Interview by Rafy Mediavilla w/ PeacockTV’s “No Bad Days” – Alyssa Limperis. Where we spoke about using laughter to overcome pain and grief. Out Now!
This hour-long comedy special takes audiences through the stinging journey of loss while reminding you how wonderful each day can be. The special offers an honest portrayal of grief and pain told through a lens of hope and laughter.
Criticólogos:
How did you maintain yourself so calm, and not start choking up every time to tell this story?
Alyssa Lemperis:
Oh, well, yes, thank you. I’ve done it a lot. I will say when I first started doing it, at first I was able to do it. Maybe I was still in shock, so I wasn’t really processing it. And then at the end of that like two year first run of it, I was weeping, weeping, weeping during the show to the point where I was like, I can’t keep doing this right now because I’m too emotional. So clearly I have to take a step away and I have to process some things. So when I came back to it, the experience of the loss was so much further away that maybe I had the distance where I still would get choked up a lot.
And even in the second show I got a bit choked up. But I think because I had the distance at that point, I was able to look at it as like me telling the story of when I was 25 versus when I first did it. It had just happened. And that was it was harder to maintain my composure back then.
Criticólogos:
When you’re writing the show, how do you balance yourself? How do you know that? Hey, I’m take it too seriously. When you know you need dial it down, and laugh a little. What goes on in your brain that tells you switch it up?
Alyssa Lemperis:
Yes, I feel very like it’s very musical to me. I feel it’s very musical. It’s kind of like you can feel it. And I’m an I. I used to edit my videos, too, and it’s the same thing. Editing, musicality, it’s all to me, very pacing. It’s so it’s like I feel it in my body when it’s like we’ve been too jokey. We need to slow it down, we’ve slowed it down. We need to get a punch. We need to come back a little bit faster and then like punch, punch, punch slow. So it’s kind of just to me, it’s, it’s dance and rhythm and music to me where I can just feel it when I’m like, I know that now.
We’ve been serious for too long. We need to add a joke or I don’t want to joke here because I think we need it to breathe and be serious. Yeah, I love that one. That’s a great question. I love that that part of it is exciting to me. Yeah.
Criticólogos:
I want to talk about your dad and I just I want to ask you if you were here right now, obviously alive and seeing you do this show, what do you expect he would tell you after seeing it?
Alyssa Lemperis:
Thank you. That’s very sweet. I think. Yeah, I think he would be I think he would be excited. I think he would be excited for sure. And we started out on this journey together. He introduced me to comedy, and he and I did regional theater and regional comedy together. And I learned just about everything I know from comedy at a young age from him. So in many ways, I feel we’re up there together. I’ve always felt that way about the show. I describe it as hanging out with my dad. So it feels very much like a mutual accomplishment.
It feels like I wouldn’t be here without him. It’s his story as much as it’s mine. And so even though he’s not here, I feel he is very much here in the show and present in it. So I like to think that he knows and he’s and he’s happy. Yeah.
Criticólogos:
I really like the section where you’re asking people, who lost somebody? We all dealing with some type of grief that we have to balance it out with our lives. What do you want people to take away from your show when they see it in the streaming service?
Alyssa Lemperis:
Yeah, I think it’s a I think it’s a combo. One, that thing you said where I ask people to share I and the end I hope that people walk away from this knowing they’re not alone, that everyone is holding on to something heavy, that everyone is grieving, that that that we are all sharing in this very isolated experience and, and that it’s okay to still be sad or have complicated feelings long after the experience, because grief doesn’t start or stop. It’s fluid and it’s something you carry with you. And but then I also started the show because I was so blown away by my dad’s ability to die with grace and optimism.
It’s so. He went through just the ringer, Hugh, and he went through the ringer. And what he went through was really brutal. And he never once complained or was negative or focused on the negativity. He just powered ahead. And it’s not again, I like to reiterate, it’s not like it didn’t suck. It’s not like he wasn’t upset and he wished it wasn’t happening. All he wanted was more time with us. And he didn’t want he was he felt like, oh, this is a nightmare.
I remember him saying, this is a nightmare I feel I can’t wake up from. So he was very real in how bad it was, but it was still. But we’re not going to let that take away time. We have to other we’re not going to let that stop us from enjoying this piece of beautiful cake that has coconut and raspberry. We’re going to enjoy that cake or watch the Patriots. That’s still going to happen even if we’re fighting. And so I hope that he’s changed me in that way, and I hope that others will take a bit of that with them as they go to.
See the interview below:
Trailer:
