The characters Mekki Leeper plays on television’s “Jury Duty,” “The Sex Lives of College Girls” and“St. Denis Medical” share an undercurrent of anxiety, but as we chatted ahead of his sold-out Sunday show at The Comedy Studio in Cambridge’s Harvard Square, there was an ease to him – likely because stand-up is where he started and feels most at home. We talked before that show. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
We’re doing this interview in the shadow of Harvard, which informed the type of comedy writing your character did on “The Sex Lives of College Girls.” Where did comedy writing start for you?
It started with stand-up, definitely. And then I fell into other types of writing, but I’ve never stopped doing stand-up. I feel like it’s the best way to remind yourself that you’re not that good. If I were only in writers’ rooms, I could convince myself that I’m funnier than I am, but stand-up is always there to be, like, “Your ideas are just fine.”
So what is it like for you to switch into a space like “College Girls” or “St. Denis” in which you’re acting but not writing?
It’s the best! I’ve been really fortunate to be on these shows that have incredible writing staffs. Good scripts take a lot of what I imagine would be stressful for an actor off the table, and you get to just enjoy it and have fun. On “St. Denis,” I think people assume because it’s a mockumentary and it feels silly and loose that we’re making stuff up. What you’re seeing is really the tremendous work of the writing staff.
How then, does it feel to have one foot in each, like you did on “Jury Duty,” in which everyone was an actor except Ronald Gladden, who was being filmed secretly and thought he was serving in an actual court case jury?
I really respect the other actors who weren’t on the writing staff, because they were thrown into the deep end in something that was so improvised and required so much attention from the performers. I feel like I had an advantage and it made it easier for me because I was there from the inception.
I had the ideas I was coming up with in the moment and the conversations from the writers’ room, including stuff that got cut. It was like, “What can we put in front of him that’s plausible, but also silly?” It’s a game of, when you have a full courthouse and it’s this completely realistic world you’re pushing, what’s the stupidest thing we can put in front of a real person and not have them not buy it? And it turns out the bar is very high.
Coming back around to stand-up: How have all these experiences affected how you write for the stage?
I’m really lucky to have worked with the people that I’ve worked with, and from the comedy I grew up with and that inspired me most. I think that a lot of comedy is confidence, and that comes with experience and positive reinforcement. That helps you write and express yourself and not second-guess as much, which is what an audience wants. They want to see someone who’s having fun and being themselves.
I think I’m more personal as a stand-up now. Before, it was more “the math of comedy.” Like, this-plus-this-equals-joke. And now I think I can talk about my life a little more openly. I just wasn’t ready to do that before I had the confidence that these experiences gave me.
Mekki Leeper continues to tour with opener Zoe Zakson, and can be seen Tuesday nights on NBC as Matt on “St. Denis Medical”; “The Sex Lives of College Girls” is available on Max; “Jury Duty” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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