Rachel Feinstein: Big Guy 2024 Movie Review
Big Guy is both the name of Rachel Feinstein’s new stand-up special and the less-than-romantic pet name bestowed upon her by her firefighter husband.
What makes “Big Guy” such a good fit? Before you run off to Netflix to check out her hilarious new hour, here’s everything you need to know about Rachel Feinstein — from Rachel Feinstein herself…
“When I was in my old house, like before we moved when I was seven, watching The Tracey Ullman Show was my only memory there. Putting on my mom’s robe and doing that thing she did at the end of her show. I would go out and be like, ‘Go home, go home, all of you!’ I thought it was so cool.”
“She did voices, and I remember doing voices when I was in nursery school. I did something called a Bagel Face to get a laugh. People were demanding the Bagel Face. She did characters and impersonated people, and that’s what I was into from very young.”
“My second-grade teacher was very cool. I was a terrible student, mangled with ADD and my hair was like a nest. She would let me sit under her desk to try to get me to work. And then she would bring me in front of the class and have me do my little impressions.”
“I remember coming home after school and doing impressions for my parents, and my mom would laugh. And then I would do it to the person, and I remember my mom explaining, ‘No, you can do it to us, but you can’t do it to them!’ But that’s where the party’s at — I have to show them I can do them. ‘No, you just come home and mock them to us.’”
“I did stand-up for the first time at a bar on the Upper East Side. The problem was, the microphone wasn’t even directed at my mouth, just sort of diagonally in front of my face. I never stopped talking and they were waving me off stage, but I was like, ‘That was terrific!’ They were like, ‘No, you went five minutes too long and nobody could hear you because the microphone wasn’t even pointed at your face.’ I loved it, even though nobody heard anything.”
“My mom is a major presence in my stand-up, but it’s really a collective impression of all her friends — I combined all their voices. They’re the kind of liberals that write outraged letters about racism that get published in The Post and then they put them up on their refrigerator.”
“My mom is always writing a letter. That’s how you connect with my mom. If you’re going to talk about your personal feelings, she’s not there. But if you want to talk about racial suffering, she’ll listen, crawling toward you to talk about racial suffering.”
“I joke about my mom wanting to be anything but white, but in her mind, it gives her street cred.”
“People always say to my husband, ‘What’s it like to be a punchline? It must be hard.’ He stands outside after my show just so people can say that to him. But my husband is emotionally a desert. He’s a fireman; he doesn’t care. He thinks it’s funny that he says these ridiculous things, and they end up on stage. The guy that’s going to call you ‘Big Guy’ isn’t the guy that’s going to have complicated feelings about you telling other people he said that. He goes, ‘It’s awesome! She says that on stage now!’”
“Most people, when they date a comedian, they think it’s fun for the first few weeks. And then our schedules being on the road, missing holidays, people get bored of that real fast. But he has the same schedule. Firefighters work on Christmas. He never cared. And so he’s this accidental feminist because he doesn’t care if his wife is working on Christmas or New Year’s. He respects that. And we both have this family that we go back to. Firefighters obviously have an incredibly tight bond because of what they do. And comics, they’re the only people that can understand this weird lifestyle.”
“As I new parent, I had all the same fears that any new parent has, but I didn’t realize how funny it is. Every day, it’s hysterical. My daughter compliments me to get in bed. She’s like, ‘Oh, you look cute!’ You’re paying for somebody to come and entertain you every day.”
