Paul Reiser Discusses His Iconic Roles & July 21 Hamptons Stand-Up Show

Hollywood has few stars who have remained relevant across decades and genres like actor, writer, producer, musician, author and comedian Paul Reiser, who is bringing his stand-up to Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center this Sunday, July 21. Reiser got his start in stand-up, broke through with his hit TV show My Two Dads (1987-1990) and films like Beverly Hills Cop and Aliens, before becoming a household name as Paul Buchman in Mad About You (1992-1999), an NBC sitcom he co-created based on his own life and marriage.

For the past 10-plus years, Reiser has returned to stand-up and become an ubiquitous and beloved figure in a long list of fantastic film and television projects, including TV comedies like Married, Red Oaks, Reboot and The Kominsky Method — which earned him an Emmy nomination — and powerful dramas such as Concussion, Whiplash and Fosse/Verdon, as well as sci-fi series, including The Boys and Stranger Things, in which his character Doctor Sam Owens, who the Duffer Brothers wrote with Reiser in mind, may or may not be alive for the show’s upcoming fifth and final season.

Thanks to some excellent roles and good choices, Reiser has fans of all ages, and he holds icon status for those who loved him as Carter Burke, the smarmy company man and primary human villain in James Cameron’s Aliens — a role that resulted in his own NECA action figure that hit stores in 2017, more than 30 years after the film’s release, and a 2024 Marvel “What If?” comic series that Reiser wrote with his son Leon that asks, what would happen if Burke lived?

Reiser recently co-wrote and produced a film called The Problem with People, which comes out in October, and he co-wrote a new memoir, What a Fool Believes, with his friend, singer-songwriter Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan. He also reprises his role as Deputy Chief Jeffrey Friedman alongside Eddie Murphy in the latest Beverly Hills Cop sequel Axel F, now streaming on Netflix.

We had a chance to speak with Reiser about his upcoming stand-up performance in Westhampton Beach and hear stories from his incredible career in film and television.

A Conversation with Paul Reiser

Thanks for doing this. I’m a big fan. In fact, I have an action figure of you as Burke from Aliens.

My favorite piece of trivia, when they made that, they sent me one and said, “You know, this action figure has 117 points of articulation (actually 30) …where it bends and moves. I said, “I myself have like 11, but my action figure has like 117” — doing much better than me, so there you go.

Tell us about your stand-up.

The hardest and least pleasant aspect of my job, of my work, is when people say, can you describe your comedy show. I never know how to do that. … Have you ever seen Cirque du Soleil? …This is the opposite of that. So whatever you like about Cirque du Soleil, there will be none of that here. The simple truth is, I’m not really smart enough to make anything up, so I just tell people, here’s what’s happening in my house, here’s what’s going on with my kids and my wife, and my marriage and my friends, and my health. And luckily, people laugh because they go, “Oh, this poor guy sounds like me.”

I think we’re all going through the same stuff, but people like to know someone else is going through it, too. It’s never political, it’s never social, it’s never current events because there’s nothing funny in there that I can scrape up. Mad About You just grew out of my marriage, Mad About You was like, I can’t believe some of these conversations I’m having, these arguments that I’m having. … It turns out millions of houses were going, “Yeah, that’s the same fight we had last week.”

People enjoy having the company and knowing you’re not alone. Describing comedy never helps it. Just come and I promise you’ll have a good time.

You regularly perform out here. Do you have a place in the Hamptons?

No, I don’t, and for some reason I never get to stay too long. I go in and out. I grew up in the city and to me Long Island was like this whole other world, and the Hamptons was its own world. So I never really spent a lot of time there until recently. I have friends with a place out there who have a boat. I went out on the boat, I went, “Oh, I get it. This is great out here. The Hamptons is really nice.”

I haven’t been there in a while, but it’s always fun. Any time I get to play New York or play on the Island, it just feels like it’s a home-court advantage. And it always feels 30 to 40 percent funnier than Michigan, for example.

You now have this Axel F movie out. What was it like doing the new Beverly Hills Cop?

I’m very magnanimous, and what I do is, I gave Eddie Murphy the bigger part. I just do a couple scenes in the beginning and then I get out of his way, because that’s the kind of guy I am. It was fun, you know. It was ridiculous. The first day that we shot those scenes, for the first two days of the movie, I remember looking at Eddie and going, “It’s 40 years since we did this the first time — 40 years.” And the first time, it was interesting because I knew Eddie from the comedy clubs, so it was really easy and fun to be playful and improvise a lot of whatever I did. I wasn’t in the first one that much.

When we were new to comedy and we were in the city and we were playing at the Comic Strip on 2nd Avenue, it was 1979 or ’80 maybe, and we would hear from a couple of Long Island comedians who would come into the city, “There’s this young kid who’s 16, his name is Eddie Murphy and he’s really funny.” And everybody was really talking this kid up. I remember at the time thinking, how funny can anybody be at 16? Nobody’s funny at 16. Then he came in once, I guess he was 17, and you just go, “Oh, this guy is just magical.” Even then, he was just so funny and so confident and had such authority, and this magic sparkle to him. And it’s still there. He’s a grandfather many times over and his spark was every bit there. And even better.

He hosted SNL a couple years ago and it was such a joy to watch him because he looked like he was just having fun. He was right where he started and it was just great, it was great to see him, and he’s really funny in the movie, of course.

Is Dr. Owens dead?

I can’t discuss that. That’s not allowed — they’ll shoot us both. They’ll shoot us both.

With all these projects you’ve been in, including some really iconic films and shows, were there any that you felt going in, this is going to be a big deal?

Yeah. Aliens, that was the first time I remember reading a script and going, “This is going to be huge.” The first one was great and I’d seen Jim Cameron’s Terminator, and I go, “OK, this guy’s a genius.” And the script was breathtaking. It’s very rare that you can read a script and feel like you’re watching it. But that movie was so cinematic on the page, and I thought, oh, you could see the movie. So I knew that was going to be a big hit. …

Stranger Things was interesting because they didn’t know it was going to be a hit, and then with Season 1 it became this global phenomenon, and I joined for Season 2. It was already tremendous, so that was a no-brainer for me.

Sometimes it’s easy. It’s not a tough decision to make.

Are you touring?

This is on the tail end. I taped the special in November but I booked a lot of shows last year and a couple shows this year. I go out at a very leisurely pace, do a show or two every month or every other weekend. When I’m here at home in LA, I go down to the clubs a couple times a week just to work on stuff. At the moment I’m not really touring, I have a couple remaining shows, but this one is easy. “Do you want to play this beautiful little theater in the Hamptons?” I went, “Yeah, that was fun.”

After this, I slow down for a while. I was working a lot last year, so I’m enjoying being home right now, so not traveling too much.

Is there anything you want to add?

Your job is to make sure that theater is packed. You can tell the people that your ass is on the line.

I’ll let them know that you’re going to tell them if Dr. Owens is dead or not at the show.

Yeah, fine, that’s fair.

See Paul Reiser’s stand-up at Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, 76 Main Street in Westhampton Beach, this Sunday, July 21 at 8 p.m. Tickets are available by calling the box office at 631-288-1500 or visiting whbpac.org.