How Louis C.K. Became the Darkest, Funniest Comedian in America

He may joke about humiliation and masturbation – but he also desperately wants to do the right thing

December 12, 2011 9:45 AM ET

Louis C.K. performs on stage at 'The Nasty Show' during TBS presents A Very Funny Festival.

Barry Brecheisen/WireImage

The following is an excerpt of the Louis C.K. feature in the December 22, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone, on stands December 9th.

One Thursday this fall, Louis C.K. was in a dressing room at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre, passing time between two back-to-back stand-up performances and feeling, as he so often does, like a piece of shit. "I was so upset," he recalls, sitting in the same dressing room a couple of evenings later. The Thursday performances were being taped for an upcoming special, and although they'd both sold out in no time, and although he'd polished his jokes in clubs for months, C.K. had suddenly convinced himself that his material was garbage. "It happens every time," he says, his stocky frame parked in a plush armchair, his thinning red hair freshly trimmed. "I tape two shows, and the first one feels lackluster and uninspired. The audience feels judgmental and disappointed. I'm going, 'This was a mistake. This material's not as good as last year. This is gonna be the one where they say, "He didn't do it this time." I didn't do anything right. All this stuff is shit.' " He grins. "Then a few minutes before the second show, I go, 'No. This is fun. I enjoy it.'"

Tonight's Saturday, and he's in a better mood. In 15 minutes he'll head downstairs to riff about receiving impatient hand jobs from Jewish girls, letting deviants fuck his corpse and watching bears eat his daughters from the safety of a locked car. It's the last night of three months on the road and the last time C.K. will ever perform this set: He scraps his act every year, forcing himself to start again. "It's the greatest," he says. "If you write a book, you can't keep writing it." He's enjoying a deli sandwich, unfolding the greasy wax paper and digging in. His friend, the actress Pamela Adlon, who plays C.K.'s crush on his FX sitcom, Louie, is sitting nearby. "I feel good, man," he says.

Feeling good isn't really Louis C.K.'s thing. Over 25-odd years of stand-up gigs, a half-dozen cable specials, a short-lived HBO sitcom and, most recently, the FX show, he's perfected a unique mixture of abject self-loathing, crushing pessimism, wide-eyed curiosity and, here and there, glimmers of hard-won sweetness. He'll joke about how his dick and balls resemble "an old horse that nobody brushes anymore" and how he is constantly, revoltingly, tugging on the thing; about how deeply he loves his two little daughters, even if they sometimes act like assholes (his word); about his discomfiting realization, after much thought, that if pedophilia were socially acceptable, pedophiles wouldn't kill children, which would be, oddly, an ultimate good. He's fearless enough to follow his mind wherever it leads, but, beneath all the dejection and dick jokes, there's a deep moral seriousness to C.K.: He's a guy who desperately wants to do the right thing, even if he regularly messes up in the process.

C.K., 44, is ringing out a career year. Louie is a critically adored hit that blurs together cringe comedy, poignant drama, bathroom humor, slapstick gore and surrealist flights of fancy: It's impossible to say exactly what you're watching, and impossible to pull your eyes away. In an unprecedented arrangement, C.K. wields absolute creative control over the series, not just starring in it, but also writing, directing and editing every episode by himself, with no network interference in matters of scriptwriting, casting or shooting. It's a deal he insisted on after years of seeing his outré ideas buffed down by writers' room committee or squashed outright by meddling studios. After Louie's second season wrapped this summer, C.K. (the initials are a rough phonetic rendering of his surname, Szekely) hit the road, selling out clubs, steadily building a meticulously crafted two-hour set that feels like an off-the-cuff confessional. By C.K.'s count, it contains "about four raucous laughs" – his term for the hyperventilating, kick-the-seat-in-front-of-you, holy-grail eruptions he craves, the ones that make other laughs sound like background hum by comparison: "From the stage you feel this boom, this impact. It's incredible." The money's pretty incredible, too. He's earned between $25,000 and $100,000 a night on the tour; for four shows here in New York, he'll pocket $200,000. "Louis is the funniest man in America," says his longtime friend Chris Rock. "Everything's clicking. I'm sure Prince felt this way when he did Purple Rain."

To read the rest of this story in Rolling Stone All Access, click here.

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