Paul Mecurio

Paul Mecurio

Paul Mecurio is an Emmy & Peabody Award winning comedian for his work on "The Daily Show w/Jon Stewart," "The Late Show w/Stephen Colbert," making recurring appearances on "The Late Show," other national shows and his own comedy specials. He is also an accomplished actor, hosts the critically acclaimed podcast "Inside Out w/Paul Mecurio," an award-winning writer and appears regularly as a commentator on news and sports outlets including, CNN, MSNBC, "CBS Sunday Morning," Fox News, HLN and ESPN. As an actor, Paul can currently be seen opposite Golden Globe Winner, Liev Schreiber in the film, "Chuck," the story about journeyman boxer, Chuck Wepner, the real-life Rocky Balboa. Paul can be seen in the upcoming crime drama film "Johnny and Clyde," starring Megan Fox. Paul also created and starred in his hit, unique one-man Broadway show, "Paul Mecurio's Permission to Speak" which was met with rave reviews and been nominated for the prestigious "Best One-Man Show" Broadway Alliance Award. After the Covid variant shutdown the show will be resumed. Paul has hosted his own shows for Comedy Central, HBO and CBS as well as his own talk show. He has appeared in his own Comedy Central and Showtime Specials, made several appearances on "The Late Show w/Stephen Colbert," "The Daily Show," "The CBS Late, Late Show," HBO, "The Tonight Show," "Conan," ESPN, and Showtime. Paul has made dozens of national television appearances as a recurring contributor on the major broadcast and cable networks including on such shows as the venerable "CBS Sunday Morning," "CNN New Day," "CNN Newsroom," MSNBC, CBS News, NBC News, CBSN, CNBC, ESPN and ESPN +, Fox News, VH-1, "Dr. Drew," "Katie Couric," "Outnumbered," "Kennedy," "Showbiz Tonight," "Viewpoint," "Hannity," "Fox and Friends," HLN, "Real Story" and many more. After graduating Georgetown Law School with high honors, Paul worked as a lawyer on Wall Street at a top tier international law firm (Willkie Farr & Gallagher) and as an investment banker at a major Investment Bank (Credit Suisse), executing multi-billion dollar M&A transactions for Fortune 100 companies. While on Wall Street Paul was hired by Jay Leno to write jokes for "The Tonight Show." After living a secret double life as a Wall Street lawyer/banker by day and comedian by night, Paul left Wall Street to go into entertainment full time ... if he hadn't he would have had a nervous breakdown trying to keep the two worlds separate. Paul was featured on "The Daily Show" as a correspondent and in "The Daily Show" segment, "Second Opinion," in which Paul skewered the medical profession playing an HMO representative with a less than sympathetic mindset. He has hosted several shows and pilots for Comedy Central, CBS, HBO and VH-1. Paul is also a published essayist: "The New York Times Sunday Magazine." Paul's interviewing skills are unparalleled as one can hear on his hit, critically-acclaimed podcast, "Inside Out w/Paul Mecurio" on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart, and Audioboom. He has wide-ranging interests and his guests reflect that. His A-list guests at the pinnacle of the worlds of entertainment, pop culture, music, politics, science, sports and more, include ... Paul McCartney, Stephen Colbert, Kevin Costner, Spike Lee, Kristin Chenoweth, Bryan Cranston, Judd Apatow, Michael Strahan, Kyra Sedgwick, Billy Bob Thornton, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jay Leno, Joe Walsh, Famke Janssen, Historian Jon Meacham, Tim Robbins, Laura Prepon, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, Bill Burr, Elizabeth Perkins, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Ludacris, Lewis Black, CEO Meg Whitman, Ken Burns, Bob Costas and many more. Paul has also made appearances in the prestigious New York Comedy Festival, The Montreal "Just for Laughs" Festival and the Glasgow/Edinburgh Comedy Festival.
Paul Mercurio

Paul Mercurio

Blame it on Elvis. It was the lusty gyrations of The King in Jailhouse Rock that inspired nine-year-old Paul Joseph Mercurio to dance. His mother, Jean, responded with her usual supportive posture and enrolled Paul in a local ballet school. From there (with a short surfing break) it was on to John Curtin College of the Arts, a scholarship at the West Australian Ballet Company, and finally leaving his home in Perth for the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne. He was the odd man out in Melbourne. Not completely lonely as he had family there, he nonetheless wasn't part of the crowd in school. "They have a particular way of being, and I think my idea was broader." He said of the experience. His greatest loneliness came with his greatest opportunity thus far: an offer from the prestigious Sydney Dance Company. With no money to visit home for the holidays, alone in a strange city, Paul formed a family of prostitutes and junkies at a café in Darlinghurst--later to serve as the inspiration for his dance Cafe. Time and hard work later, Paul became something of a star with the SDC, getting plum parts from the troupe's brilliant director, Graeme Murphy, as well as doing more of his own choreography. He met his wife, Andrea Toy, during these years, and they were married in 1987. 1992 put a most remarkable wrench in the works. Paul was asked to contribute choreography for the debut work of an Australian director, Baz Luhrmann. Baz, an old friend, offered him the lead in the phenomenal Strictly Ballroom (1992). Under Luhrmann's direction, Paul's intensity took over the screen and made him an overnight icon of sensuality. Suddenly, things got busy. Paul was looking over movie offers, choreographing a production of Jesus Christ, Superstar, and most ambitiously, starting his own dance company: the Australian Choreographic Ensemble (ACE). The vision for ACE was to promote Australian choreographers and bring dance to more rural areas. All this, plus juggling a family which now included two young daughters. On the movie front, Paul did Back of Beyond, a serviceable ghost story that received a lukewarm reception. Afraid of being typecast so early in his film career, he turned down a part in Stephan Elliott's smash, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). He then accepted an offer that left him "scared sh**less": a $30 million dollar venture helmed by Garry Marshall, who had just come from the stunning success of Pretty Woman (1990). Paul would co-star with Dana Delany, 'Rosie ODonnell', and Dan Aykroyd. It must have seemed like the perfect opportunity. Poor plotting and badly mismatched marketing led to a box-office flop. Despite very good performances by the main cast, the failure of Exit to Eden (1994) became a stone around the careers of the two young leads, Mercurio and Delany. While he did land the title role in the cable movie Joseph, for the most part the movies that followed were low-profile, becoming more so toward the end of the nineties. In 1997, Paul took the first of several television roles, playing a regular character in the series Medivac (1996). His passion for beer and his work as a Coopers spokesman paid off when they bailed out the ailing ACE when government funding ran dry. Still, after six years and some success, the troupe disbanded in 1998. The inability to shake the Scott Hastings image may have been partly responsible. Eight years later, Australian news still considers it pithy to pun Strictly Ballroom (1992) in the title of every interview. Recent years have found Paul still busy making locally-produced movies, with the occasional trip to Los Angeles. In addition, he's spread his talent to once again include the stage--but this time he's acting, not dancing. He toured with A Passionate Woman at the end of 1999. Opting recently to move to just outside Sydney rather than haul his family to Los Angeles, where he is less typecast, may not have been the career move his fans would have chosen. It is certainly the choice of a man who has his priorities in order. Perhaps the near future will give Paul a chance to open his brewpub and settle down to watch his three daughters grow. His fans hope not.

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