‘Just for Us Comedian’ Alex Edelman Isn’t Interested in Playing the Victim

Pauline Kael, the legendary critic—everyone else was giving Judgment at Nuremberg, one of the first great post-Holocaust films, great reviews. And Pauline Kael’s was scathing. Someone asked her about it, and she [supposedly] said it took a very brave stance against being a Nazi. I thought that was really apropos.

I really hate that. I really hate people taking a brave stance against being a Nazi. And at the same time, it’s not good to be one.

One of the big takeaways from the show is how pathetic the white supremacists whom you met are. They’re just these losers in a room complaining.

Yes. Well, most of us are just losers in a room complaining. But yes, they are.

That part feels in line with a great Jewish history of making fun of Nazis, making them ridiculous—you know, the Mel Brooks school of comedy.

God, I love him. I’d say him and Norman Lear have been something of benign grandfather figures, in the sense that I get lots of notes from Mel and his [producing partner] Kevin Salter. He’s my prime influence. And on the non-Jewish side, Steve Martin.

I’m curious about the experience of doing the show in the wake of October 7, how that affected you and your performance. Is there any material that you felt like you’ve had to change, or edit out, or add?

I thought really deeply after October 7 about whether to perform the show differently, and I thought that it should be addressed at the top. So there’s now an address—which isn’t in the special, and I’m glad isn’t in the special. What I say is, when I was in high school, I saw John Updike give a talk. He said, “If you’re lucky, at some point in your life, the work that you write will find itself in conversation with the times in which you live.” And then I go, “Well, call me Mr. Lucky.”

I like that because it lets people know that I’m aware of what’s going on, but I’m not a slave to what’s going on. The show should be conversant with a moment, but it shouldn’t be entirely beholden to it. I think that’s bad for the art.

Obviously, art and politics have no choice but to intersect and get in each other’s way. I’m also wondering if you were following the controversy around Jonathan Glazer’s speech at the Oscars.

I thought it was a fascinating inflection point for people to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is supposed to be the focus of my next show.

Is your next show going to be 20 hours long?

Yeah, it’s going to be 20 hours long, with footnotes from Edward Said, Leon Uris, Abba Eban.

I think the conflict is… Sometimes people are like, “It’s not complicated. This is true, or this is true, or this is true.” People feel very differently about the facts on the ground based on where they’re from, or based on what they were raised with, or based on their personal experience. The truth of the matter is, it feels like it’s really hard to move anyone off of their position. And to me, as an observer, that is really fascinating. For something like that speech, watching everyone emerge from their corners of the dialectic briefly to raise their hands and say their things, it’s really, really something.