Comedian Monica Nevi talks about her new octogenarian-interviewing series “80 for 80” and more

“We’ve been told our whole lives to listen to your elders, now you’re going to have to,” says comedian Monica Nevi at the beginning of each episode of her brilliant and funny new documentary series “80 for 80,” which debuts on Amazon Prime today.

“80 for 80” draws some inspiration from the ESPN show “30 for 30,” but this series is unique in that it has Nevi interviewing octogenarians and asking them to reflect on their lives and what they learned along the way. The result is often some combination of sweet, hilarious, or profound. So far, there have been four episodes, with the last one Nevi interviews her own grandparents.

Nevi divides her time between Seattle, Los Angeles (where her official residence is), and in comedy clubs across the country. She is one of the Northwest’s best and most prolific comedians. While in town for a large chunk of the summer, we met at a Belltown coffee shop to talk about her new series, becoming a comedian, and what else she has on her plate.

Where did the idea for 80 For 80 come about?

I’ve always really been interested in older people, I think they’re just funny and kinda say whatever they want. My grandfather passed away two years ago and when that happened I had a feeling that there was a lot of questions I wanted to ask him, see how he felt about his life and those types of things. He lived a lot, he had five wives, like there were a lot of fun things I felt like he could tell me. I didn’t get the chance to do that, so I thought it would be a fun kind of way to intertwine really good stories and comedy. Once they get that old, they don’t care anymore. They just kinda say whatever they want and they’ll tell you the real answers to these questions.

But it’s that middle, you know, your parents, they still kinda sugarcoat it and “Oh, life is like this,” you know, but these guys, they’ll tell you exactly what you don’t wanna hear. You’re like, “Okay, it is like that.”

Then I was an athlete my whole life, I played basketball through college so I always liked the sports documentary theme to make it a little bit intense but it’s still just about old people. So it was a fun kind of mix of a lot of things that I like.

The first episode was with Robert, was he a friend of your grandparents?

No, so at one point he points to the girl sitting in the corner. She’s a friend of mine, but he was their neighbor when she was growing up and he’s such a character that when we were casting she reached out to me and was like, “I think we have a really good idea for you,” and he really was.

Did you watch the behind the scenes video?

I didn’t get to it…

Okay, well yeah, he gets … he’s got some pretty funny stuff in there too. At some point in every interview they go, “Are we done?” Like, “How long do I …” you know, because they have about 45 minutes in ’em and then you’re like, “Okay, we can cut that down.” You know, because why keep them there forever? But at some point he goes, “Am I done yet? It’s happy hour.” And we’re like, “Okay, all right. You gotta go.” It was pretty funny.

Oh, that it hilarious. Yeah, him and … like first I thought that he was a little kind of … I don’t wanna say guarded … but then he seemed kind of embarrassed when you asked him, “What kind of flowers do you want if you are on a date and you want the night to go well?” Or something like that. Then he became a little more open and then he started swearing and becoming more animated.

It was really funny. He was … well, I think with all of them, they didn’t really know what to expect. So a lot of the beginning parts we asked not necessarily mundane questions but it was just to them feel comfortable and make them feel comfortable with me and know that I’m not trying to make fun of them or anything. I wanted them to feel comfortable. So there was some of that point I think in every interview where it kinda takes a little bit for them to get comfortable and then all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh, I remember all these stories and now I’m maybe too comfortable…”

You asked them like at the beginning things like, “How did you get to Seattle?” And they all kind of remembered back in whatever, 1940 or whatever. It was pretty incredible.

Yeah, it was interesting. I mean, that was fun too kind of what they remembered. Like what points … I mean, I’ve heard there’s some psychology to it, but the parts of your life that you remember more than others is kind of that 20s, 30s range. So a lot of that … it was interesting, because that was for most of them the time that they ended up here. So they all had really interesting stories about that. Then that middle part they’re like, “Yeah, I don’t really know.”

I loved all of them, but the other one I thought was really funny was the third one, I think Patricia.

Yeah, Patricia. She was a whirlwind. When she left, we all looked at each other like, “Oh my gosh, what just happened?” She was the last one of the day, where we just filmed it all in one day. She was the last interview of the day, and as she walked we were like, “She was something.” You know, I would just have loved to have known her when she was younger. Even now, she’s so fun. We all looked at each other like, “Oh, man, she has lived a life.” She was really interesting.

I wasn’t sure how it was going to go because the first few minutes were about how she couldn’t hear what you were asking her, and then after a few minutes…

Well, it was funny ’cause we got about 45 minutes with her and then we cut. Well, she got there and she didn’t really know what was going on. So for pretty much everybody except my own grandparents, there’s a family member liaison. I wasn’t really talking to them, I talked to them on the phone a little bit but you know, the family member kind of set it all up. So her grandson knew way more about it than she did and she didn’t really understand what was going on. So I kinda had to ease her into it and be like, “Is this okay?” You know, I don’t want her to do something she doesn’t wanna do. But then all of a sudden it kinda flipped and she was like, “Oh, should I tell that story?” You know, and then she really …

So we actually stopped rolling and then she just kept going. She just kept telling stories. So we have some B-roll that she’s not even mic’d on where we’re still going. We had fidget spinners for them and let them play with it. She was like, “Can I take this home?” I said, “Yeah, that’s fine.”

I saw that you also got a grant from 4Culture to make the series. How did that come about?

When I originally thought of the idea I pitched it to Ruben Rodriguez is one of the editors and a creative partner of mine that I’ve had for a while. We do a lot of different stuff, and he’s always done my video stuff. But just for fun, and I’ve never been able to pay him. So when I thought of the idea I told him, I was like, “I have this idea I’m really excited about it.” And I told him, “But I feel like we would need money to make it look good.”

He was like, “Yeah,” and it was actually his idea ’cause he had gotten a grant through them before and it fit what they were looking for, I think, as far as community engagement and it talks about a section of the population that’s not always talked about, and all these different things. Also I think that they’re used to seeing, because it’s an arts grant, a little bit more of a classic art like a mural or a concert or something, you know. So I think they liked the idea of it being comedy and being a little bit different than what they had seen before. So we pitched it to them and they liked it and yeah, they were really excited about it too which I really liked. Like I have enjoyed working with them as well. They’ve been excited.

Then we actually ended up getting another grant, so there’s two grants on top of it but they were super excited and helpful about it too. We did a little premiere in November where we showed Robert’s episode and the behind the scenes and did a Q & A so the Renton Municipal Arts Commission was involved in that part.

It was a shot in the dark and I had never applied for a grant before and I know they’re not super easy to get. Ruben had applied for, like, six before he got his first one. So we were keeping it in the pocket until we could get the money, and then they gave it to us in May of last year and we went for it.

I’m just happy that it’s getting a wider release. We follow each other on Twitter, and have for several years, so I want to be supportive, so I’m relieved there’s a chance for everyone to watch it. I couldn’t make it to the premiere in Renton you did late last year.

Yeah, it all worked out. We toyed with what we were gonna do with it for a little while and then I think we just went, you know, “Let’s get it out because I think people …” people who saw it originally were like, “When do we get to see the rest of it?” You know, and then people who didn’t get to see it were asking about it. So it was like, “Let’s just do it,” and we had a really good time. So the goal is to do it in other cities, we want people to be able to see kind of what we can do and what the whole idea is. I think I’d be really interesting to compare some of the stories from different areas of the country and stuff like that.

So having this and people being able to see it and be like, “This is what we can make.” So I got so lucky with Ruben and Richard Kilpatrick, who is the director. I got really lucky. They’re really good at what they do so they made it look so much better than it should’ve.

One thing I loved was your introduction, which is this badass intro, and then the interviews are a lot sweeter and more fun than the intro implies.

Yeah, it was really fun. That was my idea. I liked the sports theme and they got it. They understood what I was going for. So I did get really lucky with the people that we worked with, so that was good.

So when you showed it then it was just the Robert episode? No one’s seen the other ones?

No one’s seen the other ones. They’ve seen the behind the scenes one, but not the other episodes. So I’m excited for that. You know, it was an interesting experience. I’ve never … you know, they called me a filmmaker (on King 5) this morning but I’m not, I’m a comedian. You know, and so never had that experience where you’re like, “Here, let me watch you watch something that I made.” You know, that was really weird for me. And I’m used to just getting laughs, you know. That’s what makes me comfortable and I’m describing the whole thing and thanking the people who helped and it was kinda … so I had to weave jokes in there to make myself feel comfortable, you know.

But honestly they reacted even better than we thought. There were certain points, you know, when he swears and stuff like that where you’re like, they’ll laugh at that. But there was a lot of kind of these other points that we didn’t expect that they really liked and really laughed at. So we were super happy with the way that went, also.

Yeah. Yeah, it was really, really sweet. Was he there for the screening?

He was. Oh man, he was such a rock star. They brought champagne and stuff for him, and-

His weakness.

Yeah, exactly, and so yeah, we had some photos afterwards of us hanging out and drinking champagne with him in the lobby which was pretty fun.

Yeah, and he’s so funny, he was like, “I don’t even really remember doing that.” He didn’t really remember doing the interview, so it’s pretty funny though. Yeah, he was a little rock star that night.

Yeah, when we had the premiere he came, Patricia came, and then my grandparents were there, and Jack and Karen were there. Patty was the only one that didn’t make it, but her son was there. So everybody kinda got to see how people were excited about it.

It ended up being, I think, a good mix of kind of silly/funny stuff and then some really heartfelt kind of moral stories in there, too, you know, and they really do genuinely answer some of those silly cliché questions. You know, how do you keep a marriage happy and what’s the meaning of, that kind of stuff. They really do, I think they really try to answer it for you. It’s pretty sweet at times.

I don’t really talk about this on Twitter all that much, but my very favorite movie is Annie Hall. There’s a scene in there where I think that they ask an elderly man, “How do you keep your marriage together?” and he says something like “We have a vibrating egg.” I thought your series was like the real life version of that scene.

Yeah, well I think … I mean in that, it’s kinda where it all stems from a little bit. So actually my grandfather’s sister, she had been married for like 50 years at the time and somebody asked her, you know, “How do you keep a marriage together for that long?” She just goes, “Well, he was gone a lot.” Like, that was her answer. You’re like, okay, at some point you stop like, “Well we just really like each other and it’s love and blah blah,” you’re more like, you know, I’ve heard someone say, “Neither of us wanted custody of the kids,” you know, you’re like, “Oh,” it’s always kinda something funny. So in my head I was like, “Oh, that’d be so fun to just listen to people say whatever they want.”

Yeah, it was really a lot of fun. So you said you want to take it to other cities? You said in the intro you said, “We might do 80 episodes.” I think that’s probably a little ambitious, but …

Yeah, that was kind of Ruben being funny with the editing. He’s like, “There might be 80 stories, we don’t know …” yeah, it’s kind of fun. I really like the idea of Chicago. We’re gonna try to start raising some money to do that, and so Richard had the idea of kind of leaving that up to people and kind of if they wanted to say which city they wanted as they donated to it it would … so kind of you guys would pick, basically.

So what do you … we talked before we turned the tape recorder on, so you’re gonna kind of be on the road mostly after the summer?

I was looking at my calendar and it was so … still up here for the rest of August, pretty much. That last week of August I’ll be back in LA. But then after that I’m kind of around, all over the place and working on different stuff. So I’ll just kinda embrace it a little bit and just become the road I think, I don’t know for how long it’ll last but we’ll see.

I didn’t really tell people when I moved, either. I just kind of did. To be honest, I kinda split time a little bit. I’m up here, I work here a lot but also I’m very family oriented so I come back as much as I can. So it’s kind of been … and then I’m on the road somewhere else. I think I described it as like, a third of the year in LA, a third in Seattle, and then a third somewhere else in the country, you know. So yeah, it’s an interesting lifestyle. Traveling is wonderful, I love doing standup in other places but the traveling itself can be a little exhausting.

I hope you find this as funny as I do, but my girlfriend and I watched you on “The [206]”, “Oh, yeah, Monica’s awesome, we follow each other on Twitter,” and then you told the joke about being on a date and you both read books. She’s like, “You’re a liar, that’s you.” I’m like, “We’ve never met.” She’s like, “That’s your move, I know you …” and I’m like, “God, I’m not-”

That’s so funny.

“I swear that I’m not that dumb.”

That’s amazing. But that is such a good blanket Seattle thing, because I really did date a different guy that did that. So that’s so funny that would be more than one person in Seattle, that would be their move. We’re still friends, but I remember the first time he did it. He was like, “Well, what if I get bored of you?” I was, “Thank you for that. I’ll start reading my own book.” Yeah, that’s so funny, that’s hilarious that that would be your move too.

So what other shows do you have coming up around here?

Around here, okay, so I’ll be doing … let’s see. August 8th I’m at Clock Out Lounge in Beacon Hill. Then I’m headlining the Batch 206 on the 16th of August, that’ll be a good one. I’m in Everett at Emery’s on the Sunday after … whatever the second Sunday of this month. Then I think I’m in Capitol Hill a couple of times at the end of August. I believe my calendar’s pretty updated on monicanevi.com, everything is my name. I’m very lucky with that.

Yeah, how did you get to comedy? I mean, did you … I assume there’s a huge leap from, “I think I’m really funny,” to, “I can do this professionally.”

Yeah, there was definitely a real time gap there. I was an athlete forever, and that’s how I identified myself. I’ve always loved standup, I always loved watching comedy. I always loved comedies in general, just that was my favorite movie genre, and sitcoms, whatever. So it was probably my freshman year in college I just started writing jokes for fun but I was still … you know, I still identified as a basketball player and that’s what I was gonna do.

Then when I got hurt I couldn’t play anymore after my sophomore year and it was kinda like, well, I guess I’ll just try it. Most of the people I work with now had a drama background or they acted or they did something on stage, and I never did that. You know, I performed in front of people but doing my one sport. It wasn’t a performance the same way. So on paper, it didn’t really make sense but I knew that when I told stories to my friends they laughed.

I feel comfortable when people laugh, my family’s very humor oriented. So it was a comfortable thing for me, just comedy in general. Being on stage wasn’t. So it took a long time for me to like, okay, I’m writing these jokes. Oh, okay, now I can’t play anymore, I should do an open mic. It was a good eight months before I actually got on stage and tried it. That went well the first time, not obviously amazing. But it went well. I still wonder if it had gone horribly would I have kept doing it, I don’t know. But yeah, it was an interesting jump. It is just kinda like, “Oh, I think I’m funny.”

I think some people can do that where they’re like, “Oh, I’m funny in real life, I’ll be funny on stage,” and they just do it. But for me it was like years of me writing and being like, “Oh, should I do this? I don’t know.”

What else do you want people to know that we didn’t talk about?

Follow me and keep up with what happens next with everything and … I have a podcast, too, the HugLife. I do meditations once a month, so there’s still stuff, other stuff people can check out if they enjoy.

Oh, so you can talk about the meditations you do?

Sure, yeah, that would be good. I meditate every day, and it has very much helped me. But when I started, I would try the guided meditations and they would make me laugh ’cause it was just … you know, it’s like … okay. I think there was one time I was laying down trying to really get into it. She was like, “Relax, become part of the bed,” or whatever and then she’s like, “You ever been in nature?” I was like, are we asking questions? What’s happening? Like, it was … so it made me laugh, so I was like, “Well, what if I just guided a meditation for each month?”

It’s ridiculous and I say silly stuff and swear, but it is kind of still … two minutes of kind of calming down and I have a lot of fun with it. We put a video with it with stock footage which is really silly to me, too. It’s like, just people, this guy drinking a latte, you know, whatever. That stuff makes me laugh. It’s just kind of a fun thing that I like to do just to have another thing. But people seem to really enjoy it now.

You can find those on your website?

Yeah, on YouTube. Well, they’re on my Facebook page, too, but yeah, on my YouTube channel they come out once a month, usually in the beginning of the month.

I have to look for that. I’ve been meaning to try to … everyone tells me that you really benefit from meditation and …

I do, it’s so hard to do though. I’m a super big proponent of it, I wake up an hour before I should every day and I write a bunch and then I meditate and do all this stuff. But even then, like I do it all the time and it’s still so, and I only do it for like seven minutes at a time. Like it’s not … I’m not one of those people who can sit for, like, 20 minutes and just do it. Even when I am doing it, I’m fighting a little bit where I’m like, “Just don’t worry,” you know, “Let it pass,” whatever you’re supposed to do, but yeah.

{“80 for 80” is on Amazon Prime right now, and you can find Monica Nevi via her website, monicanevi.com, on Twitter (@MonicaNevi), YouTube, or Facebook.}