Edy Modica

She will pace the stage with her shoulders hunched, her voice rising to a hoarse screech as she acts out a public meltdown. There is no distance between her and the characters she portrays; she throws her entire body into the bit, sweating through her clothes as she relives some of the most embarrassing decisions a person can make. She doesn’t ask the audience to like her, but she commands their attention by being the loudest, most honest freak in the room.

After years of building a reputation in the Brooklyn alternative scene, she found a massive audience with her breakout role as the uninhibited Jeannie in the mockumentary series Jury Duty. Rather than smoothing over her edges for television, the exposure made it clear she wasn’t going to tone down her raw, combative character comedy. She is the comic other performers watch when they want to see someone go completely off the rails.

Her debut standup special, I’m Just Like You (And It Sucks), leans hard into the comedy of self-sabotage. Her best work centers on people who are desperate for human warmth but lack the social skills to get it without screaming. In her acclaimed short film Nicole, she plays a manic, selfish outcast who alienates everyone in her path just to get a Dunkin’ Donuts Coolatta. It is a perfect distillation of her outlook: we are all miserable, we all want to be loved, and we are probably going to ruin it.

Having grown up in Nyack, New York, she draws her inspiration directly from the loud, aggressive eccentrics of her youth. She actively transcribes shouting matches she overhears on subway platforms, transforming the raw, unedited drama of New York street life into her own chaotic standup.