Seth Meyers and Mike Birbiglia reveal the hardest part of doing comedy

Veteran comedians Seth Meyers and Mike Birbiglia pull back the curtain on the very serious business of being funny in the new documentary “Good One: A Show About Jokes."

The Peacock show, which dropped on March 26, offers a rare glimpse into the surprising complexities involved in producing a one-hour comedy special. "Good One" tracks Birbiglia — from conceptualizing jokes to testing them them out on a small audience to see if they land — and shows his process of developing new material.

“It’s a show about jokes,” Birbiglia tells TODAY.com in a recent sit-down interview. “It breaks apart jokes and where they come from.”

The actor and comedian has a string of successful comedy specials on Netflix, including “The New One,” “What I Should Have Said Was Nothing” and “The Old Man and The Pool,” as well as movies like “Trainwreck,” “The Fault in Our Stars” and notably appears in Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” video.

Meyers, executive producer of “Good One,” joins Birbiglia in sitting down with TODAY.com and says that given the public’s renewed interest in comedy, he thought the idea of a show offering insight into how it’s done “made a lot of sense.”

“I think people are very curious as to how it’s made,” he says of stand-up comedy sets. “I’ve always found Mike (Birbiglia) to be one of the best comedians to talk, not just about his process, but to have a curiosity for other people and the way they put their comedy together.”

What is 'Good One' about?

Much like Birbiglia’s comedy itself, “Good One” is insightful, laugh-out-loud funny and, at times, vulnerable. With note cards in hand, viewers watch Birbiglia try out bits to see what hits and what doesn’t in front of an intimate audience gathered in the balcony, or “attic” of the Columbus Theater in Providence, Rhode Island.

“It’s in the balcony for essentially 80, maybe a hundred people. I love it because it does feel like we’re in this secret place where it doesn’t matter that much,” Birbiglia says. “There’s not a lot of pomp and circumstance to it.”

But Birbiglia is all too happy to mine the unassuming-ness for laughs.

“You’re probably thinking ‘How come we just get the first draft?’” he questions the crowd in “Good One,” before coolly delivering the punchline, “I think Providence is a first-draft town.”

The joke is meant to seem effortless, when, in reality, that and most others are rehearsed time and time again in order to achieve just the right effect — something “Good One” reveals is critical to not only Birbiglia’s routine, but comedians' in general.

“My example is the first person I saw live, (which) was Steven Wright,” Birbiglia says, which happened when he was a teenager.

“It was an inflection point in my life because I fell for the magic trick of stand-up comedy, which is, ‘Oh, he’s just talking. These are just some things he thought of.’ And I thought, ‘That’s what I do!’"

However, when 16-year-old Birbiglia tried to re-create Wright’s magic, he discovered that what looked easy enough was, in fact, the opposite.

“I went and wrote things in my notebook and was like, ‘Well, these aren’t as funny as what he said.’ And I put them in front of audiences and people weren’t laughing like they were laughing at his jokes,” Birbiglia recalls, continuing to say that it would take him another 10 years to actually find his voice as a comedian.

And the work it took to get there is at the heart of what “Good One” is all about: The process of making comedy, which Birbiglia explains is "try, fail. Try again, fail again."

The anxiety of comedy

Birbiglia says he was filming the documentary at a unique crossroads in his life. He’d just wrapped up a limited run of his live show “The Old Man in the Pool” at Lincoln Center and had, as he puts it, “no act.”

“Seth and I have both experienced it before, when you finish a special, you have nothing. It’s an interesting moment to capture on film,” Birbiglia describes.

Essentially, the “attic audience” Birbiglia performs in front of for “Good One,” is watching the comedian build out a routine in real time.

But according to Meyers, instead of being critical, the audience at this stage is largely supportive.

“When people are coming to see you, they don’t think you’re out of jokes,” Meyers says. “I think they appreciate they’re seeing you at the beginning of new jokes. So, there’s a real nice vibe in the room, even when things aren’t working.”

That said, stand-up comedy isn’t for the faint of heart, and even veterans like Meyers and Birbiglia grapple with anxiety.

What’s the hardest part?

“Walking out is always hard,” Meyers says. “But I always feel like I’m one laugh in to having fun.”

For Birbiglia, it’s the lead up to the show. “It’s anxiety a majority of the day and then I get on stage and I feel pretty good.”

Telling jokes too close to home

For a majority of comedians, the best source material comes from real-life experiences. Birbiglia’s routines, in particular, are almost all based on personal details like his many health issues, including a sleepwalking disorder, Type 2 diabetes, bladder cancer and an alarming pulmonary test that sparked fears of heart failure in his mid-40s.

His wife Jen Stein (the poet known as J. Hope Stein) and his brother Joe also play a big part in his comedy, but Birbiglia says that when it comes to his loved ones, he’s mindful of not crossing the line.

“The people I talk about the most are my brother and my wife and I’ve collaborated with both of them at different points in writing. So, that’s a pretty ongoing conversation. (But), I definitely would not say anything that they would not be comfortable with because that would be a really bad turn in my life,” Birbiglia says with a laugh.

“I know,” Meyers echos. “Yet, at the same time, it’s so hard. If you have a joke that really works for you ... it’s irrational how long I weigh the pros and cons. It’s like, 'I could get a laugh from strangers — or my home life could be terrible for the rest of my life,'” he jokes.

In all seriousness, Birbiglia says that finding humor in the ups and downs of life is exactly what comedy is all about.

“The greatest gift that a comedian can give an audience is taking things in your life that are challenging, even if they’re everyday squabbles that you have with your brother, family or whoever it is, and finding comedy in that,” he explains.

“That’s why people show up to the show,” Birbiglia continues. “Because they’re like, ‘That’s my life, too.’"

This article was originally published on TODAY.com