SARAH SILVERMAN - March 6, 2008

Guy MacPherson: How are you doing? Thanks for calling.
Sarah Silverman: No problem. Hi!

GM: Thanks for doing this.
SS: My pleasure. Sorry to be a pain in the ass.

GM: You're not. I read these interviews with you and most of them are done by e-mail.
SS: Every one I can get away with.

GM: And you have clout now. You can get away with it.
SS: I just come up with better answers. I can think for a second. I'm not an improvisational comedian.

GM: Ah, right. But you know, you don't need to have witty answers.
SS: Oh good.

GM: This is good timing that you're coming here because that video has exploded.
SS: It's so weird. I don't know, it seems trite to be like, "I had no idea!" I mean, Matt Damon's in it; it's pretty awesome. But we made it in October. ... I was surprised.

GM: You knew it would be on his show and people would like it, but it's way beyond that now.
SS: It's really insane. Obviously it's the big stars. I have no illusions about that. But it's weird because there's been a lot of like really spectacular things on Jimmy's show and videos with celebrities and stuff, but for some reason this one was really fun for people.

GM: And that whole thing about him saying, "My apologies to Matt Damon, we ran long tonight", was there some issue originally where Matt Damon wouldn't do the show?
SS: No. No, no, no. It started a few years ago. I think Jimmy was just so over the fact that his guests were not even B celebrity calibre that he just one night thought of the biggest movie star he could think of and said, "Sorry Matt Damon, we ran out of time." And it just became like tradition, you know? He's ritualistic. Like, every night before the show as he's going downstairs to do the show, we all do a chant, "Best show ever! Best show ever!" And he usually does a joke before it and then we all say "Best show ever". Since the first night.

GM: A creature of habit.
SS: Yeah.

GM: So you're there every night.
SS: When I'm working, if I can't make it, then I can't make it. But it's usually pretty possible to get over there between 7 and 8. It's only an hour.

GM: How is it possible for you to have sat on the video without spilling the beans? Is that like you?
SS: Yeah. I can contain myself. I actually can contain myself. I never mentioned it, I didn't bring it up, I didn't have the tune in my head. I just buried it in my brain. Because I didn't want to ruin it, you know? The surprise is that nobody at work blew it. The key is not telling Uncle Frank.

GM: And we saw Jimmy's reaction. He obviously thought it was funny...
SS: Could you see his reaction? Because he had not seen the video before, so during the video I was watching him and he was blown away, dying laughing and he just got himself together just in time to act mad when it was over.

GM: Yeah, that's the reaction I saw, the acting mad. And you know that it's an act. But it's amazing to me that some people will think that he's taking it the wrong way. Or when Damon was on the show himself and people thought he was seriously mad.
SS: I know! It's so bizarre. It's a comedy show. But the cool thing about the show is how they really do commit. Matt totally committed and it seemed real. And there was one where Jimmy got a snake bite and he gets rushed to the emergency room and it was like the whole cast of Grey's Anatomy. And people thought it was real. It's like, the camera's wouldn't still be rolling.

GM: Are people actually wondering if you and Matt Damon are actually fucking?
SS: Um, I guess stupid people.

GM: You could pretty much get anyone you want. What is it about Jimmy that you love so much?
SS: Oh my God... He just makes me swoon. It's so not funny.

GM: It's like you're still in the early stages of romance even though you've been going out a long time.
SS: Five and a half years.

GM: Yeah. You're still really smitten with each other, it seems.
SS: Oh my God, he's so cute. He's the cutest... I don't know. I just lucked out. I found the guy that totally... I just think he's awesome. I don't know. I don't want to dissect it but I like his dimples, I like his sense of humour, I like his kindness, blah blah blah. Everything girls like about guys.

GM: I always thought he was a good combination of base and intelligent humour.
SS: Exactly. We don't have the exact same sense of humour but I love when things are just fucking so stupid. It makes me so happy. He's silly. You're exactly right, he's base... It always sounds stupid coming from the girlfriend that he's one of the smartest guys I know, but he's so prolific. He's constantly writing. He's an idea man.

GM: Not that I want to focus this whole interview on Jimmy, but he's not a comedian per se, but he's comedic.
SS: He's not a standup but he's a comedian.

GM: Yeah, that's what I meant.
SS: He's amazing. When we first went out, he said something that I could never say just out of superstition. He looked at me and just said, "I never get writer's block. And I'll never get writer's block." I could never say that. I'm too superstitious. But he said, "I'll never get writer's block because I write every day."

GM: What was he writing back then?
SS: He was always writing. Ideas, scripts... He's the most self-disciplined writer/comedian/ performer I've ever met because traditionally we're so lazy. We work all day on my show and if I can get a solid hour altogether of focus, it's amazing. We actually had to make a rule in my office that you can't take your penis out until 5.

GM: That's a good rule to have.
SS: It's really sad. It's true.

GM: You have a thing for Catholic boys.
SS: I don't have a thing for them.

GM: Your other joke started before you went out with Jimmy.
SS: True. My boyfriend before that was Catholic, too.

GM: You've been performing how long? Fifteen, sixteen years?
SS: Oh my God. Professionally, I did my first professional gig when I was 19 and I'm 37, so 29, 39 minus 2, 18 years. Aah!

GM: It's only been the last couple years where you've transcended the genre, where you've reached out past the comedy nerds to the general public.
SS: Yeah.

GM: What was it that propelled you? Was it your film you think? Or was it just the culmination of all these years?
SS: I don't know. That's for you to say. I couldn't step outside of it, really. But yeah, probably. Between the Comedy Central show and hosting the MTV movie awards was huge for me. Jimmy and I went to Europe and these teenagers from Africa, who spoke no English, started jumping up and down and pointing at me and saying, "MTV!" Just from that one gig. It's crazy the reach and the power MTV has.

GM: How has the transition been from not totally anonymous, but close, to that where strangers are getting excited just to see you?
SS: It's really weird. I mean, I'm 37. I'm a grown woman and I can handle it. It's obviously a delight most of the time. But sometimes, like if I'm in Vegas where it's like all tourist, it becomes really scary. And I think, oh my God, these young girls, like Lindsay Lohan or something, who have it a thousand times more than me, and they're kids with no sense of self yet or anything. I can't imagine that. I'd go nuts.

GM: You seem not to have changed. Maybe that's because it happened later in life.
SS: Yeah. I have all the same friends. I'm old. How much is going to change? I swear, for the amount of famous I am, whatever that is, semi-celebrity, I'm the poorest semi-celebrity you'd ever know. It seems like people have so much money. Like, where do they get this money?

GM: They're usually big movie stars or something, aren't they?
SS: Yeah. I mean, it's true. Comedy Central is pretty far-reaching. Like, people know me from it. But I make more money one night on the road than like a season, or months of work there.

GM: I've always thought it would be the worst to be really famous without the money to protect yourself.
SS: Shield yourself. But it's not bad. It's great. It's really nice. Especially this late. I've been doing standup since I was 17. It's such a long road but it's so fun I wouldn't want it to end. The whole time was great and now I hope I just keep... Oh my God, Guy, I have nothing good to say. I'm so scattered.

GM: You're doing great.
SS: I'm a sweaty ball.

GM: Were you working out?
SS: I was working out. I think I sprained my finger because I'm a fucking ape. I bought a used treadmill and I just watched Law & Order on the treadmill. And my arms are so long I smashed my hand against the railing thing.

GM: Your first time on, was it?
SS: No! But I really have to keep my elbows bent the whole time because my arms drag on the floor.

GM: That's a whole other level of workout when your arms are bent. You gotta hold them up.
SS: Yeah!

GM: You still playing ball?
SS: No. I want to. I was really missing it today, basketball. I haven't played in so long. I really have been itching to play. Have you?

GM: Yeah but I'm breaking down. I go back then get injured and am out for weeks.
SS: I know. I'm so afraid to go back and be like, "Oh my God, I'm not the same person I once was."

GM: Have you noticed people around you treating you differently? I find a lot of times that the celebrity themselves haven't changed so much as the perception of them does.
SS: It's so true. I mean, my friends are the same. But I believe that, too, because I've really seen it with other people. The people who go, "So-and-so's changed", they're the ones that are changing. There's always the passive-aggressive friend who can't deal with it.

GM: And they'll think you have a big head or whatever.
SS: Yeah. "Oh, you a big deal now?" And it's always the people who the only time you hear from them is when they want a favour or want you to get them in somewhere. But you've changed.

GM: Or when you want a phone interview instead of an e-mail interview.
SS: Oh!

GM: Your career had been slowly but steadily rising. Did you during that time have a goal or master plan? Or did you just have a vague notion that you were on the right track?
SS: If I did, I aged far beyond any of those goals. I never thought like, "Boy, I hope that by the time I'm 37 I have a show on basic cable." But I'm super happy. I really lucked out with the things I got and the things I didn't get. I think of the things I auditioned for that God forbid I ended up on.

GM: Like some shitty sitcom or something?
SS: Yeah. And then like the lucky breaks. It's all timing and luck. Perseverance and hard work, but it doesn't always work.

GM: Did you ever get close to quitting?
SS: No.

GM: Because you'd do it anyway, I'm guessing.
SS: Yeah, I'm a standup. I do standup. I like it socially, I like hanging out with the comics after, I like the whole world. It's like being gay; it's what you are.

GM: That's a good analogy.
SS: Thank you. I have friends that are still searching. Everybody has their own personal velocity in life but I realized how lucky I was that I always knew what I wanted in life. It's just such a gift to know. I've always known I wanted to be a comic and an actress. But so many of my friends are just searching and searching and they don't know what they want, you know? It makes me realize how lucky I am.

GM: And the talent, too, has got to be there.
SS: I'm also extremely talented.

GM: Extremely! You can't say that, but you do need that self-confidence of knowing that you're funny, right?
SS: Well, I do stuff that I laugh at so that's all I can go by. People also find success just by perseverance. I know people who are so talented but so fucking lazy that they're doing fucking nothing... I can't believe how much I'm cursing. I'm sorry. I sound like my father... And then there are people who are very mediocre and they just are tenacious and persevere and they find success.

GM: Dane Cook?
SS: Ah, I wouldn't... Dane Cook's been doing standup for twenty years at least. Whatever you think... I don't know. I have no problem with Dane.

GM: I liked him, actually, when I saw him at a club here years and years ago before he broke.
SS: He's made me laugh, you know? He's had run-ins or whatever. He's got his mishigos, but I think he's pretty talented. He works his ass off. I also find him a lot less annoying than comics who go on stage and shit on him. I don't think it makes you funny to shit on another comic, to go on stage and say that Dane Cook is lame or that Patch Adams wasn't funny. It doesn't make you funny.

GM: No. And there's room for all these different styles.
SS: Yeah. People like him.

GM: A lot of comics I know live and die off their last set. Are you like that, too? Or doesn't it faze you?
SS: I do, yeah. If I have a shitty set I just think I'm not funny. I was on tour. I had had a bad set. I just had no fun at all when I was in Orlando. And the next stop was Miami and I just did not feel funny at all. I remember my friend Doug Benson was opening and he was on stage and I was on the bus on the phone with Jimmy hysterically crying. I was like, [bawling] "I am not funny! I have nothing to say!" (laughs) My parents were in the audience and I just was like, "Ugh, when does this stop?"

GM: Yeah, when does it?
SS: And it ended up being good.

GM: Every comic bombs. The bigger you get, can you bomb? Because everybody's there to see you.
SS: It's not like I bombed, but I like to have fun and have a good time, obviously. And one thing that really bums me out is... People take pictures with their phones and that doesn't bother me at all. But when I'm on stage and they're just holding up their phone videotaping and then there's just a shitty fucking video of me on YouTube doing, like, jokes that I'm working on, you know? So I just ask them to stop and I try to be funny about it. But then sometimes they keep going. People will videotape and then you ask them to stop, and you just want to keep everything light, and they keep going because all the better if it makes the comic get mad or do anything. The spirit of that is so mean that it just breaks my heart. And I'm still on stage and I'm supposed to make this asshole laugh? Like, three different times I asked and I just finally was doing my last song at the end and this guy was videotaping with a big fucking shit-eating grin on his face and I was just like, "You're a dick!" and I walked off stage... I don't even know why I'm saying this here. But it just bums me out. Because I just want to, like, hang out with the audience and laugh and be funny and have a good time. I can handle the crowd, or whatever, but that's one thing that... It's not even the videotaping that makes me mad; it's when I ask them to stop and they keep on doing it just for any chance of getting that Michael Richards moment. The spirit of it is so ugly that I just feel like, "Fuck you! Why am I up here trying to make fucking assholes laugh?"

GM: One or two people ruin it for everybody.
SS: Exactly. I mean, the crowd was great. It was like three different people. It can even be one person. I've really learned from that and just focus on all the people that are there to have a good time. Most comics will tell you that one person can just ruin a show. If you see just one person with their arms folded you focus on them instead of all the people laughing and having a good time.

GM: Where's security? They tell hecklers to get out.
SS: It almost never happens. Comics get no (laughs) respect. But it's not like I have a heckler problem. It's just the people sitting there smiling and videotaping.

GM: But it's the same idea, isn't it?
SS: But you can't point them out. I just ignore it. They'll take everybody's phone at the door but I feel bad. I feel like that's such a pain in the ass for people. But it's like a couple rotten apples. It's like the reason we all have to take our shoes off at the airport.

GM: You don't like to analyze your comedy, I know, or talk about it too deeply. Why?
SS: One, because I think that's for other people to do. You talk to all these writers and they ask you for all this information that's subjective about what they do. When did writers stop having opinions? Why don't they speculate and have an opinion and figure things out? To ask the comic or whoever you're talking to to deconstruct what they do, it's like if somebody says, "I love how you curl that side of your mouth when you smile" to somebody and then for the rest of your life you can't do it because you break it down in your head. It becomes inorganic.

GM: But they're just getting your perspective... Like how I say "they" and not "me"?
SS: (laughs) No, I mean I always end up doing it anyway because what comic doesn't like talking about themselves and breaking down how fucking important they are or whatever (laughs). I just feel like comedy's subjective and that means that it should be up to the person to infer what they see. But I'm not saying, like, "I won't comment on that!"

GM: But you did describe it really well, I thought, when you said it's "ignorance coupled with arrogance".
SS: That's my character on the show.

GM: I think you were talking about your standup.
SS: Both, yeah. I'm still not sick of that. I always think comics should grow and move on. A lot of comics, especially from the '80s, are famous for their crazy voice or some sort of weird affectation: Bobcat or Dice or Judy Tenuta or people like Emo Philips, who are great comics but got stuck in that thing where now they're on the road and do they do that thing from the '80s. Like, who is the same person they were in the '80s? But at the same time the audience is disappointed if they're not. But I think you have to be brave enough. Like Emo looks normal now, like a regular guy.

GM: He looks normal but he's still got the weird delivery.
SS: Oh really? But I mean if that's him, that's him. But I also know comics like that who struggle with feeling they have to do that on the road even though they've grown past it. They end up being a caricature of this thing stuck in time. That's something that I would never want to do. I still get exhilarated by that kind of ignorant arrogance.

GM: It's not like a character; it's a persona. Whereas these other people are doing more characters.
SS: I'm mostly myself on stage but there'll be bits where, I don't take on a character but it's just like an uglier side of myself.

GM: Was that ignorance and arrogance something you were consciously aware of or something you analyzed after the fact and go, "Oh yeah, that's why it works"?
SS: I don't think I put those words together before, no. I never started analyzing what I was doing until I had to promote things. And it's interesting. I worry that it tears away... There's a kind of positive ignorance that comes from doing what you think is funny and not wondering what it means.

GM: Every so often you'll get in trouble with a joke, like with Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or the "chink" thing. Does that always catch you off-guard or is that part of the thrill of doing such material?
SS: No. When I've gotten in trouble in the past, I embrace it. But the Britney thing really bummed me out because I felt set up. First of all, I didn't know what we all know now, which is she's fucking genuinely sick. She's always been unbelievable at the VMAs. She's always been spectacular. And I was set to go on immediately after her, so what do you do when you're a comic? I have to do jokes about the act I followed to get into the rest of the monologue. I didn't know she was going to be a train wreck. I did jokes about her like I would do about anyone I was put on to follow. I did not go into that thinking, "I'm going to make a real splash." As a matter of fact I was so bummed that my other jokes were totally overshadowed. I had to do a couple of Britney jokes to get into the monologue because I followed her. It fucking sucked, you know? And then her people tried to blame me for her performance by saying that she heard my jokes, and that's a lie because MTV purposely had me not do my jokes at dress rehearsal. They had me just say, "joke joke joke," you know, because smartly they didn't want to be held responsible for anything I said. So the first time I did the jokes was live.

GM: Were you bummed because of the reaction you got or because of how she felt?
SS: I felt bad that she felt that, but no, she didn't even hear my jokes. She didn't hear my jokes. I had nothing to do with her performance. My jokes didn't hit the air until after she performed. But they were jokes I had written... It's not like I had watched her performance and saw her bomb and came out and did jokes about her bombing. I'm sure it may look like that to people who don't understand, but I had jokes that I had been writing for the past two weeks. And I didn't see her performance because I was fucking backstage nervous and getting my shit together.

GM: And even the one you had about her kids...
SS: She said that! That's a quote. She said they were ... Remember? It was on the cover of magazines that she called them mistakes. I mean, whatever. But obviously I wouldn't do them now.

GM: Because?
SS: Because I think she seems like she's maybe schizophrenic. She's deeply troubled.

GM: But even so, I asked my wife about how she'd feel if you said that about our little mistake, and she said she'd laugh. As would I. It has nothing to do with the child.
SS: It's a fucking joke.

GM: Exactly.
SS: But I mean, if I'm responsible for being insensitive to Britney, then MTV is responsible for putting someone that sick on television. But the truth is that none of us knew.

GM: I remember when you were here in 2000 and after performing the "chink" joke at a local club, you asked my Chinese-Canadian friend Bob if he thought it was offensive. You seemed genuinely concerned because you weren't sure yourself. I was wondering if this is something you do with your more racially sensitive material? Do you ask friends of different races what they think or do you just go with your gut?
SS: I do if the opportunity strikes and it's a bit I'm not sure about. I can't control what the audience will infer, but it's good to get an idea. I always think if I'm not comfortable doing the joke in front of an ethnically mixed crowd, then that's not a cool joke. I'm not looking to do racial jokes for an all white crowd, you know? That gets kind of creepy and messages get mixed. An old boyfriend of mine used to call it, "mouth full of blood" laughs.

GM: On one of your shows, practically the whole episode you were in blackface. Was that something everyone on the show was expecting to hear about negatively?
SS: We figured we would but we had no problem with it. We really didn't.

GM: My nephew, who's half black, just saw the commercials and said, "I don't know about this." So I got him to watch the whole episode and he went, "Oh, okay. I get it now."
SS: That's cool.

GM: But out of context, it can look worse than it is. But that's how the media works!
SS: Yeah, exactly.

GM: What is the status of the show now?
SS: Oh my God, as soon as the strike finished we went back to writing. We have the worst momentum of any show ever. We're writing. We're supposed to write ten episodes, and I think we still might but Comedy Central realized that if there's a SAG strike at the end of June, we're fucked. Because that's when we're supposed to start shooting, is mid-June. We've got, like, seven scripts, so instead of writing the other three, the rest of the ten ordered, we're just going to start shooting next month so that we will have at least seven episodes even if there's a strike, which I'm hoping there won't be. I don't know, I don't think Hollywood wants to go through that again.

GM: How many did you have for season two?
SS: The first order was six and then the next season we did six and then we were supposed to do ten, which is what we're doing now but there's a huge gap because of strike. They would have been on the air already. It was like an order of 16 but instead of doing all 16 we split it up to six and ten. And then we never got to do the ten. So there should be ten episodes starting October.

GM: So essentially season three.
SS: Yeah, I'm sure they'll say it's season three but technically for us it's finishing an order from season two.

GM: It's only relatively recently that I've seen you playing the guitar and singing. Is this something you grew up doing or did you learn it later?
SS: My friend Marc Cohen, who's a comedian, taught me the guitar when we were living in New York when I was like 19, 20. I've done a lot of guitar stuff. I do it in Jesus Is Magic.

GM: Yeah, yeah, that's when I first really heard it.
SS: I'm a really shitty guitarist. I know like ten chords.

GM: But you write a lot of these songs, don't you?
SS: Yeah, I do. But especially now we've got a couple of writers that are really great at it. Some of them I will write but some of them our writers write.

GM: Did they help with the Matt Damon song? What was your input in that?
SS: No, they didn't. That was Jimmy Kimmel Live so it was two writers from there: Jimmy's cousin Sal and Tony Barbieri, who does a lot of characters on the show, thought of it. And actually, we did it in Miami because it was when I was on the road and he lives in Miami so it worked out that we shot it there. So Jimmy just thought I was on the road, which I was. And the director, Wayne McClammy, who's amazing... We had Matt for three hours. That's a lot of work. It's crazy what he can do, Wayne. And Wayne directed a couple episodes on - or maybe just one episode - on my show. He did the dog-licking asshole one.

GM: You never used to tour much with your standup, did you?
SS: I hate it. I would do anything to get out of this one. (laughs)

GM: But the money's too good.
SS: Well, this is what happens. I mean, I love performing. I just hate being on the road. It's fucking lonely. This one is going to suck because I love Vancouver but it's like I fly four hours there, I do two shows that night, and the next morning I fly home. I can't even do anything. I can't even go to Naam.

GM: You don't bring an opening act, do you?
SS: I am bringing an opening act.

GM: Oh yeah? Who's that?
SS: This hilarious comedian. I mean, fucking brilliant comedian named Anthony Jeselnik. He wrote my two best jokes for the MTV movie awards and for the VMAs. He's really amazing. He's a genius.

GM: Is there a big misconception about you because of the material that you do? I mean, people know it's irony and all that, but I always tell people, "No, she's super nice."
SS: People think that I'm brassy and sassy and dirty. It's funny, because I said to Jimmy, "I hate that people think I'm dirty." Every article says "potty-mouth Sarah Silverman". I don't think of myself that way at all. But he's like, "You are dirty." But I don't swear on stage, really. I mean, not nearly as much as... My dad says "fucking" every other word but he's like a sweet, happy-go-lucky guy. He'll go, like, "I'm such a fuckin' lucky daddy." When he visits, he'll just do shitty errands with us all day. We'll just drag him around doing whatever we have to do and at the end of the day he'll always be like, "I'm so fuckin' lucky. I had the best time." He says "fuck" every other word. He's from Boston, Mass., you know?

GM: So you come by it honestly. But you say you're not like that. So that's a misconception.
SS: I don't know. Jimmy disagrees with me so I don't know. But I don't swear; I'm just explicit. I don't swear; I'm just graphic.

GM: Does the media write lots of other mistakes? Have you been burned by them?
SS: No, but I just think that when people are writing stories, they want you to fit into a certain box so you'll be able to be described with as little adjectives as possible. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been called a potty-mouth. It's like, "Really? You're a writer. You write. You definitely Googled me so you definitely saw that 85 other articles called me a potty-mouth, but you're still gonna go with potty-mouth. Could you even go to a thesaurus and type in 'potty-mouth' and just use one of the 85 other synonyms?"

GM: That's what I do!
SS: That's what I do, too! Not to shit on... I love reading articles about people and stuff, but it's like even if your job is just writing about the comic that's coming to town, don't you want to have a little flair, have opinions and use adjectives?

GM: Yeah, it all depends. If that's just their day job and they sit at a desk and they have to crank something out...
SS: Right. Yeah, exactly. This isn't their book. This isn't their great novel they're writing. It's like Jimmy said with never having writer's block: you have to kind of care about even the shitty stuff you have to do. It informs the rest.

GM: Well, this puts utterly too much pressure on me.
SS: I just realized that. I'm so sorry! (laughs) Believe me, I won't judge you.

GM: You're on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair for a piece called, "Who says women aren't funny?" I know this was a response to Hitchen's column, but did you know that's what it would be on? And are you surprised that in 2008 this is still discussed? Doesn't just talking about it lend credence to the theory?
SS: To be honest I was disappointed in the Vanity Fair article. It was an honour to be on the cover and in company like Amy [Poehler] and Tina [Fey], but I found the article - that kind of, "Women ARE funny!" piece - to be embarrassing. And the way they scold Christopher Hitchens, it was frustrating because it doesn't represent my feelings at all. I loved Christopher Hitchen's article. It was a really well written essay about why people need to become funny. How men need to be funny to attract the opposite sex, whereas women don't. Of course, as a woman, being funny still can be a survival skill for other reasons, but he's talking about the skill sets we each need in order to attract the opposite sex. It was not misogynistic in my opinion - not in the least. The title was provocative, as it should be, but the piece was smart and interesting. With this, the Vanity Fair one, I just didn't share the basic sentiment of the article, and I felt it was written before it was written, you know? Like the point of view of it was planned out before talking to any of the subjects. I don't mean to bite the hand that feeds me - again, it was an honour. I guess when you grow up with Vanity Fair and the New York Times and stuff, it's disillusioning because your expectations remain so high.

GM: Last question. I just want to know about the live show. Since your movie, which was a concert film of your standup act, have you had to retire your material? Are we going to see some of the same stuff?
SS: I'm too lazy and I spend all day every day working on the show. It's funny, but between these gigs I'm barely doing my regular night-time standup because I'm tired at night. It's really fucked with me. So I would say it's like half Jesus Is Magic and half new. If I do songs, they'll be from Jesus Is Magic. Or maybe one from the series, actually. Yeah, it's probably about half and half. That's reasonable, right?

GM: That's very reasonable.
SS: Or am I a hypocrite? "You know, if you're writing an article you should be original!"

GM: Ha! I would have come to that conclusion eventually.
SS: (laughs)

GM: Okay, thanks a lot again.
SS: Alright. Please, please try to make me sound smarter than I am. As a friend?

GM: In a preview, it's the artist's turn to speak. So unless they're complete assholes...
SS: I'm an asshole but at least you like me.

GM: I like you.
SS: Alright, I look forward to seeing you and hopefully meeting the little lady. I want to see [your son]. I think I get in like right before the show. I don't know what my scoop is.

GM: He's huge.
SS: Oh my God. I'm great with three-year-olds, too. I kill with three-year-olds.

GM: There's always five or ten minutes where they're shy. Do you get that?
SS: Oh, no, no, no. I do this thing called stinky feet. It kills.

GM: (laughs) Available for children's parties.
SS: (laughs) Alright, I'll see you in a couple of weeks.

Photo by Brian Nation

 

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