Fresh Air - Sarah Silverman Gets the Last Laugh in 'PostMortem'

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Silverman's father and stepmother are buried under one tombstone that reads: "Janice and Donald, who loved to laugh." The loss was a starting point for Silverman's "cathartic" Netflix comedy special, PostMortem. She spoke with Terry Gross about their final days, finding the joy in grief, and she reflects on the boys' club of the comedy scene when she was starting out.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Federal funding for public media has been eliminated, which means decades of support for public radio and television from both political parties is ending. To be clear, NPR isn't going anywhere, but we do need your support. We hope you'll give today to keep rigorous, independent, and irreplaceable news coverage available to everyone free of charge. Make your gift at donate.npr.org. And thank you. This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. The Emmy Awards will be broadcast live September 14th. Over the next few weeks, we'll be hearing from some of the nominees. Today we have comic, writer, and actor, Sarah Silverman.

Her latest comedy special, called Postmortem, is nominated for two Emmys, Outstanding Variety Special and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. Her stand-up comedy is always original, brave, and funny, whether it's talking about sex, abortion, being Jewish, racism, or just daily life. she's willing to take risks to make a point and make it funny. She regrets a few jokes she told in the past and later apologized for them. She was a writer and featured performer for one season on Saturday Night Live. She played a writer on the Larry Sanders show.

From 2007 to 2010, she starred in the series The Sarah Silverman Show, and from 2017 to 2019, hosted the Hulu series, I Love You America, in which she had conversations to help her understand people she didn't necessarily agree with. She's been in several movies, and she's a regular on the animated series, Bob's Burgers. Earlier this year,

she roasted her friend Conan O'Brien at the Kennedy Center ceremony, at which he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American humor. Silverman's memoir, The Bedwetter, was adapted into an off-Broadway musical. Her Emmy-nominated comedy special

Post-Mortem is streaming on Netflix. Toward the beginning, she's talking about sexual fantasies and sex talk. not surprising subject matter for her, and then she quietly makes an abrupt turn to this. Oh, my dad and my step-mom Janice both died last May, nine days apart. Oh, that one needs work.

But they really did, and I was really close with both of them, and my dad was my best friend, and they both gave me so much. and most recently about an hour of new material, so let's do this. Silverman's father and stepmother died in May 23, and they really did give her an hour of new material. Her stepmom had pancreatic cancer. Her dad had kidney disease. The special is funny, emotional, and always surprising. Sarah Silverman, welcome back to Fresh Air. I think this is a very meaningful and funny special, and I'm grateful that you did it. Oh, man, thank you. Thanks.

Sarah, I don't remember you ever doing anything as emotional as this new special. What made you think about doing a special about your parents' death? Oh, well, it wasn't something that I sat and thought about and decided. It was my last special was coming out as they were dying. And so after they passed and I started. doing stand-up again, I was at zero again, which is where I'm at right now. So the only material was what was going on in my life, which was, you know, I remember going to Largo, the club out here that I work at, and I had just, I had come straight from cleaning out their apartment

with my sisters. And so that was just what I was talking about. And, you know, I had spoken at my dad's eulogy, and of course there were a lot of funny things in there because he He was hilarious, and I, so I kind of, that was the starting point for starting over again with my stand-up, and it just grew and grew and built from there. Did you use anything from the eulogy in the comedy special? Oh, yeah. Did you tell the Jeff Ross story in the eulogy? Probably, probably, yeah.

Would you tell, all the funny stories about, oh, you know, people came to say goodbye as my dad was done. and Jeff Ross, who's, of course, the hilarious roast master general, he was very close with my parents, and he came in, and he's comfortable with this stuff. He's very comfortable with, there was no awkwardness with him walking into my dad's bedroom as he was dying, you know, and he said, Schleppy, you know, everyone called my dad Schleppy since before I was born, you know. And he said, Schleppy, I got bad news for you. I don't think you can be my emergency contact anymore.

He laughed, you know, and it was so sweet. And I tell that story in the special and miraculously, because it's not like I was shooting video a lot on my phone, but I had videoed it from my phone when he walked in, just, you know, because I knew he'd be excited to see Jeff and captured that. So, you know, the thing I love about the special one thing I love is the credits. You know, if you keep the sound on and watch through the credits, there's a lot of Easter eggs. And you see that video.

And he even says a joke beyond that, you know, that they are talking and laughing. And it's so sweet, you know, it's just so sweet. And it's great photos of your parents and there, too, and of your sisters. Yeah. Yeah. So the thing about giving a eulogy is like you really want to do it. And at the same time, it feels like, well, it must have felt for you like you were doing a comment. special or putting on a show when maybe you just wanted to grieve. On the other hand, it gives

you a chance to live in the memory of the person or people that you lost. And then you wonder if you can get through it without totally breaking up and weeping. Yeah. Yeah. There was so much time for sobbing and tears while they were dying. It was just so hard. And, you know, I had, I have three sisters and nieces and nephews, you know, we really shared the burden of it all and we're able to go through it together. You know, so many people as I toured the country, you know, would say I was the only, I'm the only child and I realize how lucky I am. And of course, being at a funeral is tough, but there's, I always find funerals so joyful because, well, I mean, first of all, most of them are for comedians. But, um, but my parents,

were so funny and such characters and loved to laugh. You know, it was on their tombstone, you know, they were kind of buried together and they have one tombstone, and my sister Susan, who's a rabbi, thought of what we wrote at the top, which was, you know, Janice and Donald, who loved to laugh, you know. And so it's, you know, I feel like funerals and shivas can be so joyful, you know, and sharing all those stories. It's that, it's when you realize those stories are finite, you know, that it gets sad again. And you, you know, like this whole tour was so cathartic, you know, in that way.

But I remember crying at my mom's when my mom died 10 years ago. Because Janice is your stepmother. She's the one who died and died from your father. Yeah, it's, you know, I mean, all that stuff, and we were talking before this a little bit, just, you know, There's kind of so much joy and relief in the funeral and thereafter because you're all together with the people who love this person and you're sharing stories. And then it's when you get back into normal life and you're like in line at the grocery store that you just kind of crumble into tears, you know, like just saying the words like, well, my mom died, you know, like it's hard to say. The tour was interesting because the first half of it was I dreaded. going on stage. I dreaded sledging through all of this because I hadn't figured it out totally

yet. I hadn't found all the laughs. There was a lot of kind of, I mean, just this is kind of story jargon, but like laying pipe to be able to tell the whole picture, but not knowing what goes where. And it was hard, you know, and it hurt more. And then as I figured it out how to tell the story and how to digress and how to keep it funny and moving. It became really a joy to go out like where I

couldn't wait to tell this new crowd about these people. You were with your father and stepmother when she was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. So I want to play a clip from your special post-mortem about your father's reaction.

Well, let me just say we weren't with them. They were in Florida at the time, but what we would do is whenever they would go to the doctor once they got older, we would have them record it on their voice memo app on their phone and post it to our family WhatsApp chain so that we could listen to it and make sure everything was being taken care of. And that's how we heard the appointment where she was diagnosed. Okay. So this clip starts with you talking about Janice's reaction, your stepmother's reaction, to the news and what she has to say to the doctor.

They're individual reactions to this news. I'm still listening, you know, and Janice is just, her reaction is so Janice, you know. She just goes, well, I'll just do everything you tell me. And I'll just do every single thing you say and I'll fight it. And it was just so her. And then my dad's reaction. was the craziest thing

I've ever heard in my entire life. I'm not kidding. You just hear him go, I'm alone! Then he goes, I'm a widow! I know. My mother, Beth-Anne, is out there somewhere going,

it's widower. But mom, it was so crazy. I'm the designated Dad Whisperer, and I was tasked with calling him. And I had to say, Dad, you cannot talk that way in front of your alive wife. You have to pull your shit together.

Okay? This isn't about you. This is about Janice. You have to take care of Janice. You have to focus. You can't, like, fall down right now. And he said, I know, I know. And then he started sobbing,

and I've really never heard him do that, you know. And he goes, I just, I don't want to be in a world without my Janus. I just don't want to be here without a. And I just, I wanted to console him. And I looked for something to say. And I said, well, you know, statistically you won't. And, I mean, I didn't know that was going to come true. Obviously, this is not a time to say, I told you so.

By the way, all true. I mean, it's like the truest special. And I don't even find that appealing to say, like, everything I say is completely true. you know, but it's, and obviously there are some just pure jokes in there, but my family, you know, they always know to take everything with a grain of salt, but they were just like, everything you said really happened. It's so crazy. So you've witnessed two deaths that were very different. Your stepmother who had pancreatic cancer and died, you know, with pain, your father who had a kind of kidney disease where there isn't pain. There's death, but not like physical pain. So two different examples of what death is like, and one of them took four months and your father's death, like, how long after he was diagnosed did he die? Well, he was never diagnosed. He just, like, he wouldn't go back to the hospital and we respected it.

And without that, his body just got worse and worse. He was always the sick one. You know, I mean, he had his marbles 100%, but he was always in and out. And that was always our family plan. I mean, we joke about it. Dad goes first. Janice has a whole second, you know, next chapter, and, you know, in many years she would go. And this threw us all for a loop, you know.

And I think his ultimate decline was when she passed. It was, he just was done. And he had gotten some blood work. And the doctor said, you know, he needs to be in the hospital. And we just, he just wouldn't go. And we, even the doctor said, I get it. You know, like, just let them go in peace. And, you know, you're at the hospital.

It's, it's, if he can't charm the people around him, it makes him feel terrible. Like, if he's not adored by every caretaker, he's, he's miserable. And hospitals are filled with people who are really busy and overworked. And it's just the beeping and the, you know, the noises and the alarms. And it's just, it's, there's nothing peaceful about it. And the helplessness. It's better to be helpless at home with the loved ones around you. Surrounded by his family.

I mean, at one point, when he got out of the hospital, we basically broke him out and had to sign a thing that said, we understand you think he should stay, but we're going to take him. And because we knew Janice had limited time, and we brought him and put him into bed next to her. And they held hands until she was gone. they were still holding hands. So I'm wondering how both of those stories that you witnessed affected your own view about death and what you most fear about it or if it alleviated any fears. I mean, listen.

When I say death, I mean end of life and how you face the end of life and what kind of like suffering to prepare for. I mean, how do you prepare for suffering? You worry, you just worry a lot and you get preoccupied. That's how you prepare it. You don't accomplish anything. You just think about it and worry. Yeah, I have all the worry I need and really my biggest challenge is shedding that. Dread and worry are our punishments we seem to give ourselves that for time where we could be not doing that. We could be doing anything else but that. And you got to, like, be as healthy as you can.

Take care of yourself. Floss. Death creeps in through the gums, Terry. And, you know, this is such wasted precious time to fill it with dread of death and sickness, you know. You've dealt with depression over the years. It's surprising to hear somebody who's dealt with depression. and talking so confidently about not worrying? Listen, I haven't mastered it.

Okay. But I'm absolutely in practice for hopefully the rest of my life. You know, I mean, I'm always learning, trying to figure out techniques to mitigate dread, worry, obsession. You know, I remember one night being just dreading the next day of, you know, stuff I had to do. It was a Sunday night and I was laying with my boyfriend and watching our favorite show, whatever it was at the time. And it just came over me and just consumed me. And I was able to go, hold on a second. Am I okay in this moment? Not only was I okay. It was like my favorite thing to do of all time. Sunday, snuggling in bed, watching TV. And it's so often that we dread and we dread and we

waste all this time dreading. And then even the thing we're dreading if we say, am I okay in this very moment? We tend to be okay. So one of the things that you talk about is something that I think a lot of adult children of parents who are dying or very ill have had to deal with. And that's the awkwardness for you as a daughter when your father was no longer capable of using a toilet or a commode of helping him with the urine bottle. and not just handing it to him but really truly helping him with it and how did you handle that

because it's uncomfortable so tell us how you dealt with that well I mean one it was just necessity you know but two yes the awkwardness he was completely conscious and has his marbles totally and his humor and I just asked him

you know I go dad is this horrifying for you and he goes no as soon as he said no he was like I don't care then I was able to you know to just do it and not everyone in the family

could do it but I you know there were a few of us that were fine doing it and it you know it very quickly becomes I think I don't know I'm not worldly enough but my guess is this is a very American kind of cultural thing

that we sexualize, you know, nudity and all this stuff so much that it becomes taboo to just care for a loved one in necessary ways. And as soon as you start doing it, it really just feels like care. And that's, you know, great. All that stuff I tried to explain to the audience towards the end. I go, you're thinking I could never do this. You will. A lot of you have, and I promise you will. And it won't be horrible because you will be taken care of, hopefully, the people that took care of you. And it's, you know, to say it's an honor sounds corny, but it kind of is. And I guess that depends on the care they gave you and what that relationship was. But in this case,

I was very grateful to be able to care for him, to keep him clean. We learned how to, you know, move him up with the sheets and the towels and, you know, the whole family we all showed up and just kind of bunked in the, you know, slept on couches and air mattresses and just did it. And it was a team effort and it was hard, but it wasn't horrifying. It was something I was really happy that I was able to do. Yeah. My guest is comic, actor, and writer Sarah Silverman. Her comedy special post-mortem is streaming on Netflix. It's nominated for two Emmy Awards.

We'll hear more of the interview after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is fresh air. This message comes from Wise, the app for doing things and other currencies. With Wise, you can send, spend, or receive money across borders, all at a fair exchange rate. No markups or hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and Cs apply. This message comes from the BBC

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We even talk about dumpster diving on this show. Check out here and now anytime, a daily podcast from NPR and WBUR. Your father eventually became what you call it like your best friend, but when you were growing up, he had a lot of rage. What did he rage at and what did he do when he was overcome by rage? You know, he said to Susie, my one sister who has children, and she has five children. And she recalled him saying, you know, I'm a better parent than my father was and you will be a better parent than I am.

And hopefully that's always true, you know. He really struggled with rage, not physical rage, but you never knew what mood he was going to be in, who he was going to, like, scream at in public. You know, this was in our young years. He wasn't an alcoholic. He didn't drink. But from friends who had alcoholic parents, it feels similar where the mood is going to depend on how he is when he comes home. My parents got divorced when I was young when he would come to pick us up. Boy, if we weren't out the second he honked, it was like an unhinged like Sarah, you know, like screaming.

And what did it come from, I think, a bunch of things. one, he was horribly, physically abused by his father, just beat up all the time. And my dad actually said that their neighbor and best friend once asked him, you know, Max, why do you beat Donald so? And that my grandfather said, I can't help it, which is just so haunting. And, you know, listen, I'm sure it's generational trauma, but also, like, with my dad's rage, he was, again, a much better parent. You know, my dad's dad made him call him Mr. Silverman, to give you an example. He was a great dad.

He just got much, much better as he got older, and he really grew. Zoloft didn't hurt, but he was a man in a lot of pain. You know, I mean, he married my mom. I mean, they couldn't have been less alike. But I think trauma brought them to her biological mother here. Beth Ann O'Hara, my mother, who was abused by her mother. And, you know, I don't think they ever talked about it, but I think subconsciously that drew them together. And my mother was an artist and she was creative and she was kind of free.

And I think my dad was drawn to that because that was everything he wanted. But once she became a part of him, they were married, you know, when she was 19 and he was 23 or not. And she was part of his identity, then he no longer could admire that. He had to have disdain for it because it was a part of him and he had disdain for his own self. And the shame around having creative desires, but feeling he must be pragmatic and take over his father's business of being in sales. And I think that made him awful to her. You know, oh, you're an artist. Is that what you call yourself an artist?

And I've seen that repeat in my own life to a degree, you know. And when I wrote my book, The Bedwitter, I was really, and I suggest, you know, not that everyone write a book, but that everyone become like a detective in their own lives and their old and their childhoods, looking back, because I realized a lot of things. I saw a lot of patterns. But he, right around the time I graduated high school, he was in a great relationship, he was on anti-anxiety meds, and he became really close with my mom. They became almost army buddies. They had been through so much together and shared this family and just went from when they were married.

I don't remember them even sharing a smile, truly, but becoming just best friends, you know. Were you afraid of them? him because of all the rage? Yes. I was afraid of him. I was terrified. He'd be mad at me. And I didn't really get any of that from him. But I was witness to it. Listen, he was amazing and hilarious. And he was always funny. But there was always like this side of him that we were scared of. And, you know, a lot of this is actually more expressed in, which has become almost a companion piece in my mind, the me musical, the bedwetter, where he really saw, you know, my mother was in bed a lot and of course

we saw that as lazy and now we understand that it was depression. And so he was terrified that we'd become quote unquote lazy. So if he, if the phone rang, we rushed to turn the TV off. God forbid it was him and he could hear that we were watching TV. So your father owned a discount women's clothing store called Crazy Sophie's Outlet. He did his own TV commercials. Radio ads. Radio ads. Okay. I'm not sure if I asked you this before, but can you describe the clothes that he sold? He actually originally had a store that was his father's called Junior Deb and Varsity Shop. And he took that over. He actually made it a chain. And it had like Levi's and, you know, kind of cool clothes at the time. And but it originated. It was more like, sold Brownie and Cub Scout uniforms and all the stuff that you might need for school and clothes. That store closed and he opened Crazy Sophie's Factory Outlet and that was his store that,

and it had a little more off brand. There were, he had some designer stuff. He would list all the brands like in a garbled New England accent, you know, radio ad, like, you know, unicorn, jabozy, cavalry, you know, like I, I don't know. He didn't have, like, kind of the big brands like Levi's. And it was, you know, just kind of discount women's clothing. Did he bring them clothes that he expected you to wear, but you didn't want to wear them? No, we wore it.

We wore whatever. We weren't big clothes people. I mean, yeah, I had the – when he had the other store, it was like he had great clothes. I remember all the fads, the, like, Izod over another izod. It was a big thing at one point or knickers. I had, like, gray corduroine. knickers and a coral sweater. And I remember saying to my mom, take a picture of this. This is what I'm going to wear at my first New York City audition. You know, I was in eighth grade. Like I was

going to be an adult and wear that. Did he expect you to work in the store? I didn't work in the store. My older sisters, Susan and Laura did. And Jodine and I did not. We were younger. But I do remember we went to, Jo Dean and I, they had us go to Hebrew school for one year in third grade. I was in third grade. She was in fourth grade. And we didn't know from this. You know, we were not very Jewish. You know, as Susie said, who's a rabbi now, you know, we just thought being Jewish meant being a Democrat because that's how we were different in New Hampshire, you know. Yeah, you were the only Jewish family where you grew up. Yeah, pretty much. In Bedford. In Manchester. the big city. There were a couple temples, and we went to, we hated it. We went to Hebrew school for one

year, and it was in Manchester where my dad's store at the time was, and we would have to walk from Hebrew school after school to my dad's store, and we were instructed not to eat anything. You know, we'll ruin our dinner. And one day, we pooled our money together, and we bought a large McDonald's fries and wolfed it down. and got to the store. This is, I swear to God, a true story. And he looks at us and he goes, you had French fries.

And we were just couldn't believe it. We were like, what? How do you know? And you're not going to believe this, Terry. How he knew. Salt in our mustaches. It could have been a soft pretzel. True.

We probably had that unmistakable McDonald's. smell delicious. Oh, I know, I know the smell you mean. Yeah. My guest is Sarah Silverman. Her new comedy special post-mortem is streaming on Netflix. We'll be right back. This is fresh air. I'm Rachel Martin, host of Wildcard from NPR. I've spent years interviewing all kinds of people. And I've realized there are ideas that we all think about, but don't talk about very much. So I made a shortcut, a deck of cards with questions that anyone can answer, questions that that go deep into the experiences that shape us. Listen to the Wild Card podcast only from NPR.

It doesn't matter if you're a fan or not. We have to talk about season seven of Love Island, USA. It's a huge indication to me of this kind of generation of people who don't know how to be open and vulnerable. I'm Brittany Luce, and on this episode of It's Been a Minute, I want to show you how reality TV is getting a little too real by revereeing. feeling what it's really like to date today. Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast today. Your father wanted to be a writer. Did you ever read anything he wrote?

Oh, I feel so guilty. I started reading a few of them. He had a few self-published novels and bless my niece, Elisa, who read every single one of them. And it meant the world to him. And, you know, my other sister is the same. I don't know what that block was because, of course, we'd do anything for him, and we wanted to support him, and we wanted him to feel loved all the time. But it was really hard for us to read them.

They were, and this is, I'm such a hypocrite as the person that I am in the shows he sat through of mine, but, you know, there was like sex scenes and sexuality, and, you know, he was a sexual being, but it was just gross. We just thought it was gross And we just couldn't And I feel so guilty about this is one thing I feel pretty guilty about But I didn't So he wanted to be a writer

But instead had a factory outlet Women's Clothing Store But when you were in college After one year at NYU I guess he knew you wanted to be a comic and perform He offered to pay for room and board For you for three years if you wanted to drop out of college, did he feel bad that he gave up his dream and not want you to give up yours?

That could be it, maybe. You know, I will say as a rare story for a comic, my parents totally believed in me. You know, I was a good student kid anyway. I did my homework in, you know, literal and figurative ways, so they weren't, I wasn't a slacker, you know. I wanted to be a comic. I was out every night. And so my first year of college, I had all my classes, and I was a drama major at NYU. And, well, one, I went to class all day, and then I worked passing out flyers for a comedy club from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.

And then, you know, my first class would be in midtown at, like, 8 a.m. and I was falling asleep during my classes and teachers were getting mad and I was horrified. This is not me at all, you know, the thought that I would be sleeping in class. I would, you know, it was very reminiscent of being at sleepovers as a bedwitter. I would pinch myself to stay awake. I just couldn't fight it. And I felt so guilty also because NYU was so expensive. I had a small scholarship.

You know, at the time wasn't that small, but today would sound very small. I had $1,500 per semester, and my dad paid the rest, and I felt so guilty, and they gave me no guilt about it, but that I'm this drama major that I, you know, I had academic classes, but mostly it was voice and movement and drama. And I just thought, geez, that's so much money. And I took a year off, and when I was returning, my dad called and said, you know, listen, if you, I believe in you, I believe that what you're going to do, you don't need a diploma. And if you want to drop out, I will pay your rent and utilities for the next three years as if it were your sophomore, junior, senior year. So that saves him a ton of money, right? My rent was $350.

It moved up to $450 at one point. And he didn't have to pay for college anymore. It really worked out. You know, by the time I would have graduated college, I was a writer at Saturday Night Live, and I never needed money from my parents. And, you know, I was independent, financially independent from then on. So you were on Saturday Night Live briefly. It was like one season as a writer and featured performer. You got very little on the air.

So getting on to Saturday Night Live, that's what so many comics dream of. You got it when you ordinarily. would have still been in college, which is remarkable. So you were a huge success, followed by not getting renewed. Yeah, right, right. How did that collision of big success, oops, failure, how did you process that? I mean, I think the whole year was such a boot camp. It prepared me for so much. You know, I remember thinking, and it was, I really enjoyed it being there. I was terrified. I, you know, but I did well in some areas. You know, I really am impressed that Lorne Michael saw anything in me

because I look back at me at 22 and I wasn't, you know, my brain hadn't fully developed yet. There are pieces of me there, but I was not a good writer. I wasn't, you know, and he saw something. I think that he's good at that. It never crossed my mind that I'd get fired or not picked up or whatever. And so I was really in shock. And I remember just for months thinking, like, am I still in show business?

You know, and I had a lot of men around me, you know, in comedy who were like, you don't know what you want. You could end up being a nurse, you know. And, you know, of course, for them, that was their calling. And I just thought, you know, there's nothing I'd ever wanted to be but this. It had always been the plan. And, you know, it was a lot more of a boys club back then. and if it's really grown and in such beautiful. Let me stop you there.

Did you have to be a member of the boys club? Did you have to figure out how to be a member of the boys club when you started in comedy? Yes, and I was great at it, and I was praised for it. And, you know, you could see early articles about me, oh, she's one of the boys. And, you know, and that was something to achieve. And it's so interesting looking back at how dated and sick and sad. and wildly sexist and accepted. All of that was.

Yeah, so what did you have to do to become part of the Boys Club? Well, you know, it was easy for me because it is my natural. I love poker. I love sports. You talk about sex. I swear. I talk about sex. You know, so all these things conveniently fit into what was kind of acceptable in a way.

But the female experience was not. I do remember comics who I loved and looked up to, who were male, would say, Sarah, you can't talk about women's stuff because the audience might have women in it, but they're on dates. And they only laugh if the guy laughs. The only people to make laugh are the men. And I have to be honest, I accepted that as. they were grown-ups to me.

So what did you self-censor that you would have liked to talk about? I mean, probably not much because I did end up talking very explicitly about sex. But it was because I was young, it was sexualized and probably accepted more. Because as one podcaster told me when I went on his podcast, you used to be so hot. He started it with that. No, I was like, oh, thank you. But, yeah, I was sexualized, and that was a part of my success, you know. But then, you know, of course, I lost my virginity as a comedian at 19.

And like most young people, but acceptable for men, I fell in love with it. Ooh, I love sex. What is, what would it be like with him? What would it be like with him? And I was very free and very sexual. And I was, you know, at the time, very extremely penalized for it. it and all these grownups, you know, again, I was a kid, you know, grown men. You know, I can't fault them for sexualizing me when I was having sex with, you know, a lot of men that were

comics because that's who I was around. But it was obviously an insane double standard. I don't blame myself and I'm not ashamed for being extremely experimental and sexual, especially the year I was 20, like, you know, but the guy comics could sleep with waitresses, servers, and women in the audience, you know, and it's just very interesting to look back on it from the world we're in now. It's so interesting because, like, in your new special post-mortem, you are dressed in such a non-sexualized way. You're wearing jeans, a flannel shirt.

and then a short-sleeved kind of t-shirt on top of that? Sweat shirt, yeah. And it all fits well, but it's not exactly clothes that you'd wear to sexualize yourself. Yeah, well, I mean, it wasn't a conscious thing to not look sexual or anything. It's just really more of, one, a reflection of just what I'm comfortable in and who I am. And it's so funny. I don't know why this is, but all of this came together while I was on the road. So the sweatshirt I bought at a used clothing store on the road.

I was thinking about what I wanted to wear, and I just had this inspiration that I wanted to look like a single woman, maybe in the late 70s, on moving day. She's moving from one apartment to the other. And it was just like, I don't know, that was the aesthetic that I was inspired by for reasons I don't know. You know, there was something kind of Rhoda about it, you know, something. And I love a kind of late 70s feel tends to be my aesthetic. And I suppose I could draw connections to that it's about transition, you know. Yeah, and also, I mean, to dress up fancy or. sexy when you're talking about the death of your parents, it doesn't set exactly the right mood?

Yeah, you know, I didn't put a lot of thought into it in terms of like, that was just my inspiration for it. I didn't, you know, the special before that, I ended wearing a T-shirt jeans and an old cardigan that I bought out again at like a used store. And for that special, I got a suit and I got it tailored and it was like a three-piece brown corduroy suit and I just at the last minute just said it's not comfortable and I don't feel like me in it. There are times when I dress up and I really love it

but it's really something that I like as a treat more than anything and that I feel the most myself when I'm dressed down and I think when you're doing a stand-up special it's the most important thing is to feel comfortable. Well, we have to take

another short break here, so let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Sarah Silverman, her new comedy special is called Postmortem. We'll be right back. This is fresh air. These days, there's so much news. It can be hard to keep up with what it all means for you, your family, and your community.

The Consider This podcast from NPR features our award-winning journalism. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a news story and provide the context and analysis that helps you make sense of the news. We get behind the headlines. We get to the truth. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. Mothers have a way, or at least mothers of a certain generation, have a way of focusing on their children's hair or how they look. And you have a story about that, and you have a couple of stories. When your mother, your biological mother, was dying in 2015.

Yeah. What did she say about your hair? It's funny. I was sitting with her, and, you know, we were in New Hampshire, that's where I'm from. And, you know, I did not know it was going to be the last time I would see her, but I knew this was towards the end, you know. And I was saying goodbye to her. I was heading to Logan Airport in Boston. And I was holding her hand, and we were just, she was looking up at me, and she smiled.

And then she had this concerned look on her face, and she reached up. And she said, your hair, it's so dry. Was that the last thing she said to you? That was the last thing she said to me. What does that make you think? I love it. I wouldn't change it for the world. It was the ultimate mother-daughter encapsulation, I think.

I think Susie, my oldest sister, had a similar, she said something to Susie the last thing, was something like, sweetheart, do you even own a brush? Like, you know, these things, these are the things she's focusing on in her last, you know, moments. But, yeah, she was something else. And your stepmother was really into makeup and jewelry. She had makeup tattooed on her face, I think, lipstick and eye shadow. I think eyeliner and lip liner, I think. It actually aged very well.

With no makeup, you know, just a clean face. She looked gorgeous, you know. And, of course, like, you're not big on makeup. Was that frustrating for her? Did she try to make you wear makeup? She had that with Susie. When Susie was in college, she'd go, even if you go into the library, just put a little blush on your cheeks.

You never know who you're going to meet, you know. But less with me. But in my career, she did not always like my outfits. And if I wore something she liked, if I wore a dress or I had, you know, a makeupy, glam look, oh, she loved it. She loved it, you know. But she accepted that I had the aesthetic I have. You know, she was married to my dad.

Sarah Silverman, it's been such a pleasure to talk with you again. And, you know, I'm sorry about the loss of your parents. Thank you. Thank you. So be well and thank you. Thank you so much. Sarah Silverman's comedy special post-mortem is streaming on Netflix. It's nominated for two Emmy Awards.

The awards ceremony is September 14th. Our interview was recorded in May. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we'll talk about Sudan where 14 million people have been displaced by war and famine, more than in Ukraine and Gaza combined. Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum will join us and talk about her reporting trips to the region where civil war rages and the collapse of American and other international aid has left millions in desperate straits. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Boldinato, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yucundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson.

Roberta Shorok directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. Congress has approved a White House request to eliminate federal funding for public media. NPR remains committed to our mission of informing the public, increasing your understanding of the world and enriching. everyday life. But without federal funding, we are relying on your support now more than ever. Please give today at donate.mpr.org.