Matt Rife is living his comedy dream. Now for the hard part — maintaining it

Comedian Matt Rife sits for a portrait at the Kookaburra Lounge.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Shortly after becoming the youngest stand-up comedian in history to sell out the Hollywood Bowl during the second installment of Netflix is a Joke in May, Matt Rife’s tireless pursuit of success finally caught up to him.

His performance schedule clocking 40 to 50 shows a month led to a stretch of consecutive days without sleep as he stayed up prepping for shows, editing social videos and barreling from city to city. Though his body and mind were getting shaky on tour, he fought through it.

Finally, just before a recent pair of shows in Indiana, he said he almost collapsed while leaving his hotel room and was forced to cancel the gigs just hours before showtime. Suffering blurred vision and painful ringing in his ears, he could barely walk or talk and had to be taken to the emergency room.

“I felt like I was legitimately dying,” Rife said during an interview at the Kookaburra Lounge in Hollywood. “It’s embarrassing, man, because everybody around me saw this coming.” His piercing blue eyes cast down briefly at the floor as he thought about the moment he almost pushed himself past his limits. “Everybody’s only response was, ‘Can’t believe this didn’t happen sooner.’”

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Since that episode, Rife said he’s spent considerable time finding a balance that allows him to sleep and to pursue his dreams. His latest project, “Lucid: A Crowd Work Special,” premiering Tuesday on Netflix, is a new one-hour special in which he interacts directly with his fans, talking to them about their own dreams, fears and aspirations. Though the goal, of course, is laughter, Rife said the special is also about finding ways to relate to his fans through dialogue in a real, meaningful way and to remind himself to appreciate his own success.

“The concept of dreams in general was just something that was so special to me, because I am so lucky that I get to finally live my biggest dream, being this moment that I’m having right now,” he said. “And I know so many other people strive for that, not necessarily in comedy specifically, but everybody has something that they’re chasing.”

During the special he singles out members of the audience to talk about where they were in chasing their dream gigs or analyzing their goals— and yes, crack jokes and roast them a bit for our enjoyment. Though this isn’t his first crowd-work special (see 2023’s “Walking Red Flag”), it’s a definite budget upgrade from a single camera set-up. The new Netflix production shows Rife at the peak of his powers, sparking spontaneous humor out of the fans who packed into the Comedy Zone in Charlotte, N.C.

Rife is known for crowd work, and he thinks he does it at a higher level.

“It’s something that’s just fun and exciting for me,” he said. “These are moments that are never going to be duplicated at any other show I ever do. … When you’re rehearsing your set, building the material on a show for an hourlong, material special, you can definitely get tired of telling your own jokes.”

For a comic who once struggled to sell tickets for weeknight shows at big-city comedy clubs, the rush of fame over the last couple of years feels surreal.

“When I started doing comedy this was never even a dream of mine to be at this level. I was just like, if I could ever sell out a comedy club one time ever, that’s the epitome of what I think a comedian probably could be,” he said.

Humility aside, there’s no shortage of both love and hate on the internet for Rife. Since going viral on TikTok in 2022, he’s has become a fixture in pop culture, frequently making headlines for whom he’s dating, what house he’s buying or whatever backlash he’s stirred up for jokes that strike some as sexist and misogynistic. But negative feedback hasn’t had much of an effect on his tour numbers. To date, he and Taylor Swift are the only two artists who command enough of a feeding frenzy to break Ticketmaster when announcing a tour. The argument over whether his fame is a result of his movie-star looks or his talent is well worn at this point, yet few seem to factor in the breakneck pace at which Rife and his team operate to keep his momentum going.

Fellow comedian Erik Griffin, who directed “Lucid” as well as Rife’s previous specials including 2023’s “Matthew Steven Rife” and his Netflix debut, “Natural Selection,” has worked with the young star since Rife was just a teen who was hitting Griffin up online looking for a chance to open for the veteran comic onstage.

“What I admire about him is his work ethic,” Griffin said. “Nothing was handed to him. He’s been working hard for 12 years now, the fan base has just caught up with it, and they’ve made him super famous.”

Comedian Matt Rife.

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Rife started in comedy at age 15, having become obsessed when his grandma took him to a Dane Cook show. Too young to drive himself to clubs, Rife had his grandpa take him from North Lewisburg, Ohio, to open mics as well as “bringer shows,” a rite of passage in which comics have to sell a certain number of tickets to get onstage. None of Rife’s friends were old enough to get inside a comedy club, so his grandpa would buy tickets. For Rife, the excitement of performing was initially eclipsed by fear.

The first time Rife went onstage for an open mic, he said, he almost soiled his pants. “I had all my jokes memorized, but I was so nervous. And the host goes onstage. ‘We have a first-timer tonight. Give it up for the uncomfortably young Matt Reef,’ ” Rife recalled, adding that he was so nervous he thought his bowels were “gonna drop out of my body.” It was then that Rife recognized the feeling of stage fright for the first time. It excited him as much as it scared him, he said.

The pursuit of a career in comedy led him to leave Ohio and hit the road by age 17, and he settled in L.A. to pursue acting while still crisscrossing the country for gigs. During a decade of grinding, he put his looks, quick wit and work ethic to use, landing stints as a co-host of MTV’s short-lived “TRL” reboot and as a cast member of the sketch show “Wild ’N Out.” He also popped up on an episode of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” In 2017, his name surfaced in People magazine when he was briefly romantically linked to Kate Beckinsale.

He amassed millions of views on TikTok sketch and crowd work videos along with more than 30 million views for his three YouTube specials prior to “Natural Selection” last year. The comedian’s ability to build a relationship with a largely female fan base stems from his crowd work skills.

“He draws people in because he listens,” Griffin said. “So when he’s doing this crowd work with people, he’s genuinely interested in what people are saying. Those are the type of clips that have gone viral for him, and those are the things that resonate with people. It’s not just crowd work for the sake of crowd work.”

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Usually Rife is able to turn awkward or strange interactions into comedy gold. It’s much harder when an audience member tries too hard to be funny. “Don’t do that,” he says bluntly. “Just be yourself. I’ll bring the comedy out of you. Don’t worry. We’ll find it, you know, we’re Jordan and Pippin in this. Don’t be selfish.”

Though it’s always been Rife’s dream to entertain at the highest level, building fame in the TikTok era has come with internet criticism. Whether people don’t like his looks or his humor or just want to elicit a response in the comments of social media, Rife is used to being a target for backlash, though he said he’s become better at ignoring it. It’s no coincidence that his two favorite comedians are Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais, two of the most popular and criticized comedians to hold a microphone.

“It’s a lot to juggle,” he said. “In the beginning, you really mostly only hear the positive … and then a very select group of people go, ‘Oh, this person’s very well loved and respected, and I myself might lack that love and respect in my own personal life, so, therefore, I don’t want this person to have it.’ So then comes the influx of negativity. You just have to really appreciate the good, because the bad is going to come with it, guaranteed. Nobody is universally loved.”

Through friends and therapy, he’s learned not to give negativity any oxygen in his world.

“I used to avidly respond back to people. Nobody could be meaner than me if I really wanted to be,” he said. “But you can’t do that, because whether or not you feel like you won that interaction or you had the better roast, what this troll or hater said to you doesn’t matter. You gave them exactly what they want. All they want is attention.”

While the topic of fighting for a dream is the focus of Rife’s newest special, the act of sharing his journey is at the heart of his next creative output, the book “Your Mom’s Gonna Love Me,” slated for December. Rife talks about becoming a comedy heartthrob before age 30, navigating his sex appeal in the public eye, battling depression and enduring failure before finally hitting it big.

Part of recapturing the dream is also talking about the people in his life who helped him achieve it, including close friends, early mentors and his grandpa — his first advocate in comedy — who died in November 2022, just before his career really began to take off.

“He never got to see me have any of this, and he’s the reason I have any of this,” Rife said. “I’ve been so happy to be so distracted and keep busy and keep my mind off that kind of stuff. But through therapy and this book, which has been a massive form of therapy, it’s forced me to take time and reflect on all the things that got me to this point right now.”

After taking enough time to process his past, Rife is newly focused on keeping his dream alive.

“That’s the new anxiety, by the way,” he said. “Because that’s the hardest thing. How many viral sensations are there a year? 30? Anybody can have a hot year, a hot moment of their career. So many musicians, actors, comedians have them quite often. Hard part is maintaining.”