Phil Hanley on Tour
Comedian Phil Hanley has been working stages since he was a teen — though he wasn't always telling jokes. Like many high school graduates, the Toronto-bred Hanley chose to put off college in favor of traveling through Europe — and, before long, he found himself strutting the catwalk at Giorgio Armani shows as a model. Never entirely comfortable in the role of professional eye candy, he eventually moved back to Canada — this time to Vancouver, where his family had relocated in the interim. The ignominy of moving back in with his parents, coupled with his lifelong experience with dyslexia, would motivate him to pursue a career in stand-up. (As he told Canadian entertainment website ThatShelf.com in 2017, "Being dyslexic, there were just certain things I couldn't learn how to do, so stand-up felt like the only thing I could make a go of and accomplish something.") Sporting his trademark cardigan, Hanley became a fixture on the Vancouver comedy circuit, thanks to a laconic style that recalled the deadpan one-liners of Steven Wright, but filtered through his own irreverent observations on the single life and living with his folks. (To wit: "I'm not complaining — if it wasn't for my parents, I wouldn't be here. They dropped me off."). After making his American television debut on ‘The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson,' Hanley relocated to New York City in 2011, inspired by the Jerry Seinfeld documentary ‘Comedian' and its scenes of the legendary funnyman working fabled Big Apple venue The Comedy Cellar. Hanley would soon become a regular at the club himself, and he'd go on to score high-profile TV appearances on John Oliver's ‘New York Stand-Up Show,' ‘The Pete Holmes Show,' and ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers' before landing his own Comedy Central ‘Half Hour' special in 2015. Offstage, he's served as co-host of the ‘We Know Nothing' comedy podcast, and starred in the 2017 Canadian indie comedy ‘Sundowners.' And in 2018, Hanley released his debut stand-up album, ‘Please Don't Chit-Chat While I'm Pursuing My Dream,' which collects his signature riffs on dating, masculinity, and the absurdities faced by Canadians living in America.