{"id":632553,"date":"2026-09-22T15:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632553\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T15:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:24:13","slug":"bill-burr-on-therapy-the-social-reckoning-and-american-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632553\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Burr on Therapy, &#8216;The Social Reckoning,&#8217; and American Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/bill-burr\/\" id=\"auto-tag_bill-burr\" data-tag=\"bill-burr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tB<br \/>\n\t\till Burr<\/a> would like to make one thing crystal clear: He never wanted to be \u201cthe angry guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tOh, the legendary stand-up knows that he has a reputation as someone who can rage with the best of them. His unparalleled ability to vent his spleen onstage and on his twice-weekly Monday Morning Podcast, which Burr started way back in 2007, has long fueled his popularity. \u201cBelieve me, dude,\u201d the 58-year-old comedian says, \u201cI can blow my top like anybody. I can still lose my shit. I\u2019ve got 50-something years of practice of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut Burr has been working on himself a lot over the past few years. And while there is no shortage of things that still make him mad \u2014 social media, tech billionaires, your everyday displays of blatant hypocrisy, the whole left-versus-right thing \u2014 he has finally mastered the art of anger management, as well as letting go of a lot of the pain behind it. Part of this change was spurred by a mind-blowing mush\u00adroom trip Burr took in the early 2020s, which he memorialized in his seventh comedy special, Live at Red Rocks. Part of it was the result of therapy, which Burr has credited with saving his life. Part of it involves his loved ones and realizing that he had accidentally become the very person he vowed to never be.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd part of it, as Burr will confess during our hour-plus conversation, was an unexpected moment of clarity that happened when he was preparing for his role in The Social Reckoning, writer-director Aaron Sorkin\u2019s return to the world of Facebook, some 16 years after he helped give the world The Social Network. Burr\u2019s character, a composite of several longtime investors, is worried that Mark Zuckerberg (played with characteristic intensity by Jeremy Strong) isn\u2019t taking a whistleblower and a series of Wall Street Journal expos\u00e9s seriously enough. Coming on the heels of his turn in the all-star Broadway revival of Glengarry Glen Ross last year, it\u2019s a great example of both Burr\u2019s facility as an ensemble player and his ability to parlay his comic persona into a legitimate acting career. But there was an added benefit: A spontaneous crying jag while rehearsing lines prompted Burr to finally address decades\u2019 worth of issues and become a much happier version of himself.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tYes, Burr still blows gaskets \u2014 but on a scale of one to 10, he\u2019s no longer \u201ccoming in at an eight because someone got my dinner order wrong.\u201d Yes, Burr is still hilarious \u2014 probably more than he\u2019s ever been, both in his own estimation and gauging by the dozens of record-breaking, sold-out shows he\u2019s played everywhere from Boston to London to Greece. No, he hasn\u2019t lost his edge, even if he knows he\u2019s lost some fans who expect him to be a misanthrope 24\/7. But as he\u2019s been touring his latest stand-up hour around the U.S., he\u2019s now dedicated to countering the divisiveness he believes is tearing this country apart. Enough with the angry guy. \u201cI want to be the meet-in-the-middle guy,\u201d Burr says.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tWatch the video interview below\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe Social Reckoning is not a follow-up to The Social Network, exactly. But it\u2019s Aaron Sorkin, it\u2019s about Facebook \u2026<br \/>Yeah, it\u2019s about a whistleblower that was working at Facebook. When it started to go sideways, she reached out to somebody at The Wall Street Journal, which caused all of this internal strife with the company. It put some information out there that people needed to know. Social media platforms are [still] new. We\u2019re just seeing the fallout of them now. It started off as fun and silly, and then it got monetized, and then it just got evil.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tOne minute you\u2019re using it to talk to an old high school buddy. The next, somebody\u2019s being dragged before Congress to talk about why Instagram is evil for teenage girls.<br \/>That is kind of what happened. The internet\u2019s this crazy place. I don\u2019t understand why you can\u2019t say curse words on TV, but you can post whatever you want on the internet, and there\u2019s no rules of libel or slander and all of this stuff. And now with AI, everybody is just like, \u201cWell, you know, it\u2019s here \u2026 so you just have to deal with it.\u201d It\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWho asked for this AI wave?<br \/>Nobody. Nobody wants it. That\u2019s the thing. Maybe CEOs want AI because they don\u2019t want to pay anybody. They\u2019ve never wanted to pay anybody. But we\u2019re too busy yelling at each other about red ties and blue ties, so we don\u2019t realize we\u2019re on the same team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo if you\u2019re in an ensemble with an actor who\u2019s maybe got a certain process, a certain way that they need to kind of get into a scene \u2026<br \/>[Laughs.] Uh-huh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHow do you work with somebody who needs to approach things in their own specific way?<br \/>Everybody\u2019s got a process. And if their process starts spilling over to your cup, you gotta let them know that doesn\u2019t go in this cup. You go drink your shit over there. Whatever the fuck you need to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou learn the most through the failure of bombing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhy are you laughing? It\u2019s like you think I\u2019m referring to someone in particular.<br \/>You know what? I\u2019m going Henry Hill. \u201cI\u2019m just listening.\u201d I\u2019m just listening [laughs].<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThe Social Reckoning is getting into this stuff that you\u2019ve been talking about in your act for the past few years \u2014 the lack of accountability, how the media works, the way tech is taking control of our lives. Did this seem like a natural extension of what you\u2019ve been doing onstage?<br \/>It\u2019s way deeper. You know, I\u2019m a stand-up. I\u2019m joking around. But we live in a world where if somebody tells their version of the truth of what\u2019s going on, it\u2019s like they\u2019re trying to escape Russia in the Eighties. It\u2019s insane. [Facebook] is an American company that seems to function like the CIA, which is really sort of indicative of you\u2019re doing something wrong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI mean, if you look at the response to the Luigi [Mangione] thing. It wasn\u2019t \u201cMaybe we need to look at what we\u2019re doing if it makes some crazy person do this.\u201d [Healthcare executives\u2019] response was to take their faces off of the internet and get security. It\u2019s like, \u201cYou don\u2019t think you need to examine this? You\u2019re just the CEO of a business. Why do you need this level of security?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tEven just touring as a comic, I\u2019ve seen it change. It used to be we hated the Russians. Now it\u2019s like, Texas hates California, California hates Texas. These people hate Florida. Everybody hates New York. It\u2019s like, \u201cGuys, same teams. We\u2019re on the same teams here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tRight!<br \/>I was talking about that ICE stuff onstage, talking about my people, white people. We\u2019re not nearly as upset as we need to be, because we don\u2019t see ourselves going into the van. I go, \u201cWho do you think\u2019s going in the van next?\u201d And this guy in the crowd yells, \u201cLiberals!\u201d And I go, \u201cDid you just say liberals?\u201d Like, dude, you\u2019re literally talking about half of your team. They\u2019re gonna work their way back to you eventually. People think they\u2019re in the in-group. They think they\u2019re gonna get under the mountain or get on the spaceship. You\u2019re not. They\u2019re using you, and they\u2019re making you not like me, and they\u2019re trying to make me not like you.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tPart of the impetus to start working on yourself came from an acting gig, right?<br \/>Yeah, this acting gig. The Social Reckoning role.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bill-Burr-RSI-EMBED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"1024\" width=\"683\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGriffin Lotz for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAs my therapist would say, let\u2019s hear more about this.<br \/>I was in my hotel room, getting ready to do this big scene the next day. I got about a page and a half in, and one of the lines was my character was disappointed, probably in the Mark Zuckerberg character. I said the line, and it made me choke up, like I was gonna cry. But it didn\u2019t serve the scene. The scene was not at that emotional level. I was thinking, \u201cWhat is this?\u201d So I stopped myself, because that\u2019s what you do as a guy. You\u2019re not allowed to cry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo then I went back to the top. I went through it again \u2014 and the same thing happened. And then I started freaking out, being like, \u201cI\u2019m gonna, like, emotionally lose it, I\u2019m gonna look stupid, and they\u2019re gonna fire me.\u201d Some actors think if you\u2019re crying that\u2019s good. Well, not if it doesn\u2019t call for it. It would have been bizarre. I literally just went, like, \u201cOK, what is this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhat was it?<br \/>It\u2019s almost like when you\u2019re on mushrooms and you get an answer. For some reason, I got an answer, and I realized the way that I was raised, like 99.9 percent of my emotions were sort of shamed away. \u201cThat\u2019s not what a man does.\u201d I had basically three emotions. I navigated my life with laughing, being angry, or not giving a fuck. Everything else I just had in a vault.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut when I act, these characters feel emotions that are in the vault. So I\u2019ve got to go in and get them, and then what happens is, like, a cry from 50 years ago sees the light and tries to run out. I had to sit there in this hotel room and cry for five minutes, and I didn\u2019t even know why. Then the next day I went down and I did the scene, and it was totally fine. I realized, \u201cOK, in my life I have the door closed. I need to open the door.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHow did you start opening the door? It\u2019s exactly what you\u2019re talking about in your most recent special, 2025\u2019s Drop Dead Years, where sad men are only allowed to have, like, two emotions.<br \/>Yeah, that was the beginning of me starting to acknowledge other feelings. I will tell you what\u2019s fucked up about my last special.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tGo ahead.<br \/>I thought that bit saying, \u201cWhy is the Ku Klux Klan still legal? Why is it that in those groups, the Proud Boys and all of them, there\u2019s the white privilege where you can join a terrorist fucking organization?\u201d I was thinking I\u2019d get a lot of shit for that from racist people. Nothing. It was more people going, [mocking voice] \u201cDo you think there\u2019s a lot of sad men, Bill?\u201d No one wanted to talk about the dangerous topic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAll of these years we watched [people] not do the right thing with a lot of other [countries], and now it\u2019s happening here, and that\u2019s why so much of the world\u2019s like, \u201cWell, yeah \u2026 you fucking deserve it.\u201d But I think that we\u2019re going to get on the other side of it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re gonna get punched. and it\u2019s gonna hurt. But you take the hit and you get back up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tYou do?<br \/>Yeah, because the one thing I think people agree with on all sides is that people don\u2019t want to live in an oppressive, not-free society, which is what we\u2019re going towards. Just the amount of surveillance that they have on you and I \u2014 like, we\u2019re not John Gotti in a social club. They have this level of surveillance on us, not because of what we\u2019re doing but because of what they\u2019re doing. Like, why the fuck do you need to know that I just went to 7-Eleven and got a Big Gulp? I got to walk around like Joe Pesci and [Robert] De Niro in Casino now, talking to my wife in my fucking driveway? Like, what are we doing here?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo what do you think it\u2019s going to take for a change to happen?<br \/>I don\u2019t know. It would have to be a fucking bloodbath. It would be like Braveheart, except everyone was wearing Lululemon shit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBehind every massacre is a man in a suit, they say.<br \/>Yeah. Or a robe.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/p\/the-rolling-stone-interview-archive\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/RSI-Hub-interstitial.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"width:396px;height:auto\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tLet\u2019s go back to that anger thing. So, how soon did this happen after you had taken that first big mushroom trip, which you said helped kind of open things up?<br \/>Yeah, the mushrooms helped me realize how fucked up I was. If you\u2019re not feeling 99 percent of your feelings, how do you know that you\u2019re sad or you\u2019re depressed or whatever? So, the first time I took mushrooms, as they were coming on, it was the normal giggly sort of thing. And then, all of a sudden, this profound sense of sadness washed over me. So I left the room, and I was in this dark room, just, you know, having a bad trip. I started thinking about the people in my life. I\u2019m like, \u201cIs it my wife? No, I love her to death. Best thing that ever happened to me. I know it\u2019s not my kids.\u201d I just kind of went around, and then I finally ran out of stuff. And then the answer came: This is how you felt growing up. I was like, \u201cOh. Yep.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThat\u2019s heavy.<br \/>Right? That bothered me. After that \u2026 I wasn\u2019t really drinking at that point. But for like six weeks, I didn\u2019t smoke a cigar. I didn\u2019t do anything. I just wanted to work on myself, which is why I think that mushrooms are the best. It\u2019s the only drug I\u2019ve ever done that didn\u2019t make me want to do more of it. It made me want to fix myself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt\u2019s funny, it\u2019s such an East Coast thing: [Tough-guy voice] \u201cHey, man, don\u2019t go out to West Coast and lose your edge.\u201d What, don\u2019t start enjoying my life? Don\u2019t be a chill person to be around? In comedy, there\u2019s this big thing of \u201cDon\u2019t get happy, you\u2019re not going to be funny!\u201d And it\u2019s the exact opposite.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHow so?<br \/>You can have access to all these emotions that you can add into your act, and you can revisit topics that you were looking at through the lens of anger and rage. This whole journey of being a comedian is when I stopped doing this and started doing a little more of that. Like, \u201cHey, Bill, maybe chicks aren\u2019t psychos. Maybe you\u2019re bringing something to the party, you know?\u201d [Laughs.] My whole view on women is changed now. I look back on all of the dumb shit that I said, it had nothing to do with how I felt. I wanted to be married. I wanted to have kids. I just didn\u2019t know how to do it. So what did I do? I blamed what I wanted. It\u2019s stupid. I missed out on a lot of good times, being that brooding guy with this three-quarter Donnie Brasco leather jacket, hiding in the corner.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bill-Burr-RSI-EMBED-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"1024\" width=\"768\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGriffin Lotz for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tOnly Nixon could go to China, and only Bill Burr can get guys to go to therapy and deal with their shit.<br \/>I know a lot of angry people that like my comedy. I want to tell them, \u201cLook, if I can get on the other side of it, anybody can, because I was a first-ballot lunatic.\u201d I didn\u2019t want to be the angry guy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tReally?<br \/>My whole career, it\u2019s \u201cOh, you\u2019re the angry comic.\u201d It was always embarrassing to me. Anger was embarrassing because it reminded me of my dad, who had no control, and I used to always be like, \u201cI\u2019m not going to be like him.\u201d And what happens? You\u2019re doing exactly what he was doing. So I always felt shame. Then that would make me hate myself, which made me go darker, which made me get angrier. I didn\u2019t know how to get out of it. It was just this spinning-down thing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhen you started to lose the anger, were you afraid you had gotten rid of your creative fuel?<br \/>No, I felt liberated. Before, it was like, \u201cYou\u2019re going to write a song on this piano \u2014 but you can only use these notes.\u201d As opposed to, you can use the whole piano now. The best thing that happened to me, in terms of learning, was becoming a comedian. Because you learn the most through the failure of bombing. You can learn other things faster by just going into the same mindset.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhen did you last bomb?<br \/>Oh, recently. I was in Vegas, and I opened with that Luigi shit. Oh, my God! That ate a big dick. And then \u2014 this is what\u2019s good about getting on the other side of my emotions. So it didn\u2019t work, and rather than judge them and blame them, I went, \u201cAll right, I get it. You came to Vegas, you\u2019re blowing off steam. I get it. I was wrong. I came out too hard. So \u2026 how\u2019s everybody doing?\u201d [Laughs.] And then, like, they were all laughing because I did, I came out guns a-blazing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tYeah, bombing never goes away. If you\u2019re continuing to try new jokes and push yourself, it\u2019s a part of it. It\u2019s like boxing. You\u2019re gonna get punched, and it\u2019s gonna fucking hurt. Even if you win. But you take the hit and you get back up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tYou\u2019re raising a son now, right?<br \/>Yeah. I\u2019ve got a daughter and a son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo how are you helping him avoid some of that \u201cmen can\u2019t cry\u201d shit?<br \/>I just let him be who he is. I let my daughter be who she is. And then I just go, \u201cHey, a little too much of this or that, guys! Ease up.\u201d I expose them to all different kinds of music and sports and stuff, and I see what they gravitate towards. My wife is amazing with that. I learn a lot by watching her. And it helps that I remember what it was like to be a kid. To be scared, to not be listened to, and all of that awful stuff. I learned how to be a really good father by not doing what I saw. I remember the first time I felt it was working was when my daughter, who was probably two at the time, there was something that was upsetting to her. I was sitting on the stairs, and I said, \u201cWell, come over here and talk to me about it.\u201d And she walked over, and both of us just held each other\u2019s hands. It was like \u2026 [Starts crying.] Sorry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tThat\u2019s all right. I don\u2019t know what your growing-up situation was necessarily \u2026<br \/>It was the exact opposite of that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not a battle of left and right. This is the working man vs. robber barons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt must have made you feel good to have an organic connection like that with your kid. That\u2019s huge.<br \/>Yeah! Yeah, it is. I mean, it\u2019s funny, because my kids are not afraid of me at all, which I love. But then sometimes when I\u2019m going, \u201cDude, I\u2019ve told you three times, go to bed,\u201d they\u2019re still just doing a dance, thinking I\u2019m joking around.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAre your kids funny?<br \/>They\u2019re hilarious. They roast me. Like my daughter one time, I was like, \u201cHow are you still up? Go to bed. Come on. I\u2019ve asked you like 10 times.\u201d I said, \u201cThis isn\u2019t fair.\u201d And she just goes \u201cLife isn\u2019t fair.\u201d I was like, \u201cShouldn\u2019t I be telling you that?\u201d And she comes back with: \u201cYeah, well, you didn\u2019t.\u201d I was like, \u201cWell, I lost that one\u201d [laughs]. They\u2019re good kids. They\u2019re emotionally intelligent, and you know, kind of everything I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIs there an itch that acting scratches that stand-up doesn\u2019t?<br \/>Yeah. The collaborative thing. I really like working with other people and seeing what they\u2019re gonna do. I like hearing other actors say a line and thinking, \u201cWow, I never would have thought to do it that way.\u201d I\u2019ve gotten better just watching the choices, and to see somebody fearless as an actor. The way I gravitated towards a fearless comedian, to then be like, \u201cOK, what is being fearless as an actor?\u201d And then seeing that, and it\u2019s the same thing. Like, \u201cOh, that\u2019s like some Dave Attell stuff, but in the acting world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHow did doing Glengarry Glen Ross on Broadway for a four-month run make you think differently about acting?<br \/>It combined stand-up and acting. In stand-up, I say the thing, you guys react positively or negatively. I get immediate feedback, and silence is bad. On a set, silence is a good thing. If somebody doesn\u2019t come up to you after a take, that means you did a good job. With theater, there\u2019s feedback. And when you\u2019re with the other actors, you\u2019re seeing how everyone else does it and how it changes every night. It made me love theater. I was a typical sports guy. I thought theater was Cats. It\u2019s like, I don\u2019t want to watch a bunch of people dressed like fucking felines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI never read plays growing up. That was for the kids that got beat up. I was trying not to get beat up in high school. So I went back and I read a bunch when we were doing Glengarry. Sam Shepard plays and The Motherfucker With the Hat. Just great stuff that made me want to do more of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI hear there\u2019s a revival of Cats. You might want to look into that.<br \/>No [laughs].<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Bill-Burr-RSI-EMBED-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"1024\" width=\"768\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGriffin Lotz for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tYou started your podcast before Joe Rogan and Marc Maron started theirs, right?<br \/>Before they eclipsed me, you mean? \u201cBill, didn\u2019t you do a podcast before those other guys became vastly more rich and famous than you?\u201d [Laughs.] Yeah, I was there early. I still just do it into my phone. It\u2019s just random thoughts. I don\u2019t have guests a lot. I got into this to have fun, and I felt when you took it to the next level with a studio, employees, guests, it became a job. Not saying I would have done what Rogan and Maron did. I just kept it my way out of laziness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhen did you feel like you first found your voice as a comic?<br \/>I feel like I\u2019m finding it now. Before, that was Traumatized Me. Fight-or-flight mode, alopecia, losing clumps of hair and shit. I was a fucking mess. That tropey sad-clown thing. How many years was I going to go up there and take out my childhood on the crowd?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhen you were doing press for Drop Dead Years, you talked about how the country is divided and you wanted people to feel like they could find common ground at your show. How\u2019s that working with the hour you\u2019re touring now?<br \/>Oh, it\u2019s been really fun. I just did a casino gig, and it was a really MAGA crowd, and my opener was a joke making fun of Trump, and half the room laughed, and then the other half really enthusiastically booed. So I was able to go up there, and just by what I was talking about, make it what I think it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tWhat\u2019s it about?<br \/>This is not a battle of left and right. This is the working man versus this new era of robber barons. So I just was saying we got to stop these nerds with apps. They keep fucking over the working man. But then I was able to make fun of Trump, and they\u2019re still laughing. And then I go, to the left, \u201cWell, you know, you can\u2019t laugh at them. You elected Joe Biden. I mean, both of these guys should be in a fucking home.\u201d Like, we both kind of fucked up here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHow are you judging success now?<br \/>A lot of liberals don\u2019t like me and a lot of conservatives don\u2019t like me, which makes me feel like I\u2019m doing something right. The extremes on both sides are pretty vocal, but I feel like the people in the middle aren\u2019t like these butt-hurt idiots. I travel everywhere. Eighty-five percent of people are cool. They can listen to somebody. \u201cOh, that\u2019s how you see it. OK, cool. You want to get a sandwich?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tLet\u2019s end on something less fraught. How did you get into flying helicopters as a hobby?<br \/>I got into reading about the Federal Reserve, and I\u2019m like, \u201cThe dollar could collapse at any moment. I live in L.A. I can barely get out of this city in two hours when it works. What happens when the shit hits the fan?\u201d Up and out was the easiest way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo this is your version of a mobile panic room?<br \/>The thing about a panic room is once you go in it, you can\u2019t get the fuck out of there. The thing I like about a helicopter \u2026 I can put one gallon of fuel in there, maybe take off and fly the pattern. But I still have to come back. I have nowhere to go. There is nowhere to go. You should stay and fight. All these fucking people moving to other countries. It\u2019s just, like, that\u2019s not what you do. You stay and fight.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tEntertainment editor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/author\/david-fear\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DAVID FEAR<\/a> has interviewed Francis Ford Coppola, Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, and more for Rolling Stone.\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"production-credits-title-text \/\/  production-credits-title-text \/\/ lrv-u-display-inline lrv-u-font-family-basic u-font-size-15 lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-font-weight-800 u-letter-spacing-0 u-line-height-16\"> PRODUCTION CREDITS<\/p>\n<p class=\"production-credits-markup \/\/ production-credits-markup \/\/ lrv-u-display-inline lrv-u-font-family-body lrv-u-font-size-13 lrv-u-line-height-16 u-letter-spacing-0\"> Grooming by EVY DREW. Styling by LAUREN PRESTON. Photo assistance by GRACE TROUTMAN. Location: LUDLOW HOUSE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"B ill Burr would like to make one thing crystal clear: He never wanted to be \u201cthe angry&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[44506,321,93,61,60,127076],"class_list":["post-632553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bill-burr","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-the-rolling-stone-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}