With his bald head, orange beard and harsh accent, Bill Burr is the quintessential Boston comic. However, Burr has proudly lived in Los Angeles for 17 years.

“I’m feeling pretty lucky,” he tells Variety just days after evacuating from his house due to the L.A. fires. He’s disgusted by the fact that the natural disasters, some of the worst in California’s history, have already become politicized online. 

“What kills me is a lot of it is just bots,” he says. “I think it’s treasonous behavior to politicize everything, keeping regular working people at each other’s throats. That is only good for one group of people, and it’s not working people.”

Remove the tragedy, and Burr says Southern California’s environmental hazards “make living out here exciting.”

“I go back to New York and my comic friends tell me how soft L.A. is,” Burr says. “I’m like, ‘All you New Yorkers come out here and leave with your tail between your legs because you can’t hack it.’ It’s funny that L.A. is considered this soft place, but then when they see our weather they start quoting Revelations.”

Burr rang up Variety to promote his upcoming comedy special, “Drop Dead Years,” and reveal its March 14 premiere date on Hulu. It’s his eighth stand-up hour, and his most introspective yet — the result of Burr’s own reevaluation of his past work. The special covers married life, growing older and men’s mental health. Of course, with Burr, there’s still plenty of lines crossed and joyously crass humor. But there’s a gentler tone that audiences haven’t quite yet seen from Burr.

“I’m a recovering meathead,” he tells Variety, “and I’m doing the best I can.”

In an exclusive, wide-ranging Q&A, Burr dishes on the benefits of a “hostile crowd,” how he and his comedy have matured, and his upcoming Broadway debut in “Glengarry Glen Ross.” Plus, he tells the hilarious and profound story of how a rabbi helped him come to terms with censorship of his act in Abu Dhabi. 

“Drop Dead Years” is filmed in Seattle. What factors go into deciding where to shoot a special?

If I’ve done one there before, how much I love a city and if I feel like there’s going to be a good amount of pushback from the crowd. When you’re filming a stand-up special, there’s cameras there, so people tend to be a little more agreeable. And I need that push-pull thing to happen. I don’t want to be in an echo chamber. I would rather have it more hostile than agreeable.

Have you found that hostility more in liberal cities?

No, because I adjust my asshole vibe to what kind of state I’m in. If I’m in a conservative place, I’ll go more liberal. And if I’m in a liberal place, I’ll go more conservative. It’s like trying to make an over-medium egg, you know? There’s an art to it.

How does that affect the workshopping of the material? How do you calibrate it?

I don’t like it if I say something and everybody goes, “Yeah!” It’s one side, everything is sides now. So I always have to make sure, if one side gets too excited that I’m agreeing with them, that I trash them — or maybe I trash myself. Political views are something you don’t ram down people’s throats, and I go over the double line a lot. Sometimes I’m here and sometimes I’m over there. It depends on whatever you’re talking about.

In the special, you make fun of the audience for clapping.

I say, “I’ve been married for 11 years,” and the audience goes, “Woo!” It’s like, I could have her chained to a radiator — what are you doing? I’m doing that for comedic effect, and also I just don’t like that sound. I’d rather you say something mean to me in a loving way than something genuine in a complimentary way. I don’t know what to do with that. But if you tell me, “Hey asshole, you were pretty funny tonight,” that means a lot to me. If you were like, “Hey man, life goes by fast and I really wanted to make sure I took the time…” I’m like, “Oh my God, stop talking like that, it’s creeping me out.”

Do you ever still bomb? Or is that experience obsolete to you?

I do, but I know how to bomb gracefully. I’m like an old fighter that knows how to take a punch, so I still lose the fight, but I don’t get knocked out.

What are the keys to bombing gracefully?

Composure. You have to maintain control even when you’re bombing, and you have to make fun of yourself. 

Last week, I had a benefit on Tuesday, so I was working out my set at the Comedy Store and I had no segues. I was owning up to the fact that my act wasn’t there yet. There’s a reason they’re seeing me in the OR [Original Room] on Sunday night. But people who come out to see you on those nights, they’re very forgiving. They like to watch the process, and they’re entertained watching somebody they’ve seen do well struggle a little bit.

Is the Store your favorite place to workshop new material?

It’s one of my favorite places. I also like a lot of the satellite rooms that the younger comics are running. Young comics keep you young. You’re still old, but you know how to act your age comedically around them, if that makes sense. If you perform to your generation only, you grow old with them. The comics that I loved growing up never stopped going to the gym, which is going down to the comedy club and getting in front of 20-somethings despite the fact you’re in your 50s like me, and learning how to get your 50-something-year-old ideas over to them. If you go down there in your 50s and try to act 20, that’s going to be a train wreck. You’ve got to understand that you’re like their funny older relative. “That’s my uncle saying dumb shit again!”

“Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years” Disney / Koury Angelo

You confront mortality in the special, down to its title. Do you think about death often?

It’s a reality, but it’s not a fixation or even a fear. If you’re a comedian, to get to my age you’re going to have lost a lot of friends, unfortunately. And I have, and I miss them. Sometimes, late at night, I put the kids to bed and I can’t go to sleep. I think about them, and I get sad. But I don’t look at death as something to be feared, and I don’t think there’s this angry, invisible guy that is going to be upset, who has the time to watch the tapes of my life.

This special struck me as your most vulnerable material yet.

Thank Christ you saw that. I’m a recovering meathead, and I’m doing the best I can. It’s nice to hear some of my work is being noticed.

Is that something you’ve intentionally baked into your work, or do you think it’s a natural result of getting older?

Both. I don’t want to be up there just pointing my finger at the crowd the whole time. God knows I was guilty of that earlier in my career, but that’s just where I was as a young man. I was lashing out at everything. As you get older, hopefully you realize that you’re bringing some of the problems to the table, and maybe the way you handle things isn’t the best way to do it. Being married and having kids, and realizing that your behavior can affect these people you’re living with in a positive way or a negative way, really makes you confront your flaws. God knows I have a bunch of them. A lot of the things I used to believe, that women are difficult and blah, blah, blah — it was my issue of not understanding myself.

Does it make you uncomfortable that your past material lives online forever?

No, not at all. I love when people bring that up because then I go, “You were alive when I said that. You had 15 years to get offended — you’re just getting around to it now?” That sort of crap has happened to comics that I grew up watching. They did these jokes, and generally everybody laughed. Then the needle moves 20 years later, and the same people who laughed get to act like they didn’t. But the comedian gets frozen in time. All the comedian is showing you is where society was at the time.

A lot of that is phony Caucasian behavior. They feel like because they call out a comedian that made a joke 20 or 30 years ago, they’re now an ally, and they’re appeased of all their wrongdoings in society. So much of that stuff is cringeworthy. You’re going to make your Instagram page dark for one day so you can be on the right side of history? That’s all it took? You didn’t even have to leave your house? Then white people on the other side yell at the white people who do it, and nobody of color is even involved. It’s just us posturing and yelling and getting offended. The whole thing is stupid.

When you talk about dealing with depression in this special, I feel like you’re knowingly playing with the audience’s perception of you.

I didn’t look at it that way. When I started doing the material, there was this really excited, happy feeling I had — that I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. Men were laughing. They related to this reality of, “I don’t feel good right now. I feel sad, and I’m not allowed to say that as a guy because it’s considered weak.”

I’ve always felt like a freak. I grew up with orange hair, we moved around a lot when I was a kid. I didn’t ever feel like I quite fit in until I went to my second open mic, and I was hanging out with comedians who were the same kind of weird that I was. So, when I did that bit, I wasn’t like, “Wait ‘til they see this side of me.” I was… a lot of people died, quickly, in a short period of time. People I looked up to, and people that I became friends with. One of them being Bob Saget. To see that guy taken, it just didn’t make any sense.

Have you received any outreach from fans who have resonated with this material?

I hear it in the way that they’re laughing. And it’s good for women to hear that, to understand. There’s a perception that we’re just two-dimensional — “get man sandwich, man happy.” There’s a little more nuance to guys than perhaps they thought. One of the fun things about getting older is your perception changes on things. For me, it was starting to understand women a little bit, which is crazy. It’s something I never thought I would do. I thought forever they would be confusing to me. Maybe it’s because I can communicate better, or the women in my life communicate better with me. Still, God knows it’s always going to be our fault!

Another thing you dive head-first into early on in the special is Israel and Palestine. Do you have to be more cautious while workshopping material that is political or tense in nature, for fear of being taken out of context?

No. You just go up and do it. And if you listen to that bit, it’s apolitical. I’m just saying we need to come up with a way to solve our differences without dropping bombs on children. I don’t think anybody would have a problem with that. The great thing about travel, if you travel with your ears open, is you see way more similarities than differences. Everybody kind of wants the same thing: to chill out with people they love, to have enough money for food and clothing and shelter, and to be able to exhale and not worry about what’s coming around the corner. 

The funny thing when that CEO got whacked was watching CEOs have to be uncomfortable. I’m sure they didn’t learn anything, but it’s like: This is how you make everybody feel day to day as you apply pressure because “that’s how business is done.” How you leave this burning wreckage of destroyed lives as you “restructure” and “consolidate.” It was fun to see them worry.

What really bothers me when I travel is the level of angst and worry out there, from hard-working people. That’s why, when I tour, I don’t just go to the 25 cities you’re supposed to go to after you “make it.” I just did a whole tour of the Central Valley, and I got to tell them my perspective on things and I got to listen to theirs. I learned a lot more about California than I ever knew — and I’ve been out here for 17 years. It’s interesting seeing what they find funny, what they don’t.

That mode of communication is interesting. Not only laughter, but you must be an expert in recognizing body language — what makes people uncomfortable, what puts them at ease.

One of my favorite gigs last year was in Abu Dhabi. Drugs are illegal there, and I was telling this story about taking mushrooms. The way they were laughing, I was like, these people definitely do drugs, they just don’t do them here. They go abroad to do them. But then I was thinking later, “Well wait a minute. I used to listen to Richard Pryor talking about cocaine and freebasing, and I’ve never done that. Are they laughing at me talking about mushrooms like this is some Cheech and Chong stuff?” I still don’t know.

When doing a corporate or international gig, have you ever been asked to avoid certain topics?

Oh yeah, definitely in Abu Dhabi. 

How does that negotiation work?

At first, I get real defensive and upset with my agent, going, “Why the fuck would you book me here?” I agreed to do Abu Dhabi because why wouldn’t you want to go there, to see what it was like? And then — classic — 10 days before I go out there, they’re like, “Don’t talk about this, don’t talk about that.” Somebody had to write me a letter of apology. And I’m sitting there going, “Why the hell would they book me?” So now I’m stressing before I get there, going, “I’m gonna get six months in jail for doing a shit joke.” I’m catastrophizing, basically. 

I often go to this coffee shop next to a synagogue. So, there’s this rabbi that comes down, and I’ve gotten to know the guy. I’m always busting his chops because he’s always giving life advice. I’m like, “Dude, do you ever just say hello?” I tease him. And that had been our relationship for half a year. And then he showed up that day, and he goes, “Hey, how are you doing?” I go, “You know what? I’m not doing good.” So I told him: “I’ve got this gig coming up and I’m stressed. I don’t want to get in trouble or get detained or any of that stuff. I can’t talk about this, I can’t talk about that. Blah, blah, blah.” He listened and then just shrugged his shoulders. He goes, “They’re not ready yet.” He just gave me that perspective, and all of a sudden, I understood what my job was. My job was to go over there and not be a jerk and try to advance the stand-up ball a couple of yards for the next guy that comes over there. And I ended up having a great time. I thought it was pretty funny that a Jewish guy told me the right way to play in Abu Dhabi.

What was the material you had to avoid?

Um… you know… our foreign policy has upset a lot of people. I’ll leave it at that. Listen, I’ve got to do another gig over there so I don’t need — ah, who gives a shit? I wasn’t allowed to make fun of the city or the royals. It was pretty small, but a lot of it is what you do as a comedian. Like in Seattle: “I went to get a coffee and I’m the only person not transitioning.” Abu Dhabi didn’t want you doing that. But I could make fun of myself, make fun of other places. I know that sounds ridiculous to us, but I get it. People are acting like what you can say now [in America], you could say 50 or 60 years ago. When I was born, that was right after Lenny Bruce was arrested [for obscenity in San Francisco] and George Carlin [repeatedly, for his “Seven Dirty Words” routine]. People were really nervous that you couldn’t say certain things. That doesn’t exist anymore — I guess it exists online, in a phony way. So, I thought, Abu Dhabi is where stand-up was in about 1968, which is kind of cool. Who would have thought some bald, Irish American ginger would vibe with people in Abu Dhabi?

“Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years” Disney / Koury Angelo

What makes you laugh the hardest?

Authentic emotion. My favorite kind of comedy is stuff that wouldn’t be funny if it were happening to me. A long time ago, I was doing a set in New York City, and I’m walking up the street after my set, and the door to this bar bursts open and 10 people spill out. There are two guys squaring off, and neither one of them wanted to fight, but they had to act like they wanted to. They were both terrified, trying to get the other guy to back down. Now, if you’re one of those people, that’s really scary, and nothing about it is funny. But if you’re me, on the other side of the street watching it, it’s hilarious. 

If somebody’s upset and has a shit fit, that’s funny to me. People falling down a flight of stairs. A lot of these people on Instagram — the life coaches that nobody asked for. They’re complete nobodies. That stuff is funny to me.

What’s the worst trend in comedy right now?

I don’t tell people how to do things, but what I feel like I should be doing is making fun of both sides. My job is not to pick a side. You come to see me because you want to forget about your problems. Even if I do make fun of a politician, I always make sure I get ‘em both. If I’m gonna make fun of CNN, I’ve gotta make fun of Fox. I make fun of the whole thing because I don’t feel that politicians work for us. They work for the super rich, and they’re grossly underpaid so they’re open to bribery. It gives regular people something to get mad at. Like with these fires, people are blaming Governor Newsom. It doesn’t make a difference — that was going to happen no matter who was governor. They were saying that fire was coming forever. The right set of circumstances, there’s nothing we can do. 

Your 2023 movie “Old Dads” was a huge hit on Netflix. Are you writing a sequel?

I am writing another movie with my writing partner, Ben Tishler, and we just handed in the first draft. It’s not a sequel to “Old Dads,” it’s a different idea that we have.

This is the recently announced “Born Losers”?

Yes, “Born Losers.” Ben and I just established that we could write a movie that people will like. If we were to do an “Old Dads” sequel as our second thing… you know Hollywood. Then it becomes, “They only know how to do this.”

What are some of the unexpected aspects of filmmaking that you learned making “Old Dads,” and what will you do differently on “Born Losers”?

My God, that could be a whole interview. As I was pitching jokes on “Born Losers,” I was more cognizant of the time and money it would take to shoot them. Sometimes we would come up with concepts, and I would be like, “That’s going to be a montage that requires 12 locations.” I’m not saying we wouldn’t do that, but we were definitely like, “Is this joke funny enough to shoot?”

You’re making your Broadway debut in “Glengarry Glen Ross” opposite Kieran Culkin and Bob Odenkirk. Have you started rehearsing?

No, rehearsal starts in February. But I did have lunch with a few of the guys from the cast, and the ball-breaking has already started, so I know this is going to be fun.

The idea to put you three together is genius.

If it was a genius idea, you know it didn’t come from me. I got in it because Nathan Lane put in a word for me.

Are you scared? Broadway is a completely different beast.

I want to do a good job. I’m still a month away from rehearsals. Nervousness will be happening when previews start.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. “Drop Dead Years” streams March 14 on Hulu as the fifth installment of its “Hularious” slate of specials.