Nick Rutherford: Busy Being Lucky

In our next inter­view with an Out of Bounds Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val 2017 per­former, Valerie Lopez sits down (vir­tu­al­ly) with accom­plished man-of-many-trades Nick Ruther­ford. If you don’t know his name, you’ve prob­a­bly seen his face on TV or online. More on that in a bit. 

Born just out­side of com­e­dy mec­ca Los Ange­les, Ruther­ford had heady aspi­ra­tions from the start. Fre­quent trips to Las Vegas instilled in him the goal of being the youngest own­er of a hotel/​casino in Sin City. As he spent more time there, he piv­ot­ed (a bit) to instead striv­ing to be the youngest own­er of a com­e­dy club in the city (or coun­try). Real­iz­ing his desires trend­ed more toward the per­for­mance end of the busi­ness, he shift­ed to set­ting his sights on being a suc­cess­ful career come­di­an. (And yes, a very young one.)

With a well suit­ed plan in place, 18 year old Ruther­ford began attend­ing class­es with the famous Groundlings, try­ing his hand at improv, sketch, and stand-up in Los Ange­les and sur­round­ing areas. The thrill of com­mand­ing laughs sat­is­fied him to the core on many lev­els, and cement­ed his future in comedic pur­suits. One of the most promi­nent col­lab­o­ra­tions to his cred­it was Good Neigh­bors which set the tone for his online video pres­ence. In the inter­view, Ruther­ford and Lopez explore just a hand­ful of amaz­ing sto­ries about his jour­ney: excit­ing, relat­able, and sure to leave you hun­gry for more. 

Ruther­ford cur­rent­ly splits his time between Los Ange­les and New York, and has graced Austin many a time (it’s won­der­ful to hear how impor­tant Austin has been to his pro­fes­sion­al mile­stones). He’s also worked on count­less projects based out of or par­tial­ly pro­duced by Aus­tinites. If you haven’t heard of or seen him in per­son, you’ve almost cer­tain­ly been exposed to some of his writ­ing work or recurring/​starring roles on shows like Major Laz­er, Dream Corp LLC, Key and Peele, Drunk His­to­ry, and Sat­ur­day Night Live. Besides being an amaz­ing mélange of live action and roto­scoped ani­ma­tion, Dream Corp LLC received an impres­sive nod by the New York Times rat­ing it as a top show of 2016. He’s also a pod­cast reg­u­lar on well-knowns like Bone Zone, Get­ting Doug with High, and About Last Night. There are lit­er­al­ly too many cred­its to list here; the man is pro­duc­tive. Check him out on IMDB for even more.

This week’s Out of Bounds Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val 2017 brings you sev­er­al chances to catch Ruther­ford while he’s in town. Plan to see him for at least one per­for­mance and be sure to remind him that Austin will con­tin­ue to wel­come him with open arms.

• Fri­day, Sept 1^st, 8:30pm @ The Velvee­ta Room, with CW alums Lisa Friedrich, Katie Stone and more
• Fri­day, Sept 1^st, 11:30pm @ The Velvee­ta Room, with Lisa Friedrich, Rob Gagnon, and more
• Sat­ur­day, Sept 2^nd, 11pm @ The Spi­der­house Ballroom

He’s in the upcom­ing film Brigs­by Bear, which you should def­i­nite­ly check out. And don’t miss sea­son 2 of the mas­ter­ful Dream Corp LLC which airs in Octo­ber on Adult Swim.