey from yesterday.
Yeah, right, hundreds of credit cards!
He had his career in the US and his career in Finland
and a 10-hour time difference, you're bouncing two huge careers.
And all the time, demands for this and that.
Ismo asks me if he should do this.
I said I can't decide for you, but you gotta think this through.
If you do this thing, where will it take you and for how long?
What will it do to your brand?
And based on these questions, you can make your decision.
And most of all, go with your gut feeling.
Because that's true.
Ismo used to say it's good to have two asses on the line.
Sometimes, you don't know whose ass is on the line.
And there I was, a comedian among others on the L.A. scene.
One gig after another.
I'm no networker.
I don't go to talk to people or put my foot in the door.
I just focused on my gigs.
I tried to be funnier, write funnier stuff, do better gigs.
Gradually, it went somewhere.
People started noticing me and offering new gigs,
where others noticed me and so on.
By the end of the year, I had gigs almost every day.
And during the weekends, 2-3 gigs per day.
They went well, but they didn't lead to anything.
Or only lead to new, similar gigs the next day.
And my social life was not super interesting.
You're supposed to sleep on that bed!
Mostly, I was at home with Angelika and Kity.
My life was just writing,
doing gigs, preparing for gigs,
playing computer games and picking up dog shit.
BREA, USA 3 DAYS TO COMEDY SPECIAL SHOOT
All right, a few days to the comedy special,
a gig in Brea near Los Angeles.
And something horrible happened.
The same Danny who was in New York, he was supposed to come here.
But he was in an accident.
He lost both of his legs and his head.
The doctor gave him a three-day sick leave.
He can't make the gig here.
No, nothing like that, he only got the flu.
But he couldn't come to the gig.
So we were trying to save the night.
And Jesus saved me.
JESUS
No, Jesus saved me.
JESUS SEPULVEDA COMEDIAN, ISMO'S OPENING ACT
I'm sure Ismo's mom has told him
he has the world's best jokes and he should always believe that
and Ismo believed her.
In private life, Ismo is much more aggressive and extreme thinker.
On the stage, he has to button it down.
He's afraid someone won't like him.
The entertainment business took some getting used to.
I encountered people who were... How should I put it?
Strange. Weird.
Some of them took advantage of us.
Let's do this project!
It will only cost this much and the world will open up.
The world didn't open up, but I lost money.
If you are hugely talented like Ismo,
in any given field,
and you land in Hollywood.
The sharks are first to attack.
Their aim is to get their hands on you
and make you for example sign a deal with them
before you wise up
and get to know the right people
who can show you what the real deal is
and who are the con artists.
Some are the real great ones and some are like
damn, if we had signed with them, then...
There would be no career.
I took all this somehow too seriously.
I worried about my next gig,
afraid that if I screw up now, that was it.
We were pushed to our limit,
we were talking about our heads exploding.
Yes. Many times, we seriously considered
just quitting and moving back to Finland.
But every time we decided that no, we will stay.
We did have each other, after all.
It felt like the two of us against the big, bad world.
I was also very naive.
I believed everything will work out in the end.
And then it did work out.
Finally, we had someone who knows how things work,
how this show business industry works.
Before I met Joe,
many times I felt I almost want to call it quits.
Things didn't lead anywhere
and everything was difficult, tough and stressful.
So thank you, Joe, for coming into our lives.
Oh, he doesn't speak Finnish.
CHAPTER 8: THE ULTIMATE TRIAL
A few months after we started with Joe,
I was at home and sitting at the jacuzzi in my building.
I was sitting out and the phone rings, it's Joe.
He asks me if I'm sitting down, and I say yes, I'm in the jacuzzi.
He says guess what you're doing next Monday.
He says Conan. You'll be on Conan on Monday.
And suddenly, there were some extra bubbles in the jacuzzi.
So the call came on Friday night.
I had two days to prepare for the Monday shoot.
I managed to book at least six gigs to clubs around L.A.
so I could do my set as many times as possible.
Then it was Monday, and it was also my birthday.
A limo picked me up from home.
There was about five hours of waiting and preparing
and pacing around nervously.
Then it was my turn.
And then something happened, something I've never had in the US.
I was walking my dog and...
What, 72? Listen, Joe, it's now 100 million.
I just checked, it's over 100 million now.
The most views for a stand-up clip from the Conan show ever.
The world record and all other records.
A few months later, I signed with a new agent.
And not just any agent, but the biggest agency in Hollywood.
Creative Artists Agency or CAA.
You need to be careful with the American acronyms,
because it's quite close with CIA,
who are also an agency but with a slightly more serious tone.
And now you're wondering: What about Joe, your manager?
Is he out? No, he's not. A manager is not an agent.
People always ask what's the difference.
It's too complicated to explain.
Yes, on our longer timeline,
this is the moment when I first met Gabriel.
He's been talking a lot here, but this is where we first met.
Gabriel asked me to warm up for him on his tour.
That's just totally awesome,
because he performs for thousands of people.
Those gigs made me a lot of new fans.
I started to feel like nothing's gonna stop me now.
Well, maybe, let's say
A global pandemic.
That might stop me a bit.
CHAPTER 9: JOLT
CHAPTER 9: STOP
The pandemic did mess up things for everyone, really
and for me, too.
But if you want to find something positive in it,
it was actually my first vacation ever
since I started doing comedy.
If you can call it vacation
when you wash your groceries in panic
and fight for the last rolls of toilet paper.
But it was so weird.
Suddenly, I could just do nothing Nothing.
That was kind of awesome and I had some savings to ride it out.
The day they announced the pandemic,
Angelika suddenly had a vision of a book.
We should write a book about conquering the US.
What a great idea and we had the time to do it now.
So I thought fine, we'll be cooped up within four walls God knows how long.
And I rushed to my computer.
Our book was published in spring of 2021, and it was a hit.
We talked about being a power couple.
And then four months after publishing it, we got divorced.
Surprise!
We wrote the book for 6 months, I wasn't doing gigs,
we lived together, always staying inside
and we realized:
fuck it, we don't want to live together or be married.
So there.
We'd talked and been to couples' therapy,
we knew we had problems.
When we started to address the issues, there was always some huge turn.
Where do you talk about your relationship
when you keep staring at followers
growing by a million every hour after Conan.
All right, let's talk about our relationship.
And all the problems we'd tried to solve,
we gradually realized they can't be solved.
We're a great team as writers and coworkers,
but us as individuals...
Now that there was nothing else but staying at home.
It was a painful time of becoming aware and admitting it.
This can't go on like this.
We have to split.
It's only later that Ismo and I realized
we never fell in love, we just got attached gradually,
because we were so similar
and we appreciated each other, still do.
I went into free fall.
Ismo got to keep his career, his character and voice.
It was rough.
We're still great friends,
we support each other, we're family.
But it hasn't always been easy.
Especially when you're on the toilet and realize you're out of paper.
And nobody else is home.
2 DAYS TO COMEDY SPECIAL SHOOT
All right, this Venice Beach in Los Angeles.
We were filming here
and the director, one of the two,
can't remember which one, the chubbier one, I think,
told me to watch the beach.
They'll shoot me, I look handsome, the women will love me.
Just keep looking out to the beach.
And don't look anywhere, look out, we'll shoot you.
What on earth?
Oh, my goodness! What on earth?
Hello!
How on earth did you manage this?
-Tell me about it. -Oh my!
You've asked me to come over, and now I'm here!
Well, I'll be!
Yesterday, we talked about it, you haven't been here.
No, I haven't.
-Oh my! -I'm almost as surprised as you are.
I didn't see this coming, never!
How are you?
-It's been a crazy week. -I can imagine.
We've done all kinds of exciting things.
-And Saturday is exciting. -Yes.
This came as a total surprise to me.
They managed to keep it a secret for a month.
Everyone knew, the crew, my friends, everyone but me.
Oh, what a surprise and a nice surprise!
-There it is! -I see.
Vitamin.
-You're like... -Another vitamin.
It was vitamin B12, best absorbed orally.
I have even more vitamins... Of course, two are not enough.
You'll never sleep with all those vitamins.
It's going to be hours before we get to bed.
I've always taken a lot of vitamins and supplements.
Sometimes people ask me if they help, do I notice a difference.
I can honestly say
I have never noticed any difference.
As a mother, it's difficult to fathom
that your child succeeds so greatly.
I didn't realize at all how popular Ismo is.
-My son was on fire today! -Yes, I was.
-It was a fantastic show. -Thank you!
I'm so proud of you, damn it!
-How can you be so good? -Wonderful, thanks, mom.
A wonderful thing.
Sometimes the audience here is better than in Jyväskylä.
Totally!
CHAPTER 10: THE REWARD
After the pandemic, I started doing gigs again.
First in Finland, then America, then everywhere.
Things started getting back on track and actually grow bigger and bigger.
And then really big!
I was at the grocery store, pushing my cart
and saw Gabriel calling.
I was like wazzup, dude. And he was like right back at ya.
And then he was like what are you doing on May 7th?
I said I'm coming to see your big show.
He was like well, would you like to be a part of that big show.
And I was like well, why not.
No, wait, I was like hell yeah!
Fuck yes!
Like always in the L.A., they sent me parking instructions to the venue.
But I'm a Finn.
If I'm gonna do a show like that, you think I'm driving?
No way, I'm doing the opposite, I'm drinking.
So I took an electric scooter and drove it through Los Angeles.
If I'm performing for 45,000 people,
I'm not gonna go to bed immediately afterwards.
When I first started comedy, I thought it was a hobby,
something you do in a shady corner of a bar.
I had no idea it could be something this big.
And the gig went well, it was awesome.
I still get compliments about it, years after it.
1 DAY TO COMEDY SPECIAL SHOOT
So Gabriel jumped in to do the special with me.
He's producing and directing it, which is totally awesome.
So I finally decided to post short clips regularly to socials.
And that worked.
The number of my followers grew exponentially
and that seems to be the only way to sell tickets these days.
I started getting a lot of gigs God knows where:
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Middle East.
I did my first European tour.
14 days, 17 gigs and 12 flights.
The toughest 2 weeks of my life.
CHAPTER 11: THE FINAL OPPONENT
Then there's of course the main bad guy, the final opponent.
There are many legendary ones: Darth Vader, Sauron,
Voldemort, father-in-law.
But what about in this movie?
We have an even worse opponent. Oh my!
Children, close your eyes.
Doing what you love to do as your career is awesome,
just amazing.
But I think of comedy all the time.
I had maybe five days off during that whole year.
I was so beat, totally beat.
My brain was foggy, I just wanted to do nothing.
I couldn't sleep without pills, my brain was on overdrive.
I almost burned out earlier, and the symptoms looked similar.
He just worked too much, traveled too much
and even though he wasn't well, he always did his gigs.
He never canceled his gigs, he suffered and went.
So yes, I'm a bit worried at times,
but when I ask him, he always tells me:
"Don't worry, mom, I am all right."
Well, I must admit I'm not always all right.
One of the hardest things I'm still trying to learn
is the magic word 'no'.
It's difficult.
There are gigs and other projects,
and I get so excited about things.
Nice people ask me to join great projects,
but there are just too many, I can't do them all, I should say no.
And when you finally manage to say it,
some people start persuading me.
And then I give in after the convincing,
and that's when everything goes to hell.
When Ismo comes to Finland, we meet and it's nice.
But being Ismo's friend means I have to join his life.
It's like he's driving over the limit on a highway,
and he's pissed off at others, because they're bad drivers.
If you want to be with Ismo,
you have to get into your car and pull up next to him,
roll down your window and talk,
or not really talk, but I'll listen to his work calls for two hours.
Then I get sensory overload, take the next exit and go home.
You join Ismo's life, Ismo never comes to my door
to ask how I'm doing. No.
But I know it and he knows it
and it's honest.
Yes, I guess that's true.
Maybe it's part of the price I have to pay for all this.
Going in, I never knew this.
Things are really never what you thought they'd be.
For example, glamour is surely an illusion someone invented.
Success is great,
but in practice, it means doing the same thing on a bigger scale.
The hardest thing is to enjoy your life or anything.
I think that's why people drink and do drugs,
because it's so difficult just to enjoy something.
I don't know if he enjoys being recognized and talked to.
Ismo came to Kuopio
and we went to the swimming pool, wanted to do something ordinary.
We came to the big,
the big dressing room with lots of people,
and Ismo didn't want to be recognized so he covered his face with a towel.
It came down here.
He covered his mouth and nose.
He was like a fucking deer in the headlights.
I felt like
well, firstly, we won't give up, we'll swim even if it's difficult
but does it make any sense that your life is like that now.
THE DAY OF COMEDY SPECIAL SHOOT
Yes, who is the final opponent in this film?
"I can't go, I'm so shy. It's all dad's fault."
Well, it's my own mind.
And like all interesting final opponents,
it has a lot of good.
It's not just a bad guy, it's actually my superpower.
I have been diagnosed with ADHD, but only recently as an adult.
It would have been nice to know before,
but I'm glad I know now.
I guess it's part of my superpower.
My mind keeps ticking, finding new ideas all the time.
But the drawback is it's hard for me to organize things
like time, space, energy.
The basic building blocks of the universe.
We've been meaning to shoot this comedy special for years,
but there's always been something else.
This is so nice. Today is the day!
-Yes, it is. -Are you well and in good spirits?
-No, I have a sore throat. -Oh, no.
-I've been so stressed out. -Oh, your stress levels!
It's not bad, my voice is still there, I just feel it a bit.
-We will tape it, that's for sure. -Good.
-I'll kick you for luck. -Yes!
-Good luck, darling. -Thanks, wonderful!
It's so great!
I noticed he often had difficulties encountering people.
And I just got this feeling
that something is bothering Ismo, but he just can't come out with it.
So I asked him if he wants to go talk to someone,
if he has things he wants to tell someone other than us, mom and dad.
He said sure thing.
He went to see a psychologist for five times.
He never told us what they talked about.
I think it helped him a lot, something changed in him.
He opened up and got some confidence.
He was a high school junior when they put on a play.
The principal showed us to our seats, saying:
"Let's seat the parents of our lead actor in the front row."
His shyness had disappeared and he strutted around the stage.
It shook him and us parents as well.
CHAPTER 12: RETURNING WITH THE ELIXIR
I have always felt like an outsider everywhere,
but I have only now realized how many of us outsiders there are,
even more than insiders.
Some people have moved from one place to another,
but many people are outsiders where they've always been.
When I started doing comedy in a foreign land and language,
I didn't realize how relatable it is.
The world's most spoken language is bad English.
Life is not fair.
But I think it's much fairer than we think,
because no matter what you've achieved, gotten or done,
you still have the same number of problems as before.
They might be different problems, but they're still problems.
Your mind and emotions cannot tell them apart.
And I would not change my life for anything.
This is exactly what I want to do, this is perfect.
I hope I will learn to enjoy it.
To enjoy my life and myself, that would be great.
And to be able to rest, to sleep, things like that.
I'm still working on my rest,
but I've learned to enjoy people.
As a matter of fact,
it might be that I now like people
better than jokes.
Am I that shy any more?
I feel like I'm still shy, but maybe it's not true.
Could this be the change
that has taken place in our hero during this film?
That's me.
Yes. Could be.
The End. It's over now. The movie ended now.
Or did it? I'm still talking, aren't I?
This won't end until I'll shut up, that's true.
Talking about shutting up.
You know these people, you're talking to them on the phone
and it's time to end the call, but no can do.
When you say "Listen, I gotta go now",
it's not a sentence they understand, they think it's just another sentence.
"Oh, you gotta go, good, I should get going too."
"And guess where I'm going? Yada yada yada."
No, I really gotta go. "Yes, that's true."
"And one more thing about next week, should we be thinking about... "
No, I really gotta go. Later. Bye.
You just have to hang up, toot toot toot.
Luckily these people don't work for 911.
"Oh, your foot came off, listen, I had mine in a cast once..."
"Everyone signed my cast, that was so funny."
"And my aunt once dislocated her hip."
"There's a lot of that going around, you know." Oh well.
And this film was supposed to end ages ago,
but the end credits are still rolling.
It's still going on. The credits are part of the movie. Many people don't get it.
They just get up and go as soon as the credits start to roll.
When you finally see who made this, everyone just gets the fuck out.
Of course, everyone has to go pee, I see that.
I jinxed it in the beginning, so sorry if you fought to pee.
Your bladder is bursting, eyes bulging and your back teeth floating.
If I have to pee desperately, my molars hurt.
I feel my need to pee in my jaws.
In my molars. Hands up if you have the same.
I once put a plaster on my bladder, I was plastered.
So funny, get it?
Oh my.
But should we stop now? The poor tech guy is still in the projector room.
He can't leave before this ends. His shift ended ages ago.
He's mad, we said the film would last 90 minutes.
He's calling his union rep: "He still talking, it's not over."
"It's soon 10 minutes over the 90 minute mark."
"I need to pick up the kids and take my wife to the bus."
"And my ass is flaking up."
That's an occupational hazard,
their ass sweats and they get maggots and everything.
They sit there all day, watching the films.
The same films, how many damn times has he seen this?
I must say watching yourself from the screen,
your life spread out in a documentary like this,
it's not easy.
It was painful to see. Damn, some great moments,
but damn it, my own life plastered there.
But it turned out okay.
Thanks for coming and come again.
Again - well, you can watch the same movie again, why not.
Or you can see another film, there are other okay movies.
I don't know which ones, though.
All right, I have to go now...
Oh my, oh.
I'm so sleepy (horny). Sleepy (horny).
All right, that's it. Bye.