Richard Lewis talks to Antonio Mora

Antonio Mora: You been sober for almost 21 years. You're married …

Richard Lewis: Married 10 years.

And have a great career.

It's been going on for 45 years, and all sorts of stuff. It's really been a really great time. Touring and a new book and a new series.

You've got all this great stuff going on. You're a household name. So then why in the world do you call your book "Reflections From Hell: Richard Lewis' Guide on How Not to Live"? Life can't be that bad.

No, it's not, really. Well, I had not a great upbringing. Was an alcoholic and a drug addict for a long time. I was in horrible relationships by my own doing. It wasn't always their fault. I own up to a lot of that, made a lot of amends to people. But so that was my sweet spot in comedy. My father died before I was a comedian. My brother was old at that point. I was really young. I was a mistake — there was no doubt in my mind. When I was born, my father looked like Moses, and my mother, she was already in a Eugene O'Neill play, going down. My sister eloped when I was 12. And my brother was reading Allen Ginsburg poems in the Village, and I'm there alone with my poor mother. It was like a combination of "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and "Odd Couple."

And you write a lot about your family.

So that's why my need [for] this book. But right to the nitty-gritty, Carl Nicholas Titolo is an artist I met 35 years ago through an old buddy. And I was blown away by this guy. And he's a legendary professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York for 40 years. But his art style was very close to my riffing, free associating. I always wanted to collaborate with him, but didn't know how. And then about two years ago, I came up with an idea. Actually, "Look, I have some thoughts. They're not jokes. Some of them may be jokes … and I'll call you with five and six." He goes, "I like this one. Goodbye." And then he would do an image, and as it turned out, there have been several collaborations like this. Not to be grandiose, but Edgar Allan Poe did "The Raven," and Manet illustrated it on each page.

But how about a comedian's jokes being illustrated. Is that original? Has anybody ever done that?

Probably not. I think it's really authentic, and for me, when I grew up, I had idols in the arts. The arts saved my life when I was a kid. The family was really dysfunctional. So if I saw a movie as a kid and I couldn't believe how great it was, maybe I didn't understand the art form. Let's say when I was 12 I saw "Dr. Strangelove." I would sit after the movie was over, I obviously didn't get the total understanding of the Russians and this and the Cold War and all. But I knew I saw something so spectacular that, in my head, something like that, a bar was set. But then I got older, and I went to college, and then the New Wave of films came in, with Truffaut and Godard. And then I saw Cassavetes movies, and then I would listen to Miles Davis and Hendrix. Then I heard Lenny Bruce and then became friends and saw Richard Pryor … I said, "If I ever go onstage," and I did it about a month or two after my dad died, I said, "I have to reach for … I have to unravel myself onstage as fearlessly as possible and see if I get laughs." Because I really did feel pretty much like a Chagall painting, but I was sort of tethered to nothing. Because I really didn't have much of a family life. So the audience became my family. 

And all that led to what at times was crippling depression. You had serious problems with addiction. What do you tell people who think "Here's a guy who had all sorts of successful sitcoms, movies, books and all this" and they can't understand how somebody like you could've gone through that.

I know what success means, OK? I get it. And I've earned it. Nothing mattered more to me than finding myself onstage and becoming authentic. And I was broke for a long time. But I still felt like a million bucks — broke, living in horrible places — going into a club and seeing these famous comedians come over to me, "You have it. You're going to make it. But you got to work your ass off. You got to do this 24/7." These were the greats telling me this.

Has anxiety always been kind of the fuel to your comedy? You've been dubbed the Prince of Pain, and in the book, you describe yourself as "the best sparring partner I can have." So does beating yourself up defuse the anxiety, or does it actually make it better?

That's a great question. God, I haven't seen my therapist in quite a while — just reminded me. I am not as unhappy as people think I am. But my sweet spot — and one of the lines is that desperation is my sweet spot — that's a craft that I honed. And even though I got sober, I got more grateful, I got more spiritual, in my later years, still, when I hear, "Ladies and gentlemen, Richard Lewis," and my goal is to make people laugh. First of all, I'm not entirely not depressed a lot of the time either. I don't want to paint this rosy picture. But it's much rosier than being near death on crystal meth, let's put it that way.

But you write in the book — you've got one that says, "Happiness is overrated," "There's nothing to fear but life itself."

Well, because life has dealt me a lot of bad blows. Nothing close to the majority of the world. And what bugs me is that when people say, "Hey, hey, you hang out with the Stones." You know, I used to work for [Bill and Hillary Clinton] a lot when he was running and [Al] Gore, and "You're in the White House, and how can you be ...?" I go, "Hey, hey, time out, man. You know, I suffer from depression. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder." I work my butt off, I have no children, so it's all my art, until I met my wife. And then it was taking care of her. And my sister has four kids, 10 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and I try to be some kind of role model. Sort of frightening, I understand.

Does she let them watch you?

Well, not until they're 30. 

Talking about your family — your good friend Larry David, he says that you use "shrink" as much as teenagers use "like." So pardon me for acting like a shrink, but let's talk about your family. You really go after your parents in this book, especially your mom, and you write, "The worst audience I ever had were my parents," "My mother tried to switch me at birth," "After I was born, my mother asked her friends to breast-feed me." How much of a role did your mom play in your dark years?

Well, what do you think? Here's the deal. I made amends with my mother. My mother was very ill. She had a lot of emotional problems in her late 30s on and until she got old. And I tried my best to understand it. But again, realize, back when she was having her problems, I was an active addict. So I couldn't have been easy either, I mean, when she really lost it at the end. I have an older sister and an older brother. She was with her and made sure she would get the best care, and so did I. And all of us tried to do what we could do. I remember something when she was in the hospital and she was near death. And she really didn't know who she was at that point. I grabbed on to her, and I said, "Look, I was far from perfect. Neither one of us were. But I love you, and please forgive anything I did and if you can, because I forgive you for everything." I mean, I did, and I do. I don't hold on to it. And I said, "Just squeeze me." And you have to understand, this is at a point where she was insane, basically. And she grabbed my hand and squeezed it, and I'll always remember that. But that doesn't mean that I can't mine those feelings, because we did have a pretty tough relationship.

Who's your favorite comedian of all time?

There's two. Lenny Bruce, for what he did for the First Amendment and his body of his work, and if you're not familiar with it. But perhaps the greatest stand-up comedian other than — and maybe arguably the greatest stand-up comedian — is Richard Pryor. Because Richard Pryor had so many tools. 

You became successful pretty early.

I was on "The Tonight Show." I was on with [Johnny] Carson in almost two and a half years, and that's pretty fast. I had a lot of breaks too. [David] Letterman, he came over to me, and he says, "You know, you're good with Johnny. Some nights are better than others. But when you do stand-up, the camera's right there." And I'm real kinetic.

Of course, you did Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Yes, and that ran over the course of almost a decade. Larry came over my house … and he said, "Would you mind playing yourself?" … First of all, to turn down Larry David would have been a huge career [mistake] … I was 50. I said, "Who gets this opportunity?" And who knew it would be such a cult hit? So I said, "I'm in." We were born in the same hospital. I had the right to ask him for anything I wanted, and we had other weird, mystical things happen in our life. Met when teenagers, hated one another, didn't know each other till we were comics, and then I recognized him. 

You became friends, and then you realized he was the guy from camp.

In a summer camp, sports camp. Hated each other, never saw each other till we were comedians, became inseparable best friends. I must have put a few back, I went, it was like, "You look like Rosemary's baby to me. Like, half a sheep, half a comic." Whatever I say, I was drunk. And he gets nervous. He wasn't a drinker or a drug guy. And we realized that we were the same two kids. Not to mention born in the same hospital, and I had to stay around because I was a preemie. So he was born three days later, but I was still there.

So things worked out, fortunately. But he was mocking me then. He tried to strangle me with my mother's umbilical cord. We fought. We still fight. But he said, "Do you want to play yourself?" I went, "Yes. With you, I'll do anything." And thank God I did. It was such a groundbreaking sitcom. I'm a fan of the show.

I think it's the funniest thing that's ever been on television, personally. Did it change the way people perceived you — the fact that you were playing yourself?

I was more narcissistic on that show than I am, believe it or not, because that's the kind of characters that they were. And sometimes I was a little uncomfortable, and they would make me go a little deeper into ego. But some of them, it was so hilarious. He has such great instincts, I said, "You know what? Let it go." You know, "Let me just be a real jerk." He always gave me the most beautiful girlfriends. Of course and he never let me, ever, not even the slightest kiss for 10 years. I mean, these were drop-dead killers.

Having been in comedy for all these decades now, what do you think about the state of comedy in the U.S.? You know, the old days in New York, you had comedy clubs in all the neighborhoods. 

I made it a point not to watch a lot of comedians when I started getting into it, because I'm ethical, OK? In a ruthless field. I didn't want to hear other people talk about their grandfather's sweater, because I would block out "grandfather's sweater," even if I had nothing funny to say about it. Maybe forever. It's just the way I am. I really am in love with the craft and treat it like gold. A lot don't. A lot of comedians haven't, historically and even now. So when I hear someone's great, I'll watch five minutes. I go, "I get it. Whoa, brilliant." And then that's it. I don't need to see a 90-minute special, I watch enough to know so I'm not so out of touch and living in a bubble. But the state of affairs, you know? There's more edgy comics right now. These roasts, I'm not a fan of roasts. I would roast myself, but that's about it. I'm a First Amendment guy, so anything goes. But there's a difference between being an edgy comic and a brilliant edgy comic. I'm not talking about myself. But younger comics coming up who think they're edgy, but there's no premise or, really, nothing profoundly funny about what they're saying.

On the other hand, I think there's a majority of comics now who are brilliant and are edgy. And I'm glad that there's moments when "Whoa, he said that? She said that?" Because I would be the last person on the planet to say, "You can't say that," you know. If there's going to be a consequence, let them have it. Let them say it and then see what happens to them. But in terms in of the clubs and the promoters, the buyers, the club owners, they should all live on Devil's Island.

In his foreword [to "Reflections from Hell"] Larry David says knowing you "could cost you a job, a relationship and, quite possibly, your life." Should I and all of us in this room be worried?

No. Larry should be worried for saying that publicly. I might kill him. But I love you guys. And you're one of the most prepared journalists I've ever known. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.