Most of the time, comedians start doing standup open mic nights, performing for small audiences (and probably getting booed for a while). Others find their creative outlet in television, movies, radio, cartoons, or the Internet. With enough time, patience, and luck, a good funny person can make a living making people laugh. It’s rare, but it can happen. On even rarer occasions, a comedian can make millions of dollars.
Making comedy is probably the biggest challenge for any actor. Actors who have excelled in comedy are often highly versatile and well equipped to venture into a wide variety of genres. Comedy actors possess remarkable showmanship and charisma that naturally tend to give them an edge over other actors in terms of screen presence. Great comic actors possess this unique ability to make the most mundane and boring scenes interesting and wildly funny. Read down below and find out who are most famous comedians in the world.
Stand up comedians
George Carlin
George Carlin was an American comedian known for his dark humor. His career was launched in the late 1970s and he was successful until his death in 2008. He did many one-man shows with reflections on politics, religion and often taboo subjects at that time.
Dave Chappelle
Dave Chapelle, 46, is one of America’s most popular comedians, having been doing TV specials since he was in his 20s and recently landed a big deal with Netflix. He’s known for saying the wrong things, vindicating it, which periodically pisses some off: his latest show is no different, especially his part about Michael Jackson.
Bill Burr
He is 51 years old and many know him for having played a minor role in Breaking Bad – Patrick Kuby, one of Saul Goodman’s handymen –, although the most important thing he has done is the Netflix animation series F for Family , which he created and in which he doubles the protagonist. He too is one of those comedians who in recent years, in which the general sensitivity on comedy has changed a lot, has decided to look for the most wrong and provocative things to say, and to say them one after the other. He is very good at it. Paper Tiger was recorded in London, and came out in September.
Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers is the host of Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC, one of the most popular American talk shows, but he came after a long career as an author and comedian on Saturday Night Live, where he started in 2001. Today he is a big shot of the American television, has already hosted the Emmys and Golden Globes, and is back to do a Netflix special taped in Minneapolis and released in November: the title depends on the fact that Meyers’ son was literally born in the hall of their apartment.
Female comedians
Whitney Cummings
She is 37 years old, is from Washington and among other things she was the protagonist of the TV series Whitney , which aired for two seasons on NBC, and the creator of the series 2 Broke Girls. Her latest show on Netflix came out last July, and the whole first part is about what has changed in the year since #MeToo.
Tig Notaro
Tig Notaro is one of the most talented and appreciated comedians in the United States, even if her notoriety is a bit niche and it is not one that fills the arenas. She is 48 years old and has done a series on Amazon Prime called One Mississippi, as well as having starred in Transparent. Among the things she talks about most often are her masculine looks and her breast cancer.
Ali Wong
She is Californian, has Vietnamese and Chinese ancestry, has been appearing in TV series and comedy programs for several years and released her first Netflix special in 2016. She recently voiced one of the main characters in Tuca & Bertie and a supporting character in Bigmouth, both animated series of Netflix, where he also has another show called Baby Cobra. She recorded Hard Knock Wife seven and a half months pregnant.
Sarah Silverman
She is one of the most popular comedians of her generation, with a stint on Saturday Night Live and a talk show that aired for a while on the Hulu streaming service, I Love You, America with Sarah Silverman. She is 48 years old and likes to talk about controversial topics, even those little frequented by comedians in recent years, doing it very well.
Amy Schumer
Amy Schumer has made films and series, written books, won many awards and is now one of the most followed comedians in the United States. Her latest special came out on Netflix this year, and she recorded it during her pregnancy, which she talks about abundantly.
Nanette
It was probably the most talked about stand-up comedy show in recent years: it was done by Hannah Gadsby, who comes from Tasmania and who before Nanette was known practically only in Australia. But her show about her stood out immediately, because it’s not so much stand up comedy as a monologue in which she tells her story about her (a story of great suffering). When it arrived on Netflix it was enthusiastically reviewed by the most important international newspapers, and there was a lot of talk about it. Even if, precisely, it’s not really stand up comedy, as Matteo Bordone also wrote in the Post.
British comedians
James Acaster
He made his first appearance at the Fringe festival in 2009, he is one of the most influential comedians in the United Kingdom. His show combines sketches that are often narrative and involve some audience participation, along with plenty of commentary on being uncool. He has performed on stage and on television, and is also the author of two books: “Classic Scrapes”, which recounts his many misadventures, and “Perfect Sound Whatever”, which deals with music.
Ricky Gervais
He is an English comedian, actor, singer, screenwriter, director and television producer. He is best known for his portrayal of David Brent in The Office and Andy Millman in Extras – a television series he created with his sidekick Stephen Merchant. Internationally, he is best known for his role as Dr. McPhee in the three-part saga Night at the Museum. During his career, he won seven British Academy Film Awards, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes as well as the honorary rose of the Golden Rose Festival between 2006. In the ranking of the 100 greatest stand-upers of Channel 4 in 2010, Ricky Gervais was ranked third that year.
Famous comedians
Chris D’Elia
Chris D’Elia is 39 years old, starred alongside Whitney Cummings in Whitney and other American series and will appear in the new season of You, produced by Netflix. He has two specials on Netflix, Man on Fire being the most recent.
Daniel Sloss
He’s Scottish, he’s 29 but he’s been famous for about ten years, when he started appearing in London clubs and on television. On Netflix there are two special him, Dark and Jigsaw, in which, among other things, he plays the classic part of the European comedian who makes fun of the Americans.
Chris Rock
Chris Rock is one of the most important comedians in the world of the last twenty years, since he was on Saturday Night Live in the nineties, who in his career has made films (such as Grown Ups ) and series (such as Everybody Hates Chris ), dubbed the zebra in Madagascar , did a lot of specials for HBO and in 2005 and 2016 hosted the Oscars. Tamborine came out last year, and it’s the first TV show he’s done in ten years.
John Mulaney
John Mulaney worked several years on Saturday Night and is now quite a big shot, both in his duo with Nick Kroll and for his work as a voice actor, in the animated series Big Mouth and in the film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Last year’s special on Netflix really liked him, especially for the “free horse in a hospital” segment.
