Taylor Tomlinson

Taylor Tomlinson’s perspective possesses a degree of wisdom that’s typically earned with age. Named to Forbes’ 2021 class of 30 Under 30, fans got a healthy dose of that wisdom when her first-ever, hour-long special, “Quarter-Life Crisis,” debuted on Netflix last March just as the world entered into a once-in-a-century pandemic. The special went on to earn unanimous critical praise with the Washington Post calling her “your favorite quarantine-watch” and Newsweek opining she is “undeniably hilarious” and “wise beyond her years.”

Performances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CONAN, Comedy Central's Adam Devine's House Party, and Netflix’s The Comedy Lineup, as well as a top-ten finish in season 9 of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, have all endeared Taylor to a national audience. Variety Magazine named her one of the Top 10 Comics to Watch at the Just for Laughs Festival, and she’s a regular on What Just Happened??! with Fred Savage. 

Taylor’s Netflix special was the culmination of years of writing and performing, and it showed. The set was a masterful display of deft timing, crowd connection, physicality, and smarts. The material changed over the months that passed from pitch to performance, reflecting shifts in Taylor’s own life. “A lot happened over the summer of 2019,” Taylor says. “I ended up breaking off my engagement. It was a lot of growth in a very short period of time. It changed the hour a lot from what I had submitted back in February––and I think made it better.” For filming the special, Taylor chose the Aladdin in Portland, Oregon. 

“I found out I got the special and enjoyed it for about 20 minutes, then I got really stressed and was pretty laser focused,” Taylor says, laughing a little. “You think you’ll take a break after you film it, but then you realize, ‘Oh shoot. I need a whole new hour of material––I can’t take a break!” 

The special went on to be named “Best of 2020” by New York Times, Decider, Paste and more. And Vulture’s “comedian you should and will know” is just getting started! She has already developed a whole new hour of material and can’t wait to get back on the road later this year when safe to do so and share her observations and self-discovery from quarantine with the world. “I just don’t think there’s anything better than having a room full of people laugh at something you said. All I really want to do is be really good at standup––and continue to get better at it,” she says. “Saying ‘that’s all I really want’ feels insane because it’s so much to want.”