L.A. standup comic Cameron Esposito diversifies her portfolio

If you ask Cameron Esposito, seeing your face on a movie screen isn't nearly as thrilling as seeing your name.

The Chicago-born, L.A.-based stand-up comic known for her amicably in-your-face style, personal anecdotes, and swooping "side-mullet" has recently started to diversify. She just got back from the Sundance Film Festival, where two films by young directors - J.D. Dillard's Sleight and Kerem Sanga's First Girl I Loved - featured her in supporting roles.

"Because of my stand-up stuff, and how much of my career involves promoting yourself as a brand, I see my face a lot," she said in a recent interview while on the ride home from LAX. "But one thing I haven't seen a bunch is my name on a single title card. So, like, the whole screen just says 'Cameron Esposito' - that's fun."

Get used to it, Cameron.

She also has a part in Garry Marshall's forthcoming mainstream romantic comedy, Mother's Day, starring Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, and Kate Hudson. In it, she plays the wife of Sarah Chalke (Roseanne, Scrubs).

"Doing a scene opposite somebody who's been doing this forever is really intimidating until you get there," Esposito said. Once she was on the set, she said, the atmosphere was welcoming and supportive.

Esposito, who studied improv comedy before switching to stand-up, considers acting a natural next step. "You listen to what the other person is saying, you take it in, and you try to have an honest reaction to it. That's really what improv is."

As for the constant repetition a movie shoot requires, she was ready for that, too. "Stand-up is the same way. Sometimes people ask, 'Have you ever told these jokes before?' That's a funny thing that comics get a lot. And the answer is like, 'Yeah, of course we have,' " she laughed. "If you're at the point where you're charging people to see you, you should have jokes that you know are good. It takes a lot of refining, and it takes a lot of repeating yourself."

Her real-life wife, Rhea Butcher, is also a stand-up comic and the two often share the same bill; both play the Trocadero on Sunday.

Where Esposito's style is animated and wild, Butcher has honed a dry, deadpan delivery. The couple also are working on a television show for Seeso, NBC's new streaming service, called Take My Wife.

Work life and private life are intertwining even more. That has to be challenging, right?

"Well, she's driving the car right now, so I can't say that it's terrible or otherwise we might die," Esposito joked.

"There is no going home, because everywhere is work and everywhere is home," Esposito admitted. That's stressful but manageable. "You care about the business but you also care about the co-worker, and that's wonderful. That's the reason so many family businesses exist in this country."

As for the TV show, "It's about two married stand-up comics that are women. They have haircuts where one is very long on one side, and the other one is a little bit short." And one is named Cameron, the other is named Rhea.

"We really just made the idea up out of thin air. I don't know how we came up with it."

The duo also co-host a podcast called Put Your Hands Together, unique in the podcasting world in that it features stand-up comics performing stand-up comedy. (Comics generally prefer interview or improv formats.) The episodes are culled from live comedy showcases Esposito and Butcher host regularly at the UCB Theater in L.A.

As though she's not busy enough, Esposito also does voice work for the Cartoon Network, making use of her expressive inflections and barely suppressed Chicago accent, and she's been working on a memoir for several years.

"Wonderful things keep happening so the due date keeps getting pushed," she said. "It's very hard writing a book, and don't let anybody tell you different. I find that it takes your whole brain. A lot of the stuff I do, I can compartmentalize."

All those wonderful things either directly or indirectly can be traced back to stand-up comedy, the thing she's been doing the longest, and which has landed her on TV several times.

Her television debut, on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in 2013, was especially charmed. Midway through her set, she started trading quips with Ferguson and fellow guest Jay Leno and was unexpectedly called over to the couch. The three cracked wise like old pros, and Leno called Esposito "the future."

As Esposito's audience has grown, Leno's prediction seems to be coming true. Her first stand-up special, Marriage Material, debuts on Seeso in March.

"I really think stand-up is a language that you can learn to speak in. I sometimes dream in jokes. There's a generally accepted belief that once you start speaking another language in your sleep then you have mastered that language, that you're fluent," Esposito said.

Cameron Esposito, with Rhea Butcher

8 p.m. Sunday at the Trocadero Theatre, 1003 Arch St.

Tickets: $18-$20.

Information: 215-922-6888 or www.thetroc.com