I went to the General Store for a job, but their requirements were really specific, and then I was like, do I even want to work at the general store? Wouldn’t I rather contribute to the zeitgeist and disappoint my parents?

I thought, Ethan, E-money—which I sometimes call myself when I’m trying to hype myself up—you’re a first-generation, French-Moroccan Jew and you have great hair. Great hair and diversity are really “in” right now. And how much longer is that hair going to last? I mean, I know they say it’s from the mother’s side (and my momma has GREAT hair), but my brother’s hair is thinning, and we have the same mother (allegedly)!

I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do, Big Guy (I also sometimes call myself “Big Guy”), you’ll take that hair and that irreverent sense of humor that can only be developed through a lifetime of self-loathing and turn it into gold. You’ll be an alchemist!

So I took that humor to the place where humor and magic and originality go to die: New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. I trained in the Meisner Studio. I trained in the Meisner Studio. (Get it?) I also trained in the Classical Shakespeare Studio with famed acting coaches Suzanne Shephard, Tim Carroll, Louis Scheeder, and Victoria Hart. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Wow, look at these credentials! Look at that hair!”

That’s what Lady Gaga thought too when she put me in her music video. That’s what those short film directors who never finished their short films thought. It’s what Victoires de la Musique winner Yael Naim and Rock n' Roll icon Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü thought when they asked me to open for them.

But what really matters is, do you also think that?