King Jewelers Magazine 2023-24

My sister, Jessica, is five years younger than me and my best friend today. Growing up, our family had its own sense of humor. Comedy was collaborative. One of us would tell a story while the others added to it, and we’d all laugh. The unspoken credo in our house was never disappoint or em- barrass your family. To this day, I never do anything that would cause my mother or father to say, “What the heck are you do- ing?” If you asked my father and mother, they’d tell you that I was almost parenting myself in conjunction with them. This isn’t to say I never did anything wrong, but I was a good kid. Food was big deal at home. My dad cooked special dishes during the December holidays, but my mom managed the

I went on stage for seven minutes, and I bombed. It was awful. But rather than fold, I realized I had to work much harder on ma- terial to get a large audience laughing. In 1998, I moved to Los Angeles with $10,000 in savings. I was soon down to less than $3,000 and took a job. From 1998 to 2005, I served cocktails at the Four Seasons while pursuing stand-up. Success didn’t happen overnight. The turning point came in 2013 when I started selling out mul- tiple nights at comedy clubs in L.A. and New York. Next came selling out five shows at Radio City Music Hall and four at Madi- son Square Garden. My wife, Lana, and I live with our two kids in Beverly Hills. We moved here about three years ago. My mother lives here in L.A. and so does my sister. My father is still in Chicago. My parents divorced when I was 35.

house and did most of the cooking. Trying a lot of dif- ferent types of food was encouraged. I was hap- py with squid at age seven, but my limit was watching my grandfather eat a fish head and suck the eyeballs out of its head.

It’s impossible to get a big head in my family. My parents are always quick to set me straight. Even with my new movie, Mom asked, “Are you writing new material?” That’s code for, it can all disappear, so keep at it.

In school, I never took to academics the way I did to comedy. At Northern Illinois University, I majored in communications. In my junior year, I entered a stand-up contest.

SEBASTIAN’S BASTION

Your movie, About My Father? I flipped when Robert De Niro agreed to play my father. Growing up, I had a poster of him in Casino on my wall.

You cook? Yes, my family loves food. But I don’t use my mother’s recipes.

Why not? There are none. It’s a little of this and that.

Kids rules? No electronics at the dinner table. Instead, we do this thing called talking. Father’s town? My father and I took a 16-day father-son trip to Cefalù, Sicily, in 2012. He showed me everything in his hometown. He now goes back every year.

Acting or stand-up? Stand-up. It’s more immediate.

ABOUT MY FATHER STAR SEBASTIAN MANISCALCO WAS A GOOD KID