DEON COLE LIKES WHAT HE SEES IN THE MIRROR

THE LONGTIME COMIC GETS REAL ON CROWD WORK AND WHY OPENING UP ON STAGE IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF IT ALL

- BY MARISSA EVANS

CÉCILE BOKO

DEON COLE will tell anyone plainly: Not every comic wants to talk about their audience members. The longtime stand-up comedian will do some crowd work if he must. But he would much rather tell you the jokes he wrote. It's the nature of a changing audience that is now more likely to stumble upon comedians they haven't seen before through short social media clips, rather than an impromptu night at a comedy club.

"[The audience] feel like, 'Hey, we came to improv, we came to have fun' and it’s like, no, you know how long it took me to write these jokes?" Cole said with a laugh. “I don’t need you coming here screaming at me, and then I spend five minutes talking about you and your mom and your kids, and then I forgot what I was doing, and now the tone of the show is messed up.”

The Chicago-born comedian, actor and writer has long juggled multiple projects. This includes writing for “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” and acting in films such as “The Color Purple” and “The Harder They Fall” as well as television shows like “blackish.” Cole has also taped multiple comedy specials with Netflix over the years, including “Cole Hearted” in 2019, “Charleen’s Boy” in 2022, and “Ok, Mister” in 2024. He has also been excited about the launch of his YouTube show “Funny Knowing You,” where he gets to interview fellow comics and celebrities as they talk about their life stories.

But as he considers his legacy and comedic craft, Cole said he is proud he is still himself after all of this time in the industry. “There's a lot of people who look in the mirror every morning and go out in the world and become something else, when the thing that’s going to make them rich and successful is in the mirror,” Cole said. “I think that whoever that person is in the mirror you need to take that person with you and apply that person to everything that you do, and that’s gonna make the difference in your life.”