For his role in the independent feature film, Stags, Jesse Joyce plays a brooding, alcoholic stand-up comedian. A real stretch, right?
As Joyce readily tells his comedy club audiences, he no longer drinks. But he still can act drunk in the movies!
Stags has its world premiere tonight at the Dance With Films festival in Los Angeles, with an East Coast premiere to come June 24 at the Visionfest festival in New York City. Produced by Ben Barenholz (Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Requiem for a Dream), and directed by Jamie Greenberg, the film revolves around four career bachelors.
Here's the trailer…Roll it!
In this clip of Joyce performing at the Skyline Comedy Club, he talks in the opening minute about filming Stags and wanting to make sure he got the comedy part right.
In addition, Joyce told The Comic's Comic:
"Here's the way I describe it…it's basically Swingers meets Sex and The City – for dudes. I'm kind of the dark-horse character. I'm the one who kind of fucks stuff up in the film. I guess the other talking point worth a mention is that Jamie Greenberg, the writer/director was cool enough to trust me to write all the stand-up for the character. He had stuff on the page, but since he's not a stand up, we talked about it and he let me rework the sets to keep the message — like at one point Price (my character) has a total meltdown on stage and storms off…so I had to keep that momentum, but he let me write the jokes that got to that arch."
The film also features supporting roles for other comedians, including Kimmy Gatewood, Ann Carr, Jay Bois and Mike Birch.
Best of luck. But I imagine it shall be just as forgettable and equally as unprofitable at “Tell Your Friends”.