Sebastian Maniscalco on his five-day Madison Square Garden Run

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Last Friday, comedian Sebastian Maniscalco had Madison Square Garden roaring with laughter with passages about Amazon deliveries scaring him when they arrive at midnight, the utter strangeness of New York City's so-called rat czar, the ravenous moles devouring his garden, and about his wife's (allegedly) bad driving. He made faces, turned his flat Chicagoland chatter into goofy voices, and contorted his body to overwhelm the sold-out crowd. At the end of the evening, he warmed everyone's hearts by inviting his parents, both immigrants from Italy, to the stage to share in his pride. Although the couple divorced just over 15 years ago, they seemed visibly proud of their 51-year-old son.

As Maniscalco left the arena for a light Italian dinner (he admits he has a slight allergy to pasta, but he eats it anyway because it's “worth the pain”), he felt victorious. He had won over the 18,000 people who showed up for the third show of his five-night run at MSG – a record for the most consecutive comedy shows at the venue – on his It Ain't Right tour. However, the next day he learned that only 17,999 viewers were completely lost in the moment.

It's Saturday morning and Maniscalco is sitting in a simple conference room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan, wearing a powder blue tracksuit. He is more relaxed than his stage persona, speaking slower and with a deeper voice. As he looks at his phone, he laughs and reads aloud a text message his mother Rose sent him: “I had a great night and enjoyed every moment.” He has a “so far, so good” grin up and then continues reading: “You looked hot up there.” It seemed like you got lost, but then you came back to that set.” He chuckles.

“There's no such thing as 'You had a great set,'” he says, more amused than annoyed. “My parents always noticed something was wrong and had to mention it. That’s the beauty of having parents like that, because in this business you don’t get a big head.”

However, if anyone could have a big head at this point in his comedy career, it's Maniscalco. Over the past few decades, he has emerged from the LA club scene into one of the most well-known working stand-up comedians today. He shared screen time with Robert De Niro in the 2023 film. About my fatherwhich he co-wrote and stars in an HBO series, Bookmaker. Now he's on the road, doing dozens of dates from coast to coast. The tour might be his last for a while, as he's more interested in film and television these days than spending two years producing 75 minutes of material about his family.

Maniscalco's people should be unfamiliar to anyone who has followed his comedy. They have inspired some of his best material over the years while also encouraging him behind the scenes. His father, Salvatore, a hairdresser, helped finance the comedian's move in 1998 from his hometown of Chicago to Los Angeles, where he waited tables at the Four Seasons and begged for stand-up slots at the Comedy Store. More recently, Salvatore reluctantly rearranged his work schedule so that De Niro could study him and portray him About my father. The elder Maniscalco wasn't too impressed to complain about the inconvenience. “He says, 'I have customers.' “I can’t take three days off,” Maniscalco said of his father. More than 25 years into his career, his parents still deliver some of his best films, along with his wife Lana and their two children, ages five and seven.

At the start of Maniscalco's MSG set, he joked about how kids go to sleepaway camps these days, but he didn't have that experience in the '80s. “In the summer, my dad sent me to the backyard,” he joked. “For three months: '“Go to the back yard.” So I just ran everywhere. “Oh, it's windy here.” I was bored my entire childhood.

“In the '80s, you don't tell your parents you're bored,” he continued. “I tried that once: 'I'm bored.' (His father:) “Go dig a hole!” Go look for worms!'” The way Maniscalco roared and stretched during the piece sent the audience into a frenzy.

In his 2018 memoir Stay hungryManiscalco wrote that his father raised him with the attitude that “the Maniscalcos never win,” meaning that nothing in life comes easy for the family. It took almost three decades, but now the comedian has achieved everything he hoped for as a stand-up star. His record-breaking MSG performance even surpassed famous comedians like Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle.

Over the years, Maniscalco has developed a unique stage persona that feels like a powerful blend of comedy influences – a bit of Seinfeldian observational humor, the everyday confusion of Kevin James, the sandpapery bristles of Andrew “Dice” Clay, the blue-collar cross-eyed Jackie Gleason's apoplexy – and translated it into film and television roles.

The only thing that is truly off-limits to what he does is politics. “You see politics on your iPhone,” he says. “You see it when you go home and turn on the TV. You see it on the computer. Politics is always in front of you.” I tell him that someone called out “Trump” in my section during his show and he just says, “Oh, really?” Then he clarifies: “It doesn't matter who you like – whether You like Trump or Harris – I feel like people just want to leave that at the door and enjoy a night of comedy and then you could pick it up the next day.” I always felt like that, what my father or my family does is much funnier than what the political candidate at the time is doing.”

All in all, Maniscalco's life is good right now. It's been ages since he served guests at the Four Seasons; The waiters at the five-star hotel are now serving him Drinks (and he still doesn't appreciate his fellow guests' sense of entitlement). But with the spoils of hard work surrounding him, he falters when asked how he defines success.

“Nobody has ever asked me that before,” he says. He hesitates to define a sense of personal accomplishment by tickets sold or money earned, although he admits that if he entered the Garden and there were only 12 people in the audience, he would consider that unsuccessful. After thinking the question out loud, he concludes, “Success to me simply means being happy.”

When was he unhappy? “Have you ever had sciatica?” he asks, referring to a condition that causes excruciating nerve pain that shoots down the leg. “It's cruel. It hits you like lightning.” A few years ago, those bolts hit him mid-sentence and affected his timing. He couldn't play with his children. Even lying down hurt. He tried the Lagree Pilates method, his own test of endurance, and it helped ease the pain, which subsided two and a half months ago – just in time to get It Ain't Right right.

On Friday night, he told a joke about having to give a urine sample at a doctor's office, swaying left and right while mimicking peeing like a crouching animal. “There’s no way I could have made that joke like that two years ago,” he says between sips of tea. “When I made that joke, I thought, 'Well, it doesn't hurt.'”

However, when he's really acting, he doesn't think much at all. That night he improvised a joke about what a bad driver his wife was, and by the next morning he had completely forgotten he had even made it. (“The way she drives is terrible, just terrible,” he still insists on Saturday.) “Those are the moments I love most on stage, when you're in the bag,” he says. “I know I have a lot of fun just being carefree.”

He only recognizes success through more concrete key figures in retrospect. “I didn’t even know there were records to break,” he says of his MSG milestone, leaning back in his chair. “I'll probably look back on this later and shake my head and say, 'Wow, we really did something great.' We're doing five shows in the city right now and we're going to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia next week.” Likewise, he's just now realizing that he's made a movie with De Niro, an actor he's looked up to practically since birth. (A highlight for him was De Niro teaching him to cry on camera while reflecting on his father's struggles as an immigrant.)

So for now, Maniscalco is just trying to enjoy the ride. By his count, he gives 94 performances in eight months. When he's off stage, he keeps life simple. It's hard being a father on the road, so he tries to make time to take his children with him. They visited the Oculus, a shopping center in Lower Manhattan, while in New York. When the kids aren't around, he plays golf, plays basketball with the other comics on the tour, and visits attractions in the cities where he plays.

Last week he climbed the Empire State Building to take a look at the city. “I looked at the Statue of Liberty and then replayed that in my head and thought, ‘Wow. “My father is 80. 65 years ago, the Maniscalcos immigrated by boat from Sicily and came via Ellis Island,” he says. “And 65 years later, I’m doing these five shows in New York City. I’m so grateful that my parents are here and can witness this.”

He looks at a photo of his parents taken at last night's show. His father looks to the side and surveys the crowd; His mother is smiling ear to ear into the camera. “You could just see that my mother was so overjoyed,” he says.

So, with all this affirmation, what does it mean for Maniscalco to “stay hungry”—since that was his mantra less than a decade ago when he wrote his book? “I’m full,” he says expressionlessly. “I think I’ve adjusted my perspective. I’m still hungry, but I know when to eat and when not to eat.”