Each year, Variety presents its 10 Comics to Watch at Just for Laughs Montreal. This year’s honorees will be feted at a cocktail reception and a panel discussion July 29 before performing at a showcase on July 30. More info at montreal.hahaha.com.

  • Rosebud Baker

    “Whiskey Fists,” “Life & Beth”

    Baker’s fiercely personal and ultra-dark comedy style has been making waves recently, and last August, her hourlong stand-up special, “Whiskey Fists,” premiered on Comedy Central Digital/YouTube to critical acclaim. In the program, which was produced by Bill Burr’s company All Things Comedy, Baker explores everything from being in an abusive relationship to her love of dogs over humans.

    “I’m super proud of ‘Whiskey Fists,’ as it was the result of a lot of years of hard work, and I’ve learned that the most successful comics are always staying true to themselves. The things I find funniest are always a little dark and sad. Music that makes me happy and sad at the same time is my favorite, and the same goes for comedy.”

    In addition to being a writer on “Saturday Night Live” and on the HBO Max series “That Damn Michael Che,” she has a recurring role on Hulu’s “Life & Beth,” and has appeared on HBO’s “Pause With Sam Jay.”

    “Working on ‘SNL’ has been a massive learning process and a skillset I hadn’t acquired before, as I’d never done live sketch,” Baker says. “Everyone there is at the top of their game, and you quickly realize you’ve got a lot to learn, which is humbling in a great way.”

    Baker also hosts the popular weekly podcast “Find Your Beach,” which was launched in 2020 during quarantine with her husband and fellow comic, Andy Haynes. “I want to keep making things with people who inspire me, and with people I’m close with, and to just keep doing things that I love with my friends. It’s kind of childish, but that’s why I love doing this stuff.”
    — Nick Clement

    Reps: Agency: CAA; Management:  Levity Live; Legal: Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham
    Influences:  Eddie Murphy, Maria Bamford, Dave Chappelle, Dave Attell

  • JR De Guzman 

    “Dual Citizen” 

    De Guzman, who is known for tackling serious topics by disguising them as light-hearted tunes that he accompanies with his guitar, has an interesting trait for a comedian: a guilty conscience. He once considered cutting a song after he got a Facebook message from a fan saying that it upset them — something his comedian friends talked him out of. 

    It’s important for De Guzman that his sets are meant to feel “like a family gathering,” which he credits to his Filipino roots. His mom still texts him before shows with messages to “bring healing, you and laughter to your audience.”

    His material, which includes songs “Asian Guys Can Smash” and “Don’t Show Your Dick,” take on topics such as AAPI hate and the #MeToo movement without being overly blue. His album, “Dual Citizen,” debuted at No. 1 on the iTunes and Billboard comedy charts.  

    “When I look at the stuff that I have on paper, sometimes I get nervous about it being too dirty,” he admits, even though he knows that “it’s not cool, as a comic, to be a cynic.”

    Similarly, he holds himself to a high standard of what he talks about, and how he does it. Just as we may judge a white, heterosexual cis-male comic for attempting to talk about the Asian or LGBTQ+ experience, De Guzman says, “if I’m going to talk about things that I haven’t necessarily experienced, what can I bring to that that’s new, unique and funny?”

    When he thinks of projects, De Guzman looks at talent such as Donald Glover, who has his musician alias, Childish Gambino, as well as the importance of finding ways to bring up other comedians the way Adam Sandler has. He’s also influenced by specials such as Demetri Martin’s “If I,” which had a personal narrative linked through a serious topic like existential dread.

    “I just want to create some library of stuff that I’m proud of, at the end of the day, whether it’s music, comedy, film or TV.”

    — Whitney Friedlander

    Reps: Agency: CAA; Management:  Levity Live; Legal: Ziffren Brittenham
    Influences: Jo Koy, Demetri Martin, Adam Sandler

  • Vanessa Gonzalez   

    Chelsea Handler’s “Vaccinated and Horny Tour”

    It was late 2020 and Gonzalez was riding out the pandemic, wondering when — or even if — her next gig was going to materialize. Then Chelsea Handler slid into her DMs. Recalls the Laredo, Texas, native: “I was like: Is this for real? And then I felt bad because I didn’t follow her. That was like, ‘Oh, this is awkward — she’s going to see me follow her right now.’” 

    Cut to August and Gonzalez found herself the opening act for Handler’s “Vaccinated and Horny Tour.” Originally booked for one show, Gonzalez has since appeared in “most of the tour,” including its May 5 stop at the Wiltern Theater in L.A. as part of the Netflix Is a Joke festival. 

    For Gonzalez, who, following graduation from Texas State University, spent six years as a preschool teacher in Austin — experience providing ample fodder for her stand-up routine, from bits about “muffins for moms day” to the “$10 an hour” paycheck — zig-zagging the country with Handler has been “really surreal.” 

    “Chelsea’s been so amazing and generous and she’s always encouraging me. She’ll sit and watch my set every night,” says Gonzalez. “When I get off stage she’s there high-fiving me and telling me how great I did.I’ve never felt so supported. It’s been overwhelming — her generosity, her love. She wants me to succeed. Usually with comics, there’s a weirdness. They’re threatened, there’s always a competition. And this is the first time where I actually feel lifted up by a comedian. And it’s so cool.” 

    With a recent guest spot on HBO Max’s freshman sitcom “The Garcias” to her credit, Gonzalez, based in Austin, is now setting her sights on landing an “hourlong comedy special.” 

    “It’s on my bucket list, it’s on my vision board,” she says. “I have the material for it. So, I’m ready, for whomever wants it.”  

    —Malina Saval

    Reps: Agency: Buchwald Legal: Myman Greenspan
    Influences: John Leguizamo, Martin Lawrence, Cristela Alonzo

  • Jay Jurden  

    “The Problem With Jon Stewart”

    New York-based Jurden, who hails from Mississippi, has been extremely busy over the past year with countrywide stand-up performances, while also serving as an original staff writer on “The Problem With Jon Stewart,” which streams on Apple TV+. 

    “I absolutely love stand-up, and I don’t think enough people truly say that,” says Jurden. “It’s such a cool art form in that you get immediate feedback in real time. And right now, one of the funniest things to me is the tension that can build up between four generations of people, and how they approach comedy and embrace and love different things that other people don’t.” 

    Jurden has been seen on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon,” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “The Late Late Show With James Corden.” He has appeared on Comedy Central’s “Featuring” and HBO’s “High Maintenance.” 

    “I’m really interested in movies and television, and exploring those areas further. I love scripted work and acting, and I have a background in theater and performing arts,” he says. 

    In addition, his comedy album, “Y’all,” debuted at No.1 on iTunes, and he’s written for such outlets as Vulture, Teen Vogue, McSweeney’s and the New Yorker. 

    He’s also acutely aware of how the comedic landscape has blossomed and evolved over the years, and sees that as a challenge. “I don’t think comedy has gotten harder because of cancel culture. It’s more about content culture, and being inundated by so many voices and things every day. Everyone’s comedy acumen has gotten better over the last 10-15 years, because people have had access to really great humor, through cable and streaming and the internet. So, everyone has gotten better as a result.”

     — Nick Clement

    Reps: Agency: APA; Management: Seven Summits
    Influences: Richard Pryor, Wanda Sykes, Roy Wood Jr.

  • Matteo Lane   

    “Inside the Closet”

    Lane is multifaceted: he speaks five languages, has a six-octave range as an opera singer and lived in Italy as a singer and painter. Comedy came naturally after growing up with 28 cousins on one block, a raucous family that communicated through humor. “Comedy is just an extension of how I speak.”

    He hones his craft by performing four shows a night at the Comedy Cellar whenever he’s in New York. “That way you can hyper-focus on a joke,” he says. He also co-hosts the podcast “Inside the Closet” with Emma Willman, in which they talk about their experiences as gay comics.

    But his career — which includes a 25-market fall tour, a planned theater tour for 2023 and a deal for an animated half-hour he is co-creating called “Kickass Drag Queen”— only recently found its footing. “I got into comedy so late because I didn’t think it was available to me,” he says. “I never saw gay men doing comedy.” 

    A year ago, he felt “backed into a corner,” overwhelmed by rejections for live shows, a proposed special and acting gigs. Fellow comic Andrew Schultz “singlehandedly saved my career” by helping Lane curate his career online, cutting his hour of material into clips tailored to Instagram.

    “Once I ignored the industry and did what I wanted to do, everything changed,” Lane says. His IG following tripled, offers arrived for bigger shows and ticket sales took off. “My agent said, ‘You’re selling out everywhere. Do you think it’s a glitch?’”

    This is not a glitch. 

    — Stuart Miller

    Reps: Agency: ICM; Management: Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment; Legal: Granderson Des Rochers
    Influences: Joan Rivers, his aunt Cindy

  • Claudia O’Doherty    

    “Killing It”

    O’Doherty has come a long way — in every meaning of the phrase. From her beginnings in an Australian collegiate sketch group, to creating her own solo shows at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and Edinburgh Fringe, to her big break in London and finally making it in America by starring in the Peacock series “Killing It,” the affable Aussie has made honing her wit a worldwide adventure. “I realized if I went to other countries, I might be able to create a career for myself,” says O’Doherty.

    She realized she had a gift for comedy in 1992 at a Hard Rock Cafe, getting a laugh doing an Anthony Kiedis impression for her table. “I had always wanted to do comedy,” recalls O’Doherty. “Being silly seemed like the coolest thing to me. Sillier character stuff was always what I was drawn to doing and, luckily, that has guided me to getting jobs in that world.”

    Though she’s carved out impactful supporting roles in films including “Trainwreck,” “Long Shot” and “Extra Ordinary,” it’s in projects that combine comedy and drama, such as “Love,” “Our Flag Means Death” and “Killing It,” that have not only allowed her comedic skills to shine, but also show she can nimbly negotiate the poignancy of her characters’ bleak circumstances. “That has really been a lucky addition to everything,” O’Doherty says. “I really wanted to be funny, but I guess I’ve ended up playing these semi-tragic characters.”

    Yet with all this mounting success, her goals remain modest: “I just hope to get enough money to buy a house. I’m not hoping to host the ‘X Factor’ or anything like that. I just want to keep being in funny things.” 
    — Courtney Howard

    Reps: Agency: UTA; Management: Rise; Legal: Felker Toczek Suddleson Abramson McGinnis Ryan
    Influences: “The Simpsons,” Christopher Guest, Craig Robinson, Cole Escola, Edy Modica, Aaron Chen, Eric Rahill, her niece

  • Atsuko Okatsuka 

    The Drop Challenge, “Let’s Go, Atsuko”

    Born in Taiwan and raised in Japan until she moved with her grandmother and schizophrenic mother to a garage in a Los Angeles suburb, there’s really nothing about Okatsuka’s life that’s off the record. She uses her social-media platforms to work out material and accidentally create viral sensations including the Drop Challenge (where one squats to a Beyoncé tune while looking at the camera) as well as show the monotony of life such as a broken- down car or trying to get through to her health insurance.

    “I don’t keep a diary; I have Instagram,” Okatsuka says in her trademark slow, deadpan delivery. Her style is so easygoing that she was once able to keep an audience together when an earthquake happened during one of her sets. But she guffaws when that adjective is used to describe her demeanor. 

    “I think I sort of teeter,” she says. “Sometimes I’m chill. Sometimes it’s this faux confidence. If I’m talking about something that I don’t understand, there’s like a faux anger, even. But it all has this silliness undertone to it. The chillness; I think it’s good to keep me sort of grounded and confident so that I can give the audience a full experience.”

    Okatsuko also had a show on the shuttered streaming app Quibi that was based on her podcast and stand-up/game show hybrid, “Let’s Go, Atsuko” — which was created out of a place of insecurity and fear that no one would come just to see her perform.  

    Ironically, the death of Quibi combined with the pandemic-fueled lockdown may have been the best thing for Okatsuka’s career. While others were making sourdough starters or murdering plants, she channeled her newfound downtime into creating enough material to tour with her own one-hour set. Called “The Intruder,” it will run throughout August at the Edinburgh Fringe   Festival.
    — Whitney Friedlander

    Reps: Agency: CAA; Management: 3 Arts Entertainment; Legal: Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler, Feldman & Clark
    Influences: Chelsea Handler, Tig Notaro, Margaret Cho

  • Blair Socci   

    “Dear Owen Wilson”

    Socci didn’t realize her voice — which has been described as Barbie on Valium or the love child of Fran Drescher and a Muppet — was distinctive until she became a comic. 

    “As the little sister I’ve been made fun of to death but no one ever said a word about my voice,” says Socci.

    Initially, Socci cared only about her literary voice, getting an MFA at the New School in New York with dreams of writing a novel. She’d never watched comedy growing up but when she saw her first live show at 25, she became “obsessed.” 

    Socci started interviewing stand-ups for Splitsider then made her way onto the stage herself. She focused on language initially, using a deadpan delivery. But “that was not the real me — I’m an expressive and emotional person.” 

    Eventually she unleashed her inner “maniac” onstage, although she still types out her jokes, reveling in word choice and linguistics, no matter the topic. 

    To expand her acting opportunities, Socci moved back to California. She has a podcast, “Dear Owen Wilson,” two TV shows she’s pitching, and voice roles in Comedy Central’s “Fairview” and the “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” feature. 

    “I’d love a Melissa McCarthy- type career,” she says, but adds that now she really enjoys voice work and dreams of doing a Pixar movie. Her novel is on hold for the foreseeable future. “Maybe when I slow down and I’m 67 years old I’ll write it.”
    — Stuart Miller

    Reps: Agency: A3 Artists; Management: Truhett Management Legal: Ginsburg Daniels Kallis
    Influences: Eddie Pepitone, Ron Funches, Rory Scovel, Maria Bamford, Ms. Pat

  • Moses Storm  

    “Trash White”

    Storm is addressing old wounds. In his HBO Max stand-up special “Trash White,” which earned critical acclaim in January, those wounds were imposed by parents who raised him in a doomsday cult that trapped him in poverty and isolated him from society. But now, Storm is trying to heal from an injury onstage at Caroline’s
    On Broadway. 

    These wounds too were hard-earned — in a new bit, Storm explains how the cult recruits people by doing the Brazilian fight/dance technique capoeira. Then he invites people onstage to critique his style and take him on. At one show, a woman who was a jujitsu competitor flipped him in the air. “I got my ass kicked,” he says.

    Storm started in stand-up then veered into improv before returning; he blends “traditional well-structured stand-up and art comedy” in his shows, even though there’s typically a “huge divide”’ in the comedy world between the works of, say, Bill Burr and
    Bo Burnham.

    “One has no visuals and the other sometimes sacrifices jokes for the theme and the personal story,” he says. “I’m trying to mix the two with concept-heavy shows that look great, are emotionally honest and have actual punchlines.”

    That’s the short-term plan. If Storm succeeds, he says he’ll leave stand-up behind. “Rich guy stand-up is the worst because money buys comfort, which removes you from any experience you need,” he says. “You won’t be on the airplane next to the lady who made her own hand-rolled sushi and is passing it to her husband, and it falls on your lap.”

    At that point, Storm, who appears in Phoebe Robinson’s new series, “Everything’s Trash,” as well as the series “Players,” hopes to move fully into acting. “I just love performing and acting will still allow me to do that,” he says.

    — Stuart Miller

    Reps: Agency: WME; Management: Haven Entertainment; Legal: Hansen, Jacobson
    Influences: Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock, Roy Wood Jr

  • Sheng Wang

    Untitled Netflix Special

    Whether it be shedding light on the merits of snuggling, or a shared worry over avocados rotting too quickly, Wang’s acts over the years have given audiences insight and laughs. His gift for observational comedy began young. “I remember as a kid, I was so enamored with a piece of marble — a whole universe that you can observe in this tiny rock,” he says. “I like playing in that area of focusing on small things, but finding a world on a different level.”

    Wang admits he wasn’t the class clown in high school. It wasn’t until he started going to open mic nights at the Punchline in San Francisco that he felt inspired to pursue stand-up. And while there have been ebbs and flows throughout his 20-plus year career, he says: “For me, it was always about ‘Let me get better and see what my peak is. Let me see what I can grow into, or what I can evolve into.’”

    After achieving notoriety on the comedy club circuit, Wang parlayed his talents into writing on the sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat.” “I learned a lot in that room in terms of the things that help keep a show compelling and the story compelling,” he says. “I assume that definitely comes into play when I’m trying to find a new angle to service a joke or premise.”

    With a yet-to-be-titled comedy special directed by Ali Wong due for release on Netflix Sept. 5, Wang’s creativity continues to flourish. He has summer tour dates lined up and is workshopping a new act that brings together his interest in photography and florae. “People laugh and come away with a newfound appreciation and awareness for plants in their lives after the show.”
    — Courtney Howard

    Reps: Agency: UTA; Legal: Hansen, Jacobson, Teller, Hoberman, Newman, Warren, Richman, Rush, Kaller, Gellman, Meigs & Fox
    Influences: Mitch Hedberg, his cousin Sam, meditation, trees, workers and all the service industry folks

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