The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Tamara Yajia

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Writer and comedian Tamara Yajia joins Andy Richter to discuss growing up as a child star in Argentina, her mom’s side hustle, the days of Weird Twitter, and her memoir, "Cry for Me, Argentina."Do you want to talk to Andy live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Tell us your favorite dinner party story (about anything!) - leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER. Listen to "The Andy Richter Call-In Show" every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on SiriusXM's Conan O'Brien Channel.

Welcome back to the three questions with me, Andy Richter. Today I'm back with comedian, actor, and author Tamara Yagia. We've known each other from social media for years. We were Twitter pals back in the day. And she's got a fascinating story about growing up a child star in Argentina. It's all in her new book called Cry for Me, Argentina, My Life is a Child Star, and it's in bookstores now. So after you listen to this, go buy a copy. Here she is, Tamara Yagia.

Can't you tell my love? Well, let's get started. Tamara. Tamara. Fuck, I already fucked it up. Is it ever Tamara? It can be. But you're Tamara.

I'm Tamara. You can call me Tam too. The cell will come out. Tamara. Yeah, just call me tomorrow. The musical Annie probably was very. personal for you. Yes. And people would say, she's singing right to me. To me. Poor little me orphan child star immigrant. That's right. Well, Tam, you and I have known, we've been like

Twitter pals for a hundred years. Yeah, when Twitter was a beautiful sunshine of a place. Yes, yes, when it was fun. And I always referred to it as joke gym. Yes. It was like where you'd go to work out jokes with funny people. Yeah. And they also called it weird Twitter. Yes. Remember? Yes. How great was it?

It was really, really fun. And I got into it completely. I'm not like super tech savvy and not like, like I don't play video games. And I'm not, I mean, I kind of like when you started with computer, when computer started to become a part of my life. Mm-hmm. And I was, I had always had Apple computers. And there used to be like complicated and shit would go wrong.

and you'd have to know like these, well, you have to throw away these preferences of this. You know, I used to know all of that shit. And then it just got better. And now I don't know anything. No. Now I just like, it's like a car. It's like I barely know how to put gas in it. I just drive it, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't read instructions for things. Yeah. Like my brain is just one flat pita. I just don't have attention span for things. Eduardo and I were just talking. I was like about like reading your book. Like I've read your book.

It's like, it's so hard for me to sit and read a long thing. And your book is easy because it's very funny and very, and it moves. And it's just one funny thing after another. Yeah, I don't use big words because I'm stupid. I noticed that and I very much appreciated it. No, back to Twitter, I was, I was on Facebook, which I instantly was like, I don't like this. Yeah, no. This is like, no, this is like, there's too many like aunts and uncles in my business.

But then, and then I was going to play in a celebrity charity softball game and the producer and the TBS Conan show was just getting started. And one of our coordinators said, hey, Twitter wants you to like live tweet from this celebrity softball game. Oh. And if you do that, they might give you an iPhone. And I was like, oh, fuck yeah. So in the car, it was in Anaheim, in the car on the way to Anaheim, I signed up for Twitter. And then that was like, and my friend Steve Agee, you know, Steve? Yes, yes.

Steve was like, you should try Twitter. Twitter's really fun. And I was like, it was just like short little phrases and shit. But then I, when I got in there, I was like, holy shit, this is really fun, really funny. And the challenging 140 characters to tell a joke. that's like it's like a word puzzle you know yeah it's amazing like and also addictive yes because i'm sure you've had the like serotonin rush right absolutely but also i met the coolest people i'm still friends with so many it's got me every job it's really the reason i'm a writer now and

i don't talk about it in the book because it's kind of not exciting to say like i came up on Twitter. But yeah, that was it. Yeah, yeah. And it was Rob Delaney. He should be on the show, has he? Uh, yes. He has. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, he's great. And, yeah, and like, I remember in those days, too, Michael Ian Black was real big. And, but there also, too, was like, and I've said this before, one of the best things for me as an ally at Twitter was how many women, how many funny women just got to be funny. Yeah. There was no gate. There was nobody saying women aren't funny. You can't do this.

There was just tons of funny women like you who came from seemingly nowhere. Nowhere. And just by the strength of being funny in front of people, you know, there's so many that are working today. Yeah, we found our voices. We came out of our period caves and started and found our voices. Some of them are huts down by the river. They're not all caves. Not everyone lives in a mountainous area.

Well, this book, this, have you been chewing on this for a long time, like wanting to write a book kind of? Because your story is pretty, it's pretty unique. You're the only Argentinian, you know, like unsuccessful child star turned Twitter comedian, turned comedy writer, performer that I know. I am the only one. And the book, I had an agent find me on Twitter. Oh, wow. A literary agent. And he was like, buy your tweets.

I know you have a weird family. I can tell. Yes. And for you. Yeah, because you talked about them frequently. Yes. Yes. And it was always like my tweets where my dad's hemorrhoid, my mom's only fans page, like that

kind of shit. And this guy's like hounding me for years. And I didn't feel like I had a story to tell. It's so crazy. And even when I started the book, I was like, what am I going to fill the pages with? Yeah. And as I started, it was just like pouring out of me. I was like, damn, my life wasn't normal at all.

And then I needed to start heavy therapy. Did you? Yeah, I was going to ask, like, did it cause like a catharsis that where you're like, Oh, my God. Oh, I just did a diagnostic on the car and it's not working. Yeah, and it was like completely failing. And I could tell the first way I realized something was off is I got obsessed with the Holocaust and I started watching only Holocaust movies.

It was like, I don't know why it came out. in this way. But it was like Schindler's List every weekend where my husband was like, we need to get you help. And it was just, I don't, I can't explain. That's a long movie too. That's a big chunk of the weekend. Unreal.

It's like I would like started and then watch it the next day. And then it was like mixed with Synecdochie, New York. Like I just need another, another knee slapper. Uplifting films. But that's how I was like, something's how. happening to me. I need to like, I'm feeling sad and it's like coming out in this weird way. Yeah. And then I started therapy and I was like, oh, I'm just processing the fact that I had a lot of trauma. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But the book is still really funny. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, no. Well, that's like part of it. Yeah. Anybody, anybody that's, that's really funny understands, like, like process trauma or on processed trauma often ends up being funny. Yeah. And it is, it is one of the most basic ways to sort of assert ownership of something bad is to laugh at it. Yes. And it's crazy because there were parts of the book where I'm talking about some serious shit. Like I was a child star and I was 11 and super sexualized. Yeah. Not funny. Like men looking up my skirt, you know, on stages. And I'm like laughing through it. Like, I'm like, L-O-L, they were looking at my little pussy. And my, and my editor was like, hey, Tam, maybe don't say little pussy here.

And let's unpack this. Yeah, yeah. Because it's not, you know, and that's when I was like, oh, that was off, you know. And so I had to go back and have a serious chapter, which I think God, I need a little bit of that. Sure, sure. Yeah, and you do. I mean, it's like you're, it was just one of your coping mechanisms being. put on display, like to minimize this, you know, fairly terrifying thing, you know, and also something

that women have had to process since the beginning of time. Yeah. And, you know, and it's like, I'm always amazed, like, in different cultures and at different times, how, like, do you know there's a French film called Zazi don't La Metro? No. Zazi in the Metro. It's a Louis Mal. It's an early Louis Mal movie. And it's very madcap, you know, they're like, there's lots of sort of like, you know, fast motion chase scenes and stuff, and it's a comedy and stuff. But one of the themes that runs through it is that Zazi is a girl who's maybe 13. Right. There's a pervy neighbor who chases around town, you know, like, like, lascivious.

And it's like, he's chasing her trying to grope her. And it's like, ha, ha, ha, oh, you know how men are. They will try and grope a 13-year-old, you know. I was on fresh air with Terry Gross And for some reason I was so nervous That I kept bringing up the Benny Hill show Well, you know what a fan she is You know, that's got to be right in her wheelhouse

They cut it I brought it up twice There was one moment where she asked me about my immigration story And I was like, well, you know, it's like Benny Hill chasing around those women Oh, okay, sure But they cut it and but the thing is that's what I was raised on and that's it's just now starting to change yeah like it's so messed up

absolutely even like when I was 15 16 going to all ages clubs and this was like in the you know 2001 or whatever with like grown men grinding on me and I was 16 years old like yeah that I don't think that happens anymore please God I think there's just a lot more awareness yeah that's not cool you know but I mean but there's still old older women are like, eh. Yeah. You know, yeah, that's what it's like. It's like the same way with, I mean, when the Me Too movement happened, I would hear so many

older women be like, well, yeah, no shit. In the office, yeah, there's going to be a bunch of guys hitting on you all the time and say, and groping you in the coffee room and, you know, you just know who you don't get on an elevator with. And they're like, you know, you deal with it. Yeah. It's like, no, you don't, you shouldn't have to just deal with it. Right.

And it's like, well, I dealt with it. So all the other young women should. Yeah. I was talking to my husband's grandmother yesterday. She's 86. And she's like, you know, she read my book. She's like, one New Year's, my husband's boss stuck his tongue down my throat. And I was, and she's like, I was like, that's not cool, Oms, Oma.

You know, well, what are you going to do? Keep going. And especially if you're in a situation where like, no one's going to listen to you. It's like, you know. Yeah, totally. You even feel like you're losing your mind? No, it's... No, I'm just going to watch Synecaddy, New York, 45 times and cry, thinking I'm crying about the movie.

Now, did that kind of catharsis, did that cause friction between you and your folks? Like, did you start to be like, hey, wait a minute, this is fucked up? No, I don't, that kind of stuff I don't throw in their faces. Yeah. It's that, like, the stuff with them is more like, hey, you didn't give them. me much stability in terms of moving back and forwards from Argentina to the U.S. That's the kind of stuff. I'm like, hey, guys, I'm a person and I suffer.

Like, my dad read the book and his comment was, whoa, I just thought it was all laughter and joy for you. I'm like, damn, you were like completely just off, right? Yeah. But the sex stuff. But as a dad, I can tell you, that's wish fulfillment. Right. That's like going like, no, no, she's happy.

She must be happy because you can't move kids back and forth from two different countries to live in motels and go like. Motels. You know, and without thinking like, oh, am I fucking my kids up? Unless you're a villain, which it doesn't sound like your folks are that. No, they aren't. They're amazing. And that was their defense mechanism, you know. And I'm sure reading this book has been really, really hard for them.

But what are you going to do? Like, I can see there are the wheels turning. And I think that's great. They're processing. No, parents have to be, have to get used to the fact that they are part of their children's story. So it is their children's. Yes. But it is their children's story.

You know what I mean? Because I have, I have, you know, from blabbing on this fucking podcast and other podcasts and, you know, just talking about my past, I've heard a lot of like, hey, I don't think you should. And it's like, hey, look, this is my life too. Sorry, it's inconvenient for you that you were an adult while I was there as a child dealing with something, but that's just, I'm going to talk about it, you know. You have kids. I do. I have three kids. I have a 24-year-old, a 19-year-old, and now I have a 5-year-old.

Oh, shit. Because I remarried somebody that had a child. Okay, so, okay. So she was like, she wasn't two yet when we met, but when we got married, I adopted her. So she's my full daughter. now, but she's not my biological daughter. She's my adopted daughter. Got it. I, uh, writing this book made me decide I wanted kids. I, I was a hard no on kids. Really? Um. How come? Because I had such an unstable life and I thought that I would just fuck

them up. Can we say fuck on this podcast? Yeah. Um, repeatedly. Okay, great. And I, yeah, I thought I, and in all its forms, whether it's a verb or noun. Ficked, fucker. Yeah, exactly. Jarron. if you want. I'm trying to think how you say it in Spanish, but I can't think about it right now. Cochre. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I was just like,

what am I going to do? Give him another shitty life of me not pro. And then I was like, no, no, no, I'm good now. I think I can do it. And then I started trying and I was 40. And I was like, damn, like my eggs are all rotted. So now I'm doing idea. Was that a doctor told you?

He said, well, the tests have come back. Your eggs are leather. and deflated. And they stink like eggs, like hard-boiled eggs. Yeah. So now I'm doing IVF, and I picked the great month to start on the month of my book release. Oh, wow. As usual for my life, it's always intense.

Because, yeah, stress, it really makes babies want to take root in the womb. That doesn't have any, you know, yeah, yeah. And it's not cheap. It's $17,000, Andy. So I should have waited, but, you know, that's, it is what it is. Now, I am very mad because my husband went to leave a sample, which is so depressing. You basically jerk off in a cup. Sure.

And there's like porn playing on a screen in a sterile room. That's very presumptuous that that, that they know what you want to see. Did he at least get some call into what it was going to be? No, he said it was like big titty porn, which you happen to like. Oh, well, that's good. But I'm like, there's no point because you can have. a cell phone now with your favorite like people sucking on a pickle porn

or whatever you're into it. That's what I like. How did you know? But he missed the cup. He missed the first squirt. And that's the one with the most combs are.

Yeah. Then you got your B team. It's true. And the second squirt. There's like 12 sad sperm in the last. But I was like, babe, you have, you had one small task. I have to inject myself. I have to have surgeries.

I'm going to be a raging bitch for two months. Well, he'll have to go back and do give it another go. Sounds to me like he just likes jerking off in a weird room. He couldn't control. Guess I got to do it again. You got any more that big tiddies? I can't breathe. So I don't know how we got on this tangent, but I do want kids now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, kids are pretty great. And when you decide you want them, there's a good reason. And I mean, it is, I don't fault anyone for not having children. I just don't relate to it. Yeah. I mean, having children, I don't remember being young and thinking, like, I got to have kids. But like, when I was in, you know, an established, stable relationship, I wanted to have kids, you know.

And, you know, life changes and, you know, decades go by and things get different. But, but yeah, no. And I mean, like having a little kid again, a lot of people. That's crazy. That's a lot of people act like that. But it's like, it's not that crazy because, like, it is like one of the things I like to do the most. Uh-huh. And the thing that I've also come to realize is that because a lot of child rearing is like kind of boring.

Right. repetition, just making another meal, just doing more laundry, making it, you know, cleaning up another mess and you have to, so you need this patience to sort of like boy yourself against this repetition and stuff. But any work you're doing, raising a child and doing it thoughtfully and doing it, you know, with an eye towards making a good human being, it's good work. Yeah, yeah, you know, you're not wasting your time. You're not, you know, like anything, any boring mundane shit that I'm doing with my daughter is like, no, this is, this is good work, you know. Can't you tell my loves to grow?

To give your parents credit in terms of just, you know, the instability, you were born in an incredibly unstable time. Oh, my God. Yeah, the dictatorship ended the month after I was born. But the country was in shambles. You know, the economy, the infrastructure, jobs. I have family, my great uncle was one of the disappeared. So there was fear everywhere.

And I think my parents just had been fed up and were looking for an out. Yeah. Aside from the fact that also inflation, which is something I'm just starting to learn about, made life impossible. You know, like diapers, they would say diapers in one day were like $2 and the next day were $16. So you could never keep up with the earning and what, you know, things cost. Yeah, just go to buy something and like, holy shit, this is three times more, you know, this jar of jam. Yeah. Yeah.

And on top of that, my grandparents were so overbearing. So, and it's like on the day of my birth, it was like they wanted to be in the room. And just they didn't let my parents breathe. So my parents, when they found an opportunity, they were like, we're leaving. We're going to California. And then my grandparents showed up three months later. They moved next door to us. Oh, my God.

Which is so amazing to me. But my dad told me yesterday, he was like, I fucking hated your mom's dad. He was such a piece of shit. And I was like, that's my favorite grandpa. He gave me lollipop. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, were your mom and dad at least happy for, like, the help with children? Or were they not that much help?

They were not much help. They were completely psychotic. But my mom was happy that her parents were there. But I think my dad was like this guy. Like, my dad had just started, he, like, delivered newspapers and sharpened knives. And, like, we lived within our means. And when my grandpa showed up, he was like, delivering newspapers. Marco's like, what the hell is the kind of profession is that?

You need to start a business. And my parents were like, ah, what business, what business? And so they opened a food court stand. It was an El Pollo Loco knockoff called Sexy Chicken. Yes, like sexy rotisseries. The logo was a slutty chicken smoking a cigarette with big tits. And it went bankrupt after like two months. Oh, my God.

And that's why we returned to Argentina. But it's like that kind of thing, competitiveness between my dad and my grandpa. There was a time when we went to Brazil on vacation and my grandparents were like sitting behind us on the plane like, surprise. And my dad just wanted to kill himself. And I remember on this vacation, my grandpa and my dad having a pissing contest off of a bridge literally to see who pissed the farthest stream what a miserable life oh my poor dad yeah yeah well did he at least win he lost oh that's even worse now uh i also i also was thinking like in reading

the book because you're argentine but also jewish yes and the reason that most of your family is argentine is because they're jewish yes And because they escaped somewhere else to Argentina, which in the early 1900s was a boom place. The Paris of South America, they called it. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. And it does look like Paris.

It's crazy. It's such a beautiful place. Yeah. Since then, the economy's been ruined. But back then, early 1900s, it was the place to go. Yeah, yeah. Is it still ruined? It's not great.

It's not great. No, no, no, no. But there's still plenty of rich Argentina. Right? Oh, yeah. Because I know we used to go for a number of years because we had a relative in Colorado, we'd go skiing on skiing trips. And it would just seem like everybody working at the pizza place and the hot dog stand and, you know, the hat shop were all Argentine, like beautiful Argentine young people that were just there to ski, you know. And they did not seem poor, you know what I mean? No, no, no, no, for sure.

My family in Argentina that's rich are so fucking rich. Oh, really? But my family that's poor are just like, they can't get like dentures. They can't afford dentures, that kind of poor, you know? Wow. So I think what happened was at some point the middle class just completely. Vaporized. Yes.

And that was where we were the second time around. And we came back here. Do you think, I mean, do you think that that lended to just like the whole family? family feeling like outsiders forever you mean in the united states or wherever in argentina like because you know if you're coming from Poland or you know yes to Argentina you're an outsider for a and like you said you're was it your grandparents or your great-grandparents who didn't even end up they just spoke Yiddish they spoke Yiddish even in Argentina yeah that was my great grandparents and then my my grandma would

translate for them right in the same way that a lot of immigrants in the U.S. from Latin America, their kids translate for them. Of course. Of course. And I mean, that's been the way forever. Yeah. Italians and, you know, Germans and whatever. Yeah. But I think what, I think the reason they weren't isolated in Argentina is because the community, the Jewish community, was so tight-knit. So there was always like dozens of people at my grandmother's house. Yeah. You know. But unlike the United States, where when I moved. here with my parents, I felt so completely isolated and alone. I see. I don't know if we just didn't find the right community or what it was, but it's weird. Like, I'm not a religious, I'm Jewish,

but I don't go to temple. I don't really practice the religion, but I went to Jewish schools all in Argentina only as a child. And is that just what every Jewish, every Jewish Argentine kid? Yeah, yeah. Like, I might be the first person in my family to marry a goy. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. An Irish Catholic. And was that a problem? No, it wasn't a problem, but it is wild that I'm the first one. Yeah. Like what?

Yeah, yeah. But it makes sense because they're still, in Argentina, it's like, they're still so tight-knit. It's very clannish. Yes. Well, I mean, it does sort of, and especially for Jewish people, it makes sense, you know, like, you know, it's been a rough ride. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, yeah, we better stick together, you know? Totally. Do you think your parents just didn't, when they moved here, they didn't seek out kind of like that same sort of Jewish community or did it not exist for them in a secular way? The language barrier was big, right? And I also think my parents, like, had to get to work. Yeah.

Immediately. Immediately. And there was no time. I mean, your dad was delivering papers. Yeah. It was a courier. Yeah. I remember the second move we did to the United States.

We came with like, I don't know, $3,000. Wow. And how old are you at this point? The second time I was like 12. Okay. So I was like getting my period, starting middle school, just like the worst fucking time ever. And watching my dad count his like dollar bills every day and like writing down like 2,500, 2,000. And like as a kid, seeing that shit sucks.

Yes. No, I know. Like, I just wanted to get finger-banged. Not by my dad, by guys. Of course. Of course, by somebody with a little more money. Come on, dad. You know, I, when I was a kid, I developed the sixth sense of bill collector's calling.

Oh. And knew that it was a bill collector. And, you know, they'd ask for one of my parents. And I'd say, they're not here and hang up. And then, you know, my mom would be right there and she'd be like, bill collector. And I'm saying, yeah. That makes me want to cry. It's so bad.

And at the time, you know, you don't realize. There's so much of it you don't think about. And then like to just be like, just so to be so casually invited into so many stressful adult things. It's just mind-blowing to me. And a lot of it, too, don't even think about it. And then like when I had my first child, I was like, it was like someone. opened a cabinet full of like, look over here. And you're like, oh, my God, all this fucking stuff that happened that like I would never let happen.

That wasn't okay. But I don't blame my parents at all, but it wasn't okay. I blame them a little bit. Okay, fine. Me too. I blame them a little bit because I do think, and I know like, you know, times are different and everything. But still, you know, there were people out there that weren't. wouldn't let their kid answer the phone with Bill Colette.

Right. That's the thing is I just imagine that people were all bad. And I think not bad, but just irresponsible like that. But then I met my husband's parents are the opposite. They're like the most like kept the kids so safe. And that's when I was like, oh. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That's like I say. And I love my parents and I don't like condemn them. No. And I mean, but there is like some stuff where I'm like, I wish she'd done a little better there. You know, but I mean, it's already, I got a 24-year-old and a 19-year-old. It's already happening. I'm already being let to know, like, you could have done a little better there.

And I'm like, I have to be open to that. It's the cheesy thing where everyone says, well, we do things a little better than our parents did or a lot better. Absolutely. And the reason I'm so forgiving of my parents as we talk today is because I did so much work. If you would have talked to me six months ago, it would have been an explosion of hatred and rage and resentment. But I've done the work and I ultimately realized that and I stopped talking to them for a while, which was so great. But I did, yeah, I had to let it go because if not, it just harms me to keep all that rage. Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah. No, the sort of allowances you make for difficult people, there might be someone, you know, who's not directly involved with it who says like, why are you letting that person make you make these allowances? And it's like, oh, no, I'm making these allowances for me. Yes. Because it's less work for me to make this allowance than it is to, you know, stand in front of the train and tell it to stop so we can address what's going on. Yes.

But I had to get angry at some point. Yeah. Like once that passed, it was, it was okay. Yeah. And now they're just two characters. That's how I see them now. I'm like, these people are absolutely insane. Like, my dad takes mushrooms now.

He smokes weed and takes mushrooms after he drove me crazy if I had a little nugget of weed as like a teenager. And now my mom drinks. And she never drank before. She never drank. And she always, she was the I'm allergic to alcohol kind of person. And she would, like, judge me so hard if I came home drunk as like a young adult. And now you should.

should have seen her on 4th of July, puking out of her nose. Oh. Like dancing in a thong. Oh, my God. And I'm just like he, and my mom is, I don't know if you know that my mom is on only fans. So she's like a nude model now. My parents went through like a late adolescence. It's nuts.

And is she doing well? She has 17 followers. Everyone go follow my mom. I think it's hot Argentina mommy. Okay. I write the copy for her. M-A-M-I? M-A-M-I.

My dad takes the pictures. It started with just pictures of her bunions because I was like there's a market for that. And now she does like not pussy shots but like top like lips. What? What do you mean not pussy shot but lips? That sounds like a pussy shot to me. It's not whole. There's no whole

Just a scotch of labia From the front Legs closed I see And in the background So the little crease A cute little crease Yeah it is

It's adorable And my dad takes a picture And sometimes he doesn't realize So he'll be in the shot in the mirror Like wearing Shorts and no shirt And there's like one of their obese dogs It's like just in the background rotting.

Sounds hot. Those 17 people think so. Are you one of the 17? I am. And my sister's one of them too. So we're really talking 15. And your dad's one of them too. So we're talking 14.

There's only one. And he's just there for the bunions. All this pussy stuff is of no interest. He's seen that. It's so fun. funny because I went, I subscribed as in a fake name. I'm like Roberto Gonzalez. Sure.

So now she knows. And I tip her. Like, because he doesn't, they aren't doing well with money. So I like to, I want to help them and they don't want to take money. So I'll just, that's how I help them. Yeah, yeah. I tip her $100 on just on the less provocative shots so that I encourage her to do more of the point. Do more up though.

I understand. That's hilarious. Yeah. It's a hilarious manipulation. It's really. Yeah, yeah. So, like, some people would be horrified by this. And I'm like, whatever.

She's 70 years old. Love your body. Now I love my body. Everybody's happy. But I told her the other day, you should start selling you's panties. There's good money there. And she said, well, yeah. Is there?

I mean, she sold one panty, but she wanted to sell it for $5. And I was like, Mom, no, $60. Yeah. And she sold one. Wow. And then I had to go to the post office to deliver it for her. What's in this? Would you like to declare the contents?

No. No, I wouldn't. It's an artifact. It's my trauma. Ha ha ha ha. Now, you mentioned this in, I think it's in the title of the book about the child star stuff. And that happened on your return to Argentina.

Yeah. So just tell me, like, how, and tell my listeners how that happened. I was the most lonely I'd ever been. I was totally lost. And I was going to. Coming back to Argentina. Coming back to Argentina. I was like, I don't know where I'm from anymore.

My parents had enrolled me in Hebrew school. So they spoke Hebrew all day and I had just learned English. Like, I was just like, kill me. Yeah. And I was eight. And I was watching MTV and I saw Madonna on, it was La Isla Bonita, the music video. And she was singing in English and Spanish. So I was like, whoa, that's me.

I speak those two languages. And the song is about like an observer who longs to be elsewhere. I was just like mesmerized. So a talent show was announced at my Hebrew school. And I was like, I'm doing Madonna. And I picked like a prayer. her most Catholic and controversial songs. And it was like a huge theater and there was like a bunch of rabbis in the front row.

And it's kind of a song about blowjobs, is it not? It's about her wanting to like fuck Christ. But it's like, isn't it down on my knees? Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to take you there. Yeah, yeah. It's just very sexual.

I just liked the, I just like the melody. Right, right, of course. But I had an old great aunt living with us at the time. Her name was Bubba and she was a seamstress. And I was like, Bubba, make my costume for me. And the costume was an American flag shirt that tore off like strippers in the movies with Velcro. And then underneath I was wearing a garter belt with a tiny little bra. And the audience was horrified. But I was like, this rules. I love attention. And I was like, I want to perform every day of my life. life. And from there, like my parents enrolled me in a million classes and acting this and that, and I started going out on commercials and blah, blah, blah. I would do a lot of state fairs where they would like display cattle. And then I was on a stage singing All That She Wants by Ace of Face. All that she wants is another Holstein. I'm trying to think of other briefs, and I can't.

Heifer. Moom. Yeah. And then, yeah. So I, like, slowly got a little bit, not famous, but, you know, when I booked my big role, it was like a Mickey Mouse Club type thing. And I was going to be like the lead girl. And that's when my parents were like, we can't take, you can't take this job. We're leaving.

We're moving back to the United States. And that's why I call this my life as a failed child star because it was like at the pinnacle. I failed. And you had the gig already. I had the gig. And I'm like, you guys, it could have made us money. Yeah. But I understand.

They wanted to get out. Yeah, yeah. And you had no interest once you got back here. I did. Oh, you did. I made my parents walk me up and down Hollywood Boulevard because I thought that's how you got discovered. So I was 12 at this point.

And I was wearing like a little vinyl miniskirt vogueing down the street and nothing. It was like 100,000 degrees. And I was like, our ass cracks were sweaty. In vinyl, yeah. In vinyl. So I was like, okay, that didn't work. And then I was like, then Evita came out, which was like a marriage of Argentina and Madonna, my two obsessions. And I was like, I'm doing, don't cry for me, Argentina and my school talent show.

And I went down into the splits and I tore a tendon like along the lines of my vagina, I guess. And I got wheeled off the stage in a while. wheelchair. When you're saying don't cry for me, it's a deal, it's really like, okay, we won't. Literally. We won't. The kids were laughing. You're pushing it, though.

I think one guy screamed, oh, she broke her pussy. And I, um, I did. I was like holding it like, ow, ow, ow, ow. And then after that, I said, I'm done. You're done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's too dangerous. Yeah, but look, I'm now. Not really famous, but I'm something.

Well, now, this second time to America, that's, you have been here since, right? Yeah, I've been here since. Yeah, yeah. In Orange County, of all places, super conservative and... Is that where you still live? No, now I live in downtown L.A., but when we first moved here, we were in Irvine, California, the safest city in America. Is that true?

I guess. Is it true for Argentinian Jews? No, I wasn't safe. Mentally, I wasn't safe. But yeah, as soon as I could get out and I, you know, I was older, but I was like, oh, L.A. This is what was missing. Being around creative people and just feeling. I recently went back to Orange County and I was like, oh, to Irvine specifically. I was like, I see why I was so depressed. It's a beautiful place and super safe, but it's just. very white. Sterile, yeah, yeah. Tell the immigrant part of it. Like, are you, is there like legality you're all worried about at this point, too? And how does that resolve itself? Yeah, we were, we came on a tourist visa.

And then my dad had a sponsor for his job because my dad was an architect, too. So that kind of tied us over, but the visa expired. And so we were technically undocumented for, like, like four years. Oh, wow. I was still young. And like the way I understood what that meant was that I wouldn't be able to get a driver's license when I turned 16 or I wouldn't be able to work. And then these weird fears like, oh, I'm going to be crossing. If I cross a red light, the cops are going to pick me up and send me back to Argentina. So like little things like that that a kid should not be dealing with. But I felt the fear in my parents. Yeah. And then my dad kept

entering the visa lottery every year, which, you know, they'll do something like certain countries will get like 30,000 visas or 7,000 visas, and we won. So we go to this interview and I'm like, easy PC, we'll get our passport stamped. We have our green card. And we just got an asshole that was like, nope, there's been a gap here of three years where your visa or where your, you know, tourist visa expired. Technically, we were deported because we were now on the record. Because you came in, Yes. Now we were like, they knew our address and they knew that we hadn't gotten, you know, hadn't gotten our status. Right. So we went to our lawyer that same day and we were like, this, this is not fair. We won the visa lottery. And he came back and like banged on the doors and was like, motherfuckers. I remember he had like ketchup all over his white shirt. He was a Hasidic Jew. And he's like, Motherfuckers, I'll burn this place down. And they let us in. And then we got a nice person that was like, no, no, no, you're good. Yeah, yeah.

So things just, within a matter of hours, my life just flipped. Wow. And are your folks citizens now? We're all citizens. We're all citizens. Yeah. But it's so crazy that I'm scared. Like, as this book comes out, I'm like, mom and dad.

And with the climate of what's happening right now, like, my parents are driving around with their, you know, birth certificates and passports. Yeah. Which is like crazy. It's really crazy. I mean, I doubt it'll happen. I doubt I'll get deported because we're white. too you know like we know who they're targeting here so let's talk about um ping pong for the rest of this interview i don't want to i love the flag and ping pong um when you have parents

that are so like you know overshary like you're like just like little details like when you get off the plane for the first time in america and your dad takes you out to his used shitty beat up car, which he has nicknamed Seaman because it has a milky white color. I mean like that's, you know, like that's like how, do you ever get to rebel

against people like that? You know what I mean? Like how are you, how are you ever being I'm going to be inappropriate? You know, it's like. No, there's, I could never live up to them. Yeah. And even when I turned like 17 and I'd be, I would I was frumpy as hell. I like looked like shit. My hair was always

oily. And my mom was like, you have to look sexy for man's. And I was like, that's how she talks. And I was like, I'm depressed. I have zits. And I feel like shit. I don't want to be sexy for man's. Yeah. And also, isn't there sort of an element of like, that's your thing? Yes, I was rebelling. Yeah. Totally. And a part of me not wanting to get back into like showbiz and like all of that was because my mom wanted that so bad for me. Because she, She lived by, she was a dancer as a kid and she, you know, never made it. And so when I became a star or whatever, I was like, that's all she wanted, you know. And then I purposely was like, I'm done to piss you off too, even though I kind of wanted to keep doing it.

Yeah, yeah. But my mom's real sexy and I'm not. I'm wearing a tie made out of hair. You are. She's wearing a ponytail tie, which is, it is like there's something a little bit like, you know, serial killer trophy. Yeah. The aspect to it.

Like, it's one of your victims. Like, and you wear it around and, you know, and I'm assuming it's a dude. Oh, for sure. It's a rocker dude. I made it myself. From your own hair? No, no, no, from a wig. I took a wig.

I made a braid out of it and I hung it around my neck. I was going. It's 10 a.m. This is early. This is an early one. Well, then as you're growing up. Like, you don't fit in anywhere. No.

You're growing up. You're going to be here. Now you're like, you know, this is where you live. This is where your family lives. You've now really sort of put down what seemed like roots. What are you going to do with yourself? Well, now I've gotten back into creativity. I started off working for the Bengals.

This was like my way in. And this is why I joined Twitter. A friend of mine was like, you need to meet Susanna Hoffs. She's my aunt. She's going to love you. And I met Susanna and we became like instant best friends. She's been on this podcast. She has.

Yeah, yeah. She's my, one of my mentors and has always been there for me. And she was the one that when I told her my story, she was like, you have to get back. You have to write this. Yeah. And I did. I wrote a pilot about my life, not knowing what a pilot was. Right.

And I sold it immediately. Wow. And I had Selena Gomez as my EP, who's another child star. Wow. And Jason Bateman, who's another child star, and we sold it right away. And I was like, holy shit. At that time, I was like working at a hospital, translating. Wow.

And how old are you at this point? I was like late 20s, like early 30s. So, you know, this is kind of how I got into what I do now. Kind of fell into it sideways. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And so after that, I just.

started writing on TV shows and now I'm a comedy writer and I wrote a book. Yeah. It's nuts. That's great. Yeah. That's great. Now are your folks proud of you in that sense? Oh, my God.

My mom's shitting herself. She's so happy. She's like, I made a TikTok. She's like, what hashtags do I use to promote your book? I was like, I don't know, mom, like comedy, girl. I don't know. Whatever. Yeah.

But yeah, she's obsessed with, but yeah, pussy fingers, which is one of the chapter titles of my book. Yes, that's tell that story. That's a charming one. My dad took my mom on their first date. And when he brought her home, my grandfather, who was, imagine Rodney Dangerfield. That was my grandfather. He was like, come in, Marcos. We are not going home.

When he was throwing a party, there was like, you know, 30 people. And he was like, and give me, I want to smell your finger to see if you, what you did to my daughter. And my dad was like, oh, fuck. And he, he smelled my dad's fingers. And he announced to the party, he did it, folks, raised a glass to pussy fingers. Because I guess he'd finger being my mom. Or I need to explain it. Or just said smelly hands.

Or he'd been, they'd been touching fish all night. It might not. I don't want to, you know, I'll let you say. that. So, pussy fingers. So he's been pussy fingers

ever since. When my grandpa died, they stopped using the name because my grandpa was the only one that called him

that. Yeah, what a bitch he was. My poor dad. Now, again, like, this,

it's a whole clan of oversharers and just inappropriate. Of sickos. Is that, like, is one led to believe then like

every Argentinian Jew is like, yelling out things like that? Probably. Yeah. Do you think so? I mean, my whole family. Is Argentina more sort of just crazier and inappropriate?

Yeah. I think definitely we skew that way. They're not all as crazy as my parents and my grandparents. But yes, I will say, we used to take excursions with my grandma and grandpa to see the sex workers. And we would, like, drive and say hello to them in the red light district. In Buenos Aires. days. I was like 13. It was so fun. I was like, oh, look at these beautiful women. They're so smiley and they're waving at me. And I thought no one else did it. But as this book comes out,

all of these people are like, we used to do that too. Wow. I'm like, well, cool. That's crazy. I won't be doing it with my kids. No, I don't think you should. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was fun. Especially now the internet has probably ruined that. Yeah, they can just drive through town. They Why would they? They've got only fans. Oh, my God. And they'll see their great grandma. No, their grandma, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you, what's next for you? Are you? I want IVF to work. I want to have a baby. Yeah. I want to write something that isn't about my life because I'm fed the hell up. I bet. I can imagine that you just get tired of, you know, the sound of your own internal voice.

Yeah, rehashing the same thing. I'm ready. This showed me this book and also writing for TV that I'm good at narrative. I'm good at arc. It's not just that I can, you know, get on a mic and say like poop jokes or whatever. I studied literature. Like I feel like I'm an intelligent person. And so I can come up with a decent fictional story. So I think that's next. I'm crafting it right now. That's nice. And do you, because you have performed, you know, in your adult life. Do you still perform or? Yeah, I did a one woman show called Coming of Age where I played four characters. And I have been, I've been starting. I want my agents to send me out for more roles. Yeah. Which is a whole other thing, but I'm ready for that. I don't do stand up because I get too bad anxiety. Yeah. And I get too drunk. That's a real, that's a real aspect of it that people, I don't think. think they don't they don't realize like how much booze is involved and yeah yeah I can't do it um but I'm ready to start acting and I've done I've done stuff for funny or die back when it existed I was on camera a lot I did a lot of hosting I hosted a podcast like I I like being seen

now yeah yeah yeah it is true it's like you got to get like to where you want to be you know you want to be careful or comfortable being looked at Yes, it doesn't feel like I'm a raw nerve of trauma exposed every time I'm on a stage. And now it doesn't. Well, thanks so much for coming and being here. The best. From writing this, what do you think is the main thing? I mean, because you really, you sort of like pulled out all the files and got out of magnifying glass in order to write this book.

And I mean, it is mostly just really funny and a really fun read. You've got to be, you know, lots of trigger warnings. It's not for everyone. Yeah, it's not for everybody. You've got to be able to read about trauma with a lighthearted lilt to it, you know. But what do you think you've learned the most from the process of writing this book? I learned that taking notes from editors is a great thing. I had one chapter on the first pass of this.

This is not a very philosophical, like, I've changed, but it's pragmatic. I love these ones, you know. I had a whole chapter where I was trying to be crazy and compare my immigration journey to different types of cold cuts, which clearly makes no sense. Well, I was like, you know. It's a high bar to set for yourself to make it work. Like, what blood sausage is like realizing that you don't have money and you need to, it made no sense. And my editor was like, Tam, this is a disaster.

And I was like, no, it's not a disaster, like fighting that. And now I'm like, oh my God, editors know what they're doing, trust notes, even with TV writing. Like trust the notes for the most part, they're great and check your ego. but that also helps in my personal life with checking my ego. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you're right. I mean, because I had to go through that where, you know, when you're young and you start getting paid to do creative things and you're being told what to do by people that don't seem funny and don't seem clever and they, you know, they're just like a different kind of person. Yeah. They're a suit. And yet they're telling you things. And your first inclination is to be like, fuck you, what do you know? I'm not funny. You're not funny. You're not crazy. You hate creatives. Yeah. And then after a while, it's like, look, this is the voice of an audience.

There's, they, what these people are used to is putting things in front of an audience. Yeah. And they do have some experience in understanding what works and what does it. Just like, you know, from doing the Conan show for a million years. Oh. There's things that like, when I go do things now and somebody's like, what if we did this? I'm like, this crowd, the crowd will not like it. Like I just, you know, you have a sense of like what they like and what's going to

going to work and what's not going to work. And it's, you know, and it's all sort of intuitive. So now, you know, I still, I'm not like in love with suits. But when they tell me something, I go, calm down, think about it. Breathe. Yeah. Like what, what's, is there something to take from this? Exactly. And you don't have to, um, you don't have to talk during notes calls I've learned. Yeah. You can just listen, write down and then go and take what you want out of it. instead of being like, well, the reason I did that, you know how that goes. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah.

You get those calls over with quickly as possible. Yep. And also sometimes what you do is you take a note, you go, no, they're wrong. And then the work then is convincing the person that you did what they wanted you to do when you really did it. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's real producing, real rewriting. Well, Tam, so I thank you so much for being here.

Cry for me, Argentina. My life is a failed child. star. It's out now. And are you still writing, are you writing for any other shows right now? Yeah. On this fool, is this full still going? No, we had two seasons and then it got canceled. It came out during the strike, so that really screwed us. And then I wrote on my first animation, it's going to be absolutely amazing. It's called Strip Law. And I can't say much about it because no one's announced it. It's on Netflix. But it's a bunch of Twitter people that I now, we're now writing together. Oh, that's awesome. And it's about,

lawyers on the Las Vegas strip. Awesome. That sounds great. It's going to be really good. Well, everybody should get this book. And Tam, thanks so much for coming. It's great to see you. Thank you. And I'll be back next week with more three questions. The Three Questions with Andy Richter

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