The Nightly Show ‘icing on the cake’ for Jordan Carlos

“It never ceases to amaze me that this is my job,” Jordan Carlos says about writing for Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. Carlos, who kept slipping in subtle and funny one-liners during a recent chat with the Banner, is thrilled to be working on the network’s late-night show.

Aside from the catered lunches, the writer and comedian recalls the perks of being on the show, one of which was Jon Stewart coming over to visit the set. “It’s always amazing. We’re right around the corner from his office,” Carlos says. “I think the best thing is taking the thing that I care deeply about, or that I’m passionate about, and wiggling them and rolling them into jokes. Jokes sometimes get accepted and sometimes don’t.”

He describes how he recently read an article about comics in Myanmar and what they have to go through in order to do stand-up. “They’re being thrown into jail by an autocratic government just for making jokes in Burmese against the government. So, they have to make jokes in English and in a private space,” Carlos says. He took that story and wrote a joke about it, which got a big laugh on The Nightly Show. “I read that in the paper in the morning, and later it’s beaming out to the world.”

Pathways

Jordan Carlos began his comedy career after graduating from Brown University in 2001. By day, he worked full-time as a copywriter in a New York advertising firm. At night he performed stand-up. Eventually he decided to leave his day job and pursue comedy full-time.

For the past few years, he’s played President Obama on the online site CollegeHumor.com, along with serving as a cast member of Guy Code, Guy Court and Girl Code on MTV. He also played Stephen Colbert’s black friend Alan on The Colbert Report. Earlier this year, he was on the HBO series Girls and hits the big screen this fall with a supporting role in the movie About Ray, starring Naomi Watts, Elle Fanning and Susan Sarandon.

‘It was magic’

A member of the Comedy Central family, Carlos attended the final episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last week. “It was magic,” he said. “It was really great to be there. There were so many great moments. Colbert’s [tribute on behalf of all the correspondents] was really touching. I really liked the way Jon Stewart went out. It was funny, poignant and classy, and on top of that — when Bruce Springsteen played — it was like ridiculous.”

Carlos’ material often consists of “preppy black stuff” such as skiing, playing chess and going out to brunch. He still talks about race but he also includes sex and topical issues, particularly the presidential election. He’s looking forward to performing at Laugh Boston this weekend. “When I come up to Boston I’ll definitely speak about the election,” he says. “I’ll definitely speak about Trump. There’s no avoiding him. You can only hope to contain him as much as possible. I’d love to talk about how he’s already affecting the election. He’s fun to make fun of. He’s like a cartoon come alive.”