Patton Oswalt Opens Up About Grief And Returning To Stand-Up Following His Wife’s Sudden Death
Patton Oswalt has opened up about returning to stand-up comedy just six months after the sudden death of his wife Michelle McNamara.
While many people recognize the 47-year-old as the voice of Remy from Ratatouille or the star of King Of Queens and The Goldbergs, what allowed Patton Oswalt to rise to a position of Hollywood prominence is his sterling work as a stand-up comedian. Back in September Oswalt even won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing For A Variety Special after releasing Patton Oswalt: Talking For Clapping on Netflix.
In September Patton Oswalt decided to perform stand-up for the first time since Michelle’s death, and he soon learned that it aided him. Since then he has been honing his set-list, performing around Los Angeles and even appearing on Conan, while on November 3 he will make an appearance at the New York Comedy Festival.
Patton Oswalt on his wife’s death: “I’ll never be at 100 percent again, but that won’t stop me from living this” https://t.co/NoCCWB3TbB pic.twitter.com/CCyTXR02K8
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 26, 2016
Oswalt revealed that one of the reasons why he is so intent to continue with the profession was it acted as a “rebuke to grief, an acceptance of the messiness of life.” At the same time, though, he confessed that he’ll “never be at 100 percent again,” before insisting that that won’t stop him “from living this.”
Over the course of the last month, Patton Oswalt, the father to a 7-year-old daughter named Alice whom he had with Michelle, has been gathering and working on a brand new hour of material that will comprise his show at the Beacon Theater in New York on Thursday, November 3. Oswalt admitted that over half of his material will focus on grief, while noting that stand-up had been therapeutic for him during this time.
Patton Oswalt also discussed his initial return to stand-up with the New York Times, admitting that he felt a little shame the first time he performed following his wife’s death. Oswalt recalled, “I projected onto the audience: Your wife is dead and you’re telling jokes? What’s wrong with you.”
However, Oswalt instantly caught the bug of performing again after the performance, because later that same night he headed to a Chinese restaurant to do an open mic set. While Oswalt admitted that neither performance was overly spectacular, he did find some comfort in them, noting, “It was like: O.K., the world didn’t end.”
All of which combined to help him escape from the grief that had enveloped his life following Michelle McNamara’s death. Having experienced depression, Patton Oswalt explained to the New York Times that the grief he experienced was far more worse and debilitating.
“Depression is more seductive,” Oswalt explained. “Its tool is: ‘Wouldn’t it be way more comfortable to stay inside and not deal with people?’ Grief is an attack on life. It’s not a seducer. It’s an ambush or worse. It stands right out there and says: ‘The minute you try something, I’m waiting for you.'”
Patton Oswalt opens up about his wife’s sudden death earlier this year https://t.co/YPliUa07qk pic.twitter.com/RXDftbbndo
— ET Canada (@ETCanada) October 27, 2016
During the same interview, Patton Oswalt also provided further insight into the morning of his wife’s death, while revealing he has a “feeling it might have been an overdose.” Because Michelle was working all the hours of the day trying to complete her latest book, Patton Oswalt advised her to have a good night’s rest. In order to do just that, she took some Xanax and went to bed.
However, by 12:40 the next day she still hadn’t woken up, and when Patton Oswalt went in to check on her, she was no longer breathing. The paramedics arrived soon after and pronounced her dead, immediately descending Patton Oswalt into a grief that he freely admits he’ll never truly be rid of, but that stand-up provides a brief rest-bite and solace from.
[Featured Image by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images]
