WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 913 - Rachel Bloom

Episode Date: May 6, 2018

Rachel Bloom is a self-described show pony, a people-pleaser with a lifelong desire to perform as a means of keeping her anxieties at bay. She tells Marc how those impulses pushed her toward musical theater, which in turn led to self-produced music videos on YouTube, which eventually led to the creation of her hit show, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Rachel and Marc also discuss Jewish grandmothers, gender disparities in TV comedy, and the new movie she made with her husband, Most Likely to Murder. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance, mind your business.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store

and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucksters? What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. You're listening to it. You chose it. Didn't just happen to you. Welcome. Welcome to the show. What is happening? How's everybody doing? How's work? You okay? How are the kids? How's the wife? How's the husband? How's the partner? The partner? How's your doggy? How's your catgy how's your cat oh my cat it's it's funny you should ask because um i think i told you that my cat was having a little bit of trouble uh peeing blood sorry good morning and it was terrifying because the cat lafonda is an old lady she's an old lady she's 14 years old and she's getting becoming more fragile not unlike human old ladies her skin feels a little thinner she's a little lighter than she used to be she doesn't always know what's happening uh LaFonda and I know cats get older than LaFonda but to take her to the vet is so devastating it to to both of us really. Let me tell you who's on the show real quick. Rachel Bloom is on the show.

Rachel Bloom, crazy ex-girlfriend. And she's in a new movie that's called Most Likely to Murder that her husband directed and stars another guy that I like, Adam Pally. But she's here. We had a talk. And I guess I'll warn you now and I'll warn you again as we get closer. There's a high level of Jew-ness happening at different points during this interview. This is a Jew-y, a bit Jew-y, a bit Jew-y. If you like a Jew-y,

we got a little Jew-y coming. It's not over the top East Coast Jew-y, but there's a nice Jew-y subtext. It's nice. It's okay. What I used to think was annoying about being Jew-y, I believe has now become necessary. We have to put our annoying voices out there. We have to fight the power with our Jew-y-ness. Because you don't want to normalize those nazis now do you nah no you don't jew it up bring on the jew jewish vikings got an email from a guy said might be possible we talked about that when did we talk about that a week or so ago

after i was up in oslo and stockholm and with the viking history they got down there man they got down there into the rivers of poland apparently and they were hanging out and my brother's kind of tall until i get my jeans done i'm gonna go with i got a little jew viking in me got some stocky jew viking in me and now i'm gonna go i'm not a boat guy but i got the other part i got the the land-bound jew viking part anyways what was i talking about i do need to mention that our our potter our ceramicists uh brian jones has new cat mugs available starting today at noon uh noon eastern nine pacific and these mugs these are the same mugs i give to my guests i you know i've got to start giving them again i forget to get them in

the new garage everything's discombobulated i've i have forgotten to give mugs to certain guests i don't believe josh brolin got a mug you haven't heard that one yet i don't believe melissa mccarthy got a mug she's coming up Thursday. But don't tell them. Maybe I'll send them. Did I give Mary Steenburgen? I don't know if she... Oh, man. I got to start giving the mugs out again.

But they're available to you is my point. And they always sell out. So go get one for yourself. That's brianrjones.com slash shop for the WTF custom mug jobs. Saw some guy on Twitter broke his. Sorry, pal. If I offer you a freebie publicly as a replacement, then that becomes a policy. I can't do it.

But you can buy another one. And look, I'm not making a fortune off of these. These are nice things for the people. People like them. They're a solid mug. I saw Yakov Smirnoff last night. Said he drinks from my mug every day and he looks at my face on the mug but he didn't say that with the greatest tone which is unusual for him but i think he's

mad at me because of the intros i've been giving him lately do you need more on that do you need more on that i'm gonna get back to lafonda i know where i'm at so lafonda so poor lafonda poor fragile old lady lafonda i come home from from Europe and she's got, there's bloody pee around. So you got to take them in. She's got, it's just so sad. And now they're not, they don't even have that much fight in them. So like it used to be a horrendous chore to get her in the box, but Sarah got her in the box right away.

But then I get to the vet and she's just freaking out and just exhausts the poor cat and they got to put her under just to get her x-rayed and give her tests and everything so i didn't know what it was and you don't know you don't know you know they're getting old and you start just you just sort of start to wait that any kind of illness could be the end of it at this age so i left her there for a couple hours i picked her up they did all the tests and uh we gave her the the antibiotic and we didn't know if it would treat what she had. So it turns out that she's got a UTI and the antibiotic that was already administered will do it, will kill it. Her kidneys are good. Her liver is good and everything's good. She's got a little bit of hip dysplasia and a little bit of fused vertebrae, whatever that means.

She's all right. Just got to get her fed and get her past the trauma of going to the fucking vet. Also, please do whatever you can to support the causes that you believe in, either through actual physical support or monetary support whatever you got to do whatever you think will help don't feel too powerless i'm only saying this because i i did some charitable contributing uh that i do i do once a year and i can tell you who i donate money to to try to fight the good fight the aclu gets a nice chunk of change for me a Planned Parenthood gets a nice chunk of change for me and the Carolina Tiger Rescue and my father that's become a charity no I you know I don't want

to say I don't want to make him feel shitty I just gave him a little present because I got you know no matter what I say bad about him I owe him something right like he fed me got me shoes got me a car I don't think he knew he bought me that stuff but my went through my mother my mother was the front office but um yeah the carolina tiger rescue they have they save large cats it's down there i went down there so that's i'm just reminding people if you can't get in if you can't go out and do you know you and you can't afford to to support support aclu is out there in the trenches every day defending people who need defending and standing up for what's right constitutionally

and uh obviously pran parenthood is uh is under attack in many states, which there is an agenda to deny women of their health care rights. So do that. And if you care about tigers or lynxes or cougars of all kinds and other large cats, jaguars, jaguars, jaguar. How do they say it in England? It always bothers me. Jaguar, that's what I say. But I think when I see the commercial for Jaguars,

it's like Jaguar or something, something weird. Maybe that's the right way to say it. What do I know? A little Jewiness, a little Jewiness came out there. So it's setting it up. I'm easing you in to Rachel Bloom, who came over. I had to familiarize myself with her stuff. It all came, you know, it all happened in a matter of days.

I just took an intensive Rachel Bloom class and we have things in common and it was good. You'll see there's a new magic, folks. There's a new magic to this space. It's different and I feel it. And there's something, it's more pure. It's a little more pure for me, this space. Not as much clutter, not as much baggage, not as much dust or weight. It's clean.

It's pure. These are the interviews that are happening here now in the new garage in an undisclosed location. Rachel Bloom has a new movie that she's in right now called Most Likely to Murder. I watched it. It's good. It's available on digital download and most on-demand platforms. And, of course, she's always in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Okay? This is me and Rachel.

You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region.

See app for details. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. true heart just to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus

subscription required t's and c's apply I have a pretty good sense of what to say. Right. I mean, what am I preserving? Right. There's nothing to protect or preserve. Nothing? No. Well.

It's weird because I get a reputation as being that way too because I'm pretty candid on here. Yeah. But like, you know, and then I started to learn that there are some things, like the one thing I learned is that maybe don't talk about other people. There's that one. That's my one barrier, is whenever I do interviews, it's like, what can I share? I'll share anything about myself, because that's me. Right.

But other people, it's like, I got to be really, really careful, because I just don't want to hurt someone. But also, there's this weird thing where it's like, well, you know, other people were involved in this thing I'm talking about. Yeah. But they don't have a voice in it. If I bring it up, you know.

They can't argue for themselves. If I talk about a relationship or something. Yeah. And then they're like, well, I'm glad you had that. That's your point of view. Where do I get to share mine? Oh, you don't.

Right. I win. You can just write an article for The Wrap or something do I get to share mine? Oh, you don't. Right. I win. You can just write an article for The Wrap or something. I wrote a memoir, you know, a lot about my second marriage, which was sort of a volatile relationship. But I was an asshole. I mean, that's sort of out there. Right. And I don't think anyone's getting sent home from work for being an asshole.

Yet. Even though that's technically, we a we had a whole i mean every year we do a big hr meeting i'm sure you do this with you with your house yeah i do it here yeah i hire an independent hr company just to talk to the cats to talk to me and the cats yeah uh we did it's a thing with cbs and they were saying that actually if your boss is like a gratuitous asshole that does count as workplace bullying, that California specifically. Workplace bullying, right.

Yeah, workplace bullying, which I feel like if those laws had been a thing for many years, most writers' rooms before like 2007 would have gotten busted. My first writers' room was like an old school. I've heard stories. Yeah. The writers' room for my show, I was Would have gotten busted. My first writer's room was like an old school. I've heard stories.

Yeah. Like my, the writer's room for my show, like I was in charge. Right. So, but it was just me and four dudes. Like it wasn't even a big writer's room. I mean, the biggest mistake was it wasn't very diversified and there were no women. It was just, you know, four dudes or five dudes looking at the walls, waiting for something to happen. So what is that?

So let me ask you because i did a conversation last night we were talking about diversity and representation and and what i was thinking was the reason sometimes there are no women or people of color on a staff it's like you hire people innocently hire the people they know and the people who remind them of themselves that it's kind of a tribalism thing would you you say that's somewhat accurate? Yeah. I mean, I think with me, because I didn't have that much money to staff and my show runners, they were a team. So there were two, right? So that left me with like two or three positions to fill with guys who I thought understood

me and knew what was going on. It's an excuse, but some writers rooms have like 10 people in them. Yeah. And again, if you have that kind of network money you can really mix it up but it was like the first season was just me those two guys

and one other guy and a writer's assistant sure so you want the people you know who are going to get your sensibility and get where you come from

and nine times out of ten those people are going to be people who are like you but you know what I realize though I think that I could have hired a woman sure

and it would have been fine you're writing television and she can give that other sense But I realize, though, I think that I could have hired a woman. Sure. And it would have been fine. You're writing television. And she can give that other sense to the other side of it. That's the thing. I mean, that's what's hard is I was the only woman on my first writing staff. What staff was that? It was a show called Alan Gregory.

Oh, yeah? It was a very short-lived Fox animated show. Oh, an animated show. Yeah. And I will say the people running it were actually very, very nice. But I was the only girl. And I was say the people running it were actually very, very nice. But I was the only girl and I was the youngest. And there is something where, you know, if you're the only girl and you're a staff writer, sure, you're like the token woman's voice. But at the end of the day, you're are you really going to have like so it wasn't let's say it wasn't the creators. It was someone else in the writer's room like pitched an innocent like kind of date rape joke.

Right. Right. That happens in writer's rooms all the time that happens in stand-up comedy clubs all the time it's just easy comedy date rape racist yeah exactly it's just lowest anti-semitic well it's why like 16 year olds tell dead baby jokes yeah it's just like yeah it's the lowest sure it's the easiest form it's like a fart yeah all the farts are still fucking hilarious yeah so as a the youngest person in the writer's room am am I really going to be like, um, excuse me, that's offensive. No, you don't want to come off as, and this is internalized misogyny, but you don't want to come off as like the crazy woman who's overbearing and can't take a joke. And so it's hard to be the token.

You have to, I think if you're going to hire like the one person representing their gender or their race or even their orientation, they need to be high up. Because otherwise, if they're a staff writer, they're scared shitless. But the bigger question is, as a comic in that moment, you're not being paid to represent a gender. The real question is, were you offended? Yeah. You were? Yeah. You were offended?

Yeah, but it's scary. I mean, I don't know. I was terrified on my first writing staff my my default for many years was to walk into a room apologize for being there and assume i didn't belong there like and that's just also i think partially a gender thing but also partially a personality thing i'm a chronic people pleaser i'm i'm really like afraid of authority. And so I walked into my first writer's room thinking I got hired off a 30 rock spec. That's all I had.

I mean, I had one music video out and a 30 rock spec. And so I was the Ray Bradbury music. Yeah, that was it. It was that and a spec of 30 rock. And I walked in being like, I'm, I was 23 thinking, oh my God, I don't deserve to be here. And then some of the people on the staff were, even though they were technically staff writers, they actually had a lot more experience. It was the type of thing where they'd, because, you know, you only get bumped up if you're on a show that gets ordered to a second season. So you can be a staff writer working on many different shows for many years if you're on shows that keep getting canceled at the first season.

Yeah, right. So some of those guys were the case and it was a really mean competitive room and it was the type of thing where i already went in thinking i don't deserve to be here and then you tell a shitty joke and they'd be like oh good job good job and i remember one day i walked in wearing a hat that i loved it was just a beautiful knit hat oh nice hat yeah oh I walked in wearing a hat that I loved. It was just a beautiful knit hat. Oh, nice hat. Yeah. Oh, why are you wearing a hat? Yeah. Is it going to rain? Yeah.

You know, certain things used to really hurt my feelings. And I think sometimes they still do, but I just kind of suck it up. Like, what are the type of things that hurt your feelings? Well, the hat thing would bother me. Yeah, right. Because it's calling out the, because some of the people in the room are improvisers and there's this thing in improv, call out the unusual thing. Yeah. And that's kind of where it comes from is I'm going to be the straight man to this scene that is my life.

But it's like, why is my hat unusual? Can't you just let me have a fucking hat? I don't know. Even with the women I know in comedy, and with anybody in comedy, there is a certain amount of ball busting that goes on. There totally is. And it's a really fine line. But it's different than a writer's room. I mean, being in a sketch, being at UCB

or being at the comedy store and hanging out backstage or whatever is different than the pressure and the weight of going to work every day. It's also context. My friends, we bust each other's balls all the time. I mean, my writing partners and I, we are straight up mean to each other. My songwriting partners and I, we're mean to each other. But we bust each other's balls All the time right I mean my writing partners And I we are straight up mean

To each other my songwriting partners and I were Mean to me but we're we love each other From a place of deep empathy and respect and love Sure that's way different than Punching down when you're Insecurity and deep insecurity and I mean there's a there's a brand of dude And I'm gonna generalize here but there's a brand of dude

Who has learned to Use comedy only as a weapon To assert their dominance over other people. And that's not, I'm not a fan of that. I think comedy, I think comedy is a way to connect and enlighten. I think that's true. And so it can be mean, but it has to come from a place of- Are those people professional comedians? Yes.

That you're talking about? Yeah. Huh. And in fact, this is the one podcast I've done where they actually might be listening. Everything else has been like, you know, the feminist, blah, blah, blah. They're not listening to that. They're listening to this. Oh, so this is a standup that asserts its dominance to-

These are various. There's a couple of people. On stage? Like, I'm just trying to- These are, I'm talking more about the people I'm thinking of are more improv sketch comedians who are just very good joke writers. I mean, the type of person I've noticed that does this is... Oh, that's different.

So that's their... They got a... That's their swagger. Yeah. Oh, a thousand percent. And I always get the sense a little bit with some of them, especially now that I'm more confident in who I am, that when a woman does it yeah there's a little bit of like wait this is what i do to get pussy yeah right you're a woman i'm supposed to get you

with my jokes but the pussy's being funny and i don't want to like i can't fuck funny like you know there's that pussy's gonna eat my dick yes a hundred percent it all goes back to castration fears which is actually a big part of a feminist film theory that it all stems from guys yeah there's this writer laura mulvey i went to school for uh i went to nyu where we read a lot of essays on i don't know sometimes well let's go let's start let's let's get wait so i'll make note of where we ended up here, which is castration fear, which I instinctively figured out on my own and you were going to explain to me why it's right.

Yeah. And then, so let's go back though, because like, you know, you do have experience in sketch and performance, but I don't know anything about you. I had to immerse myself in uh over the last week or so well i'm so first of all this is a really big deal for me to be on here you know this is comics see this is like you've made it if you're if you're on what the fuck that's crazy it's so fucking cool yeah and i always in my head when i was listening to this when i was still like a waitress, I'd be like, who would I put on blast if I went on what the fuck? And now I'm not in that place.

What does that mean, put on blast? I don't know. Like, who would I, what would I be like honest about? I mean, the thing is, I'm a very angry person, but I'm also terrified of being seen as crazy or angry. And so I have a lot of anger that I keep inside, which is why I love scenes where I get to play angry because it's very cathartic. So, but I mean, we have things in common.

You're clearly a Jew. You know, and I, you know, I speak that. Yeah, but. I heard your interview with Mel Brooks. It was great. I became Jewish.

Where I started talking like an old Jew. Your nose got bigger. Yeah, everything got big. Yeah, everything got, everything got Jewier. You literally, by the end of the interview. I was like, what are you? Speaking like this? Yeah, everything got big. Yeah, everything got, everything got jewier. You literally, by the end of the interview.

I was like, what are you? I can't be big. I was speaking like this. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, I do that. It was great. I do that.

I just, with any sort of charismatic personality that I keep talking to, eventually I start to morph. That's nice. My boundaries. I don't know. It's a means of, I think's a innate uh compulsion to come to connect yeah you know what I mean like you know I can speak that language I can do this what do you know a little bit bad so what now you grew up in California yeah Manhattan Beach Manhattan Beach

which is okay so it's half Manhattan because Because you have a, you know, I always associate Jews starting, did your family originate in New York? Yeah, my grandpa was Brooklyn. Yeah. And my father's from Boston. And my parents lived their lives like East Coast Jews. Oh, yeah, Boston Jews. That's a unique bunch. Yes.

The Boston Jews. Oh, yeah, Boston Jews. All the blooms. And that's a unique bunch, the Boston Jews. Yes. Yeah. The family, apparently, I found out was, everyone was driven out of Boston by my father's mother, who just sounds like an overall bitch. And so they all were like- That's right, they went to LA, they went to New York.

They were like, I'm peacing out, I'm going to Philly. So all of the Boston blooms are gone because slowly my grandmother, I think, drove people out, is what I'm starting to Philly. So all of the Boston blooms are gone because slowly my grandmother, I think, drove people out is what I'm starting to hear. But it doesn't sound like they went too far to where they couldn't have to. If they had to visit, they could take the train. Well, if they had to visit, you know, when she dies, pick up the things that she left behind. She was a monster? I mean, she died when I was four.

Yeah, I will say there's a song on our show called Where's the Bathroom, which is a song that the woman who plays my mother sings. And she's an amalgamation of various Jewish mothers. And my dad called me and said, that song is literally what my mother said when she saw my first apartment. He's like, I think that you must have been there somehow in 1971 when my mother walked in. And what would she say? What'd she say? She called it a hovel. This place is dreck.

Sure. This place is garbage. What are you doing? A hovel. What are you doing with your life? Yeah. A hovel. A hovel.

They're horrible. They can be really horrible. Oh, yeah. I mean, I didn't have a monster Jewish mother or grandmother, but I've met them. I know who they are. Aren't you half? Are you full? Full.

Oh, I thought you were half. No. You were from Arizona, right? New Mexico. New Mexico. But both my folks are from Jersey. Right. Yeah.

But no, I'm full Jew. So you had a very nice mother. No, I mean, she was nuts in her own way. Selfish. It's a unique, you know, different, it's a spectrum of selfishness is usually what you're dealing with. Sure. You know, and sometimes it's abusive.

Sometimes it's negligent. Sometimes it's overbearing. But usually,'s abusive, sometimes it's negligent, sometimes it's overbearing, but usually, whatever it is, it's all about them. Well, I think that you're getting to some, I'm very, I've become very annoyed, and this is not just with Jews, it's Italians, it's everyone,

when culture is used to explain away cruelty or mental illness. Yes. Where it's like, oh, I'm a Jewish mother. Right, yeah, that's right. I'm gonna harpy you no you're being actually really mean right now abusive and don't use yeah your fucking culture

sure to excuse that even though it's rooted in survival i've noticed that because there's a main character on our show is filipino and so we talked a lot about the similarities between filipinos and jews and asian families and jewish families and it's an immigrant culture thing. It's you come to this country. I came to this country for what? Right. For you to go into stand up. Right. Right. No. To live in a hovel. To live in a hovel. We we escape the Cossacks for this. Right. And the premium that the yeah, the Jews used to put on education. It's a I guess it's a tradition of living outside of other cultures because of the religion and being not allowed to do certain things because of that.

There was always this premium put on becoming the best, so you can show up where they can't argue with you. Yeah. You know? Yeah. you know where they can't argue with you yeah you know yeah it's well it relates back to if you're the one woman at like a you know right doing a set yeah you're doing it on behalf of all women if you bomb there's someone that audience who's gonna go women aren't funny because of that one person you won't have a person say men aren't funny because that one person bombed there's something about being anyone who's in the minority whatever you call minority is is always

you're representing your right culture but the other side of that is it your responsibility no right but it like it or not with ignorant people it sometimes is are you getting anything like that i mean how does how does uh my crazy, how does my crazy ex-girlfriend? Crazy ex-girlfriend, there's no my. Oh, yeah, crazy ex-girlfriend. The only reason I correct people is because my makes it possessive, and it makes it from a male gaze point of view. I dig it.

Yeah. Crazy ex-girlfriend. I don't want to be accused of male gazing. You can't help it. Of course not. Yeah, it's the way that your brains are programmed. Of course not. Yeah. It's the way that your brains are programmed. Men and women are different.

It's okay. Oh, really? Have you used that as a topic? Yeah. Well, I, okay. I've talked about this in other places, but I'm curious

as to what you think. I heard a story in NPR a couple years ago of a person who was transitioning. They were a woman and they were taking hormones to become a man.

Yeah. They get on the subway. They started testosterone. They get on the New York subway. Suddenly they see, hormones to become a man yeah they get on the subway they started testosterone they get on the new york subway suddenly they see this person sees a hot woman parable i know right it sounds like and the rabbi put three more goats in that house yeah they get on the subway and they start they see attractive woman and suddenly get the urge to like fuck this woman and and he starts transitioning the person who's transitioning to a man yeah and they and he realizes oh is this what testosterone does and I talked to a lot of my friends about this including my husband and they were all to varying degrees like yeah like when I walk into a room and I see a hot guy maybe I'll

register it but it's not this involuntary, but apparently. But what makes you do that? Is it talking to somebody? I mean, hot is very subjective. Hot's really subjective. I think for me, I have to get a vibe. I have to catch a vibe. Yeah, okay, a vibe.

I got to catch that vibe, but it's not purely physical. It's why women don't wolf whistle at men on the street that's not how our brains work but the way that it seems that a lot of men's brains work is you my husband described it where it's like you'll see a hot woman in the back of his head it's like a little voice just goes pussy yeah pussy and it's involuntary but another friend described it as you'll get an involuntary like camera flash of like boom uh picture me fucking her in the shower and then it goes away you tell me unless you you know continue the scene

unless you continue the scene unless you're actually fucking her in the shower no i mean like those things come and you have a certain amount of control over how long they go on for but i mean but i i think on some level the pussy thing is right, but it's also, but it's the same thing that goes on where it's like, there's the other one is food. Right. So I get that when I see, I'm a big fan of roller coasters and I've realized it's the same thing when I see a video of a roller coaster on TV or if we're driving past an amusement park, the way I treat roller coasters is the way I think my husband thinks about women.

Well, I think there's something very primal about it and very, you know, biological about it. And, you know, being civilized people who have self-awareness, you know, you kind of keep that shit in check. But I think that it's undeniable, but not in any way an excuse that, you know, that we're put here on some level to fuck yeah and and that's you know always that part of the brain is always sort of like are we fucking when we fucking is that gonna happen soon where is it i think it's how we make more people yeah it is it's how we survive it makes sense and i haven't made any more people and i that you know of but that no i i think i they would have come out by now. Okay.

I think I would have met them. There's still time. Sure. For me to have people? Yeah. Yeah, there is. Yeah, I know. I don't know.

It seems like just thinking about it, I'm worried about the kid. Like, I'm worried now. Like, you know, why don't you have children? He's going to go to school by himself? So, like, I don't, you know. What do you mean he's going to go to school by himself? So I don't... What do you mean he's going to go to school by himself? That eventually you have to watch this thing. Oh, I thought you meant for whatever reason,

your kid is going to be alone in a school. He is going to be alone. I mean, he's got to go at some point. No, like no other students. Oh, no. No, it's just like the worry thing. I'm an anxious person. I have severe panic and anxiety issues.

It's very paternal to automatically think that, that you're not like, oh, a kid, responsibility. You're like, oh, no, I'm going to worry about him. It's very sweet, actually. Yeah, but it gets overbearing. Like, you know, worrying is not love. Huh. No? No, because I'm like like because it's sort of like how am i going

to deal with if something what what am i going to do if something happens to that kid how am i going to handle that oh it all goes back to your feet like a fear of in a way like god forbid that kid should die your life is over it's. You won't be able to recover. Right. Because I'm making up a kid. Right. Right. So he's got no hair color.

I don't know his name. But it's just the idea is sort of- I think his name's Alex. Okay. But the idea is that like I'm responsible and so much is out of my control. You know, what if something happens? Mm-hmm. And it happens. It's the same thing with cats though. You know, what if something happens?

And it happens. It's the same thing with cats, though. I know, and it's terrible. I think that's probably why you feel it a little bit. It's terrible. It's just, I don't know. It's just too much anxiety. I like kids, and I'm always, I like to communicate with them. Yeah.

And I like to see them, but I just, the day-to-day of it. But people seem to lock into it. Are you having them? We're, it's a debate, it's a conversation. I mean, I emotionally want them.

What is that? Emotionally versus what? Well, it's logistics. It's a lot of emotional things on my end and my husband's end and I mean,

it's hard. Having kids is fucking fucking hard i mean i work 16 hours a day for half the year i work 16 hours a day yeah i couldn't have a kid right now right i mean if i did i would never see them and they would grow to resent me so there is a certain sacrifice and give and take plus there's the wild card of if i want to have a kid i don't know what i'm going to be like when i'm pregnant i don't know if i'm going to be able to function or if i'm going to be super sick i don't know what my post gonna be like when i'm pregnant i don't know if i'm gonna be able to function or if i'm gonna be super sick i don't know what my postpartum is gonna be like it's so you we're we're exactly the same yours is just a little more complicated yeah yeah

because it's my body yeah but like i fear that i fear the bad post my mom had very bad postpartum and she was very sick and i i'm postpartum that lasted what your entire childhood yes so that she's still going through um no i mean it was hard for her because she had bad postpartum and then her brother was killed in a car accident so i think a lot of those things compounded but i i've heard horror stories from other people about postpartum and and it's just the way it fucks with your body. And I have a whole thing where, I mean, getting into it, it's kind of boring, but I have this whole thing where I can't be on a birth control with estrogen because it makes my tits hurt half the month,

and I have a really sensitive system anyway. So that's a whole other thing where what's it going to do to my body? What's it going to do to my mind? The kid. Just being pregnant. scary yeah no i i can i can i can hear that i mean i i believe you yeah but i mean but you know and i know that some people just do it well most people a lot of people do it yeah like a lot like most people do it but my i guess my what i'm sensing is that whatever emotional whatever desire you have to have them is being overridden either uh for emotional reasons or practical reasons whatever

the reasons are the case is being made against having them the case is well look logically it makes no sense for anyone to have a kid i think think that's the ultimate thing. In what way? It costs money. You're raising- But these are practical, isn't it? I'm just saying purely practical. Okay. If you take out the emotion. Right.

It doesn't make logistical sense to suddenly spend all this money to raise this person. I don't think it costs much more than a pet until they're like 11. Okay. But also effort. Yeah. much more than a pet till they're like 11 okay but also effort yeah because you're up at all hours of the night you give something unconditional well this gets into emotion but you give something unconditional love that they may never it's always conditioned return always becomes a condition i know obviously yeah i think i do i mean it's just and i and i i want it the weird thing is i say i'm

afraid of being pregnant i actually want to be pregnant. I love feeling my friend's pregnant bellies. You do? Oh, I love it. I love looking at ultrasound pictures. I love feeling where the baby is. I've always been, as a kid, I was an only child, and I was a weird only child. I would pretend I was pregnant when I was like four or five, and then I would take a shit and be like, I'm giving birth.

Yeah. You wanted a brother maybe. I did. I had imaginary siblings. Really? That I would fight with. So you were an only child. I was an only child.

And my imaginary siblings were Kevin McAllister from Home Alone. Yeah. Wednesday Adams. Uh-huh. And Pippi Longstocking. Oh, Pippi. That would be fun. Yeah.

But I would fight with them. You'd fight with your made up siblings. And then I'd make my parents. Yeah. be like pippi's being mean and i'd make my parents come in and mediate i'll go uh pippi uh stop uh they would do that for you they would they play along yeah because they why didn't they have other kids you don't know they just wanted one or uh i i honestly think my mom had a really tough pregnancy. My dad was 42 when I was born. Oh, wow. I just know he got a vasectomy pretty quickly after I was born.

Oh, yeah, they got it done. He got that shit done so he could come in my mom. Yeah, and not worry about it. Not worry about it. Look at me coming in you. All right, so let's try to get up to, because I want to talk about how it happened for you because I think that you, and not unlike you and me as well,

were part of a new media thing that I think made a lot of other people think, oh, I could just do it that way. Yes. Yeah. So you grew up in Manhattan Beach, and you went to high school here yeah and you did high school theater yeah i did yeah a very good theater department and it was weird growing up manhattan beach because i grew up with i was an anxious kid who had i was obsessed with

musical theater and thought about death and but was also very outgoing and was raised by neurotic jews who you know always talked about skin cancer and so i was and plus i had like cancer yeah do you get your skin checked i do i had basal cell on my nose oh shit yeah yeah they had to cut it it was a real procedure it's not that's not a deadly one no but it's like it's a thing. And I thought like you just get it removed like a mole, but no. They've made a hole in my face. Yeah, to get out the, I don't even see anything. Well, if I really pointed out to you, you would see it. They do a Mohs procedure where they keep taking out a thing.

They cut a little bit out and then they go test it. And then if they didn't get it all, they cut again. But you're just sitting there in the waiting room with gauze stuck into a carterized hole that's numbed out do it in the same day so you're sitting there oh that's each time each time and like they went three or four times and i'm like can i see what's going on and the doctor's like we don't usually we don't recommend that you look at it at this point in time because it's numb yeah and i go look in the mirror. I'm like, I said, I got to see what you're doing.

There's like this nickel-sized hole on the side of my fucking nose. And I'm like, can you fix that? Holy shit. And then, of course, the doctor, with their cute fucking sense of humor, is like, I think so. Ugh. You think so.

Anyway, so you're saying you were brought up by neurotic Jews, full of panic, and you had anxiety problems and morose thoughts. Yes, doctor. Yes. Well, you've processed this. Oh, a thousand percent. It just sounded like I felt like I was suddenly in a very good therapy session.

You're in a pretty good therapy session. Pretty good. I'm not a professional. But after doing all these interviews, I think you might as well be. Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten emails from psychologists. Do they like the show?

They think it's helpful. Yeah, some of them are like, well, they think that I do a good job. But I mean, but I'm not a clinical, you know, I mean, I'm just spitballing. Of course. I'm spitballing that you're a little fucked up. That would be accurate. Yes. See, there you go.

All fixed. But like, the Morose thought so. Because I remember what I was going to ask you. I always have this theory about only children, but none of them have validated it for me. Did you fear for your, did you fear, was there extra pressure because you were the only one? Yes and no. yes and no i mean i was so um and this this is more relating to anything artistic i was so encouraged and adored with artsy stuff oh good that it gave me confidence but then it became my identity which happens a lot with musical theater people too in general your talent your art your craft

becomes the community right your self-worth yeah now were your parents creative artsy types my dad no my dad's a lawyer who loves health law health like the way we love comedy he he's obsessed with it yeah and my mom my mom was a music major and is a pianist and sang in choirs. So yes. And then my grandpa was an amateur. My grandpa sold technical manuals, but on the side, he directed and wrote and acted in community theater. And he was the one, we have all these videos where he's teaching me all these old songs

and he pushes me, do it again, do it again, do it again. But it was all known professional. Yeah. yeah my mom's dad who was from brooklyn oh i spent a lot of time with that's so sweet yeah and he lived a long time he he lived to be 80 he died when i was in college oh so you had a full life with him i did that's great yeah i had that with a with a couple of my grandparents yeah but it was complicated. You know, he, I mean, as it is with all Jews, I think it was lovely, but also he had a really bad temper. I mean, I heard that when he directed community theater, he would make his actors cry. He would just scream at them if they were a minute late.

But not with you? Ah, sometimes. Sometimes. He would yell at me if I wasn't wearing shoes in the house yeah my grandfather was had had a heart attack by the time i really got to know him already so he was on librium which was pre pre paxil pre it was a sort of like uh just kind of kept him level oh yeah so like he was more cranky than that my mother claims that he was just a raging lunatic. But by the time I met him,

it was sort of like, what are we, what are we, are we leaving? You know, it wasn't, and he was just very placated. I think it was the same with my,

I mean, I think my grandpa, not my hit my mom, but he hit my uncles. I mean, you know, that's what you did in the fifties to discipline kids. You hit them with bells and shit.

Now you're doing what you're. What am I doing? That's what you did in the fifties. guess when kids you hit them with bells and shit now you're doing what what am i doing you're you're that's what you did in the 50s listen it was a different time i have one uncle who uh lives in northern california and just completely isolated himself oh he ran away from the family there's always one of those yeah there's always there's always one of those who's just like i'm out peace out yeah i'm gone yeah they're and they probably don't even identify as jewish anymore yeah well he's into um he's a mystic oh sure he jewish mystic he's a jewish mystic it's a thing he makes um metal geometric objects and speaks to spirits through them that's that's literally his religion yeah but it's not Jewish.

No, it's not Jewish. It's just a guy who has a strange compulsion. Well, it's his calling. I think there is a system. Did he make it up? No, no, no. There are other people. There's like a guru and there are other people.

I mean, but would you, I mean, if you weren't Jewish or say you had no religion. I mean, Judaism is weird in that you can be an atheist like I am and still call yourself Jewish, right? It's a religion and a race and a culture, I guess. I don't know if it's a race. I've had that question before. Have you thought about it? Well, I've done 23andMe and Ancestry.com and it says my race is 98 ashkenazi jewish i gotta do that but be prepared to be underwhelmed you're just gonna be 100 jewish there's not gonna be anything interesting

no no my brother's kind of tall i come from russian polish that's yeah that's me too so okay so you're jew jew and your musical theater so that you're doing that very young yeah that's what you're telling me yeah yeah and then I went to school I wanted to be on Broadway so I majored in musical theater

at NYU and quickly got disenchanted with it but how how big of a problem was your mental problems I learned to be a very good show pony

so I think people didn't know what was going on that's like a you know it's like I'm a I learned to cover it you can turn that shit on I can see it on the show I can see it on stage oh yeah you're just one of those people that like if there's a if hey if everyone's sad in a circle

you're gonna like wait yes okay yeah when I when I'm we're mourning here when i yeah he had a great life it's fine he was 16 so let's sing a song let's sing a song come on come on put on company yeah yeah i mean that's what you do is you power through and in some ways it's good because cognitive behavioral therapy is all about deciding you know what anxious thoughts right but aren't you but you're sort of backloading that oh yeah yeah yeah it was all gonna come to a head but no i'm just listening to you because i did the same thing like you know i've uh you know i just plowed along and because i had a very sort of not aggressive personality but like i my parents were not they were just sort of like oh that kid's okay he's gonna be okay that one's to be okay. I wasn't really okay.

But, you know, I ended up doing comedy. I ended up, like, pushing ahead. And a lot of it was because I didn't buckle. You know, like, there's something about that persistence. I guess you could call it creativity or what. I don't know what it is. But I think what you're talking about that I like is that it is cognitive because it's survival. You know, because, you know, either you're going to,

but didn't you fucking, like'm now i'm thinking about myself and didn't you fucking spin out and lose your fucking mind and end up in the goddamn uh college uh health center and breathing into a bag or what i mean it was slow i think i've always been so afraid and aware of keeping up appearances. Yeah. Even at my lowest, I always wanted to seem normal. Uh-huh. So there were definitely, I mean, moments in college where I spun out. And that also has to do with romantic stuff. And I mean. But you never thought you were dying or any of

that shit no i never thought i was dying and i never i've never really had earnest thoughts of suicide and i think that's i don't know what that is i mean i have a friend who um one of my good friends since he was a kid, has had thoughts of suicide. I mean, he would open up the drawer in his parents' house and look at the knives. But he, on the outside, had this great life. And I'm, and not to say my life isn't great, but I'm kind of the opposite, that there's something underneath all the stuff that's really sunny and happy and positive. And there's this, the idea of just ending it. I'm like, Oh,

but it'll get better despite everything. And I don't know where it comes from or what that is. Like I used to do a bit about that, but like I think about suicide all the time. It's not because I want to kill myself. It just makes me feel better knowing that I can, if I have to. Sure.

So it's a, it's a, it's actually a cognitive stress release relief do you think that to soothe yourself like well if nothing else i can kill i used to yeah oh fuck yeah oh wow yeah oh my god it was like such a go-to i think that's what's there in place of the uh the the the father of abraham isaac and jacob that that what's in like my inability to suspend my disbelief enough to turn anything over to God is just sort of like I could always just make myself die. But I think that is the hole that most people are like, you know, it's a spiritual void. Yeah. my spiritual void was filled with this kind of not Jewish mysticism,

but as much as like, I would say like privileged, privileged white person, like, well, the universe cares about me. So anything that, you know,

goes wrong happens for a reason. And you tell yourself like, it all happens for a reason. And when I'd be shitty to other people or something bad would happen, I tell myself, well, this was meant to happen. And then I remember the moment in college. i remember the moment in college where i was i'd already been reading richard dawkins the god delusion so i was kind of primed for it i went wait what if it's not

meant to just for a second what if there's no fate what if i'm just i happen to exist yeah and when i fuck up i just fuck up and when i mean when i'm not mean i've never mean but like when i'm inconsiderate to people i'm inconsiderate when i'm irresponsible i'm just irresponsible and it's actually to the detriment of myself and i can learn from it but at the end of the day it was a mistake and that was the moment i became a practical atheist and i became a better person in that one moment so my spirit my spirituality uh it it happened to me in this moment kind of the way other people describe finding Jesus. Yeah. Losing Jesus or losing whatever that cushion was that allowed me to not be the best version of myself.

The self-centered, rationalizing universe thing. That allowed me to also be lazy. Well, that whole thing like nothing happens that's not supposed to happen is all relative to your perception of things and that's where everybody gets sort of fucked up with their ego and narcissism is that all those kind of little trinkets of uh of uh spiritual awareness are really relative to your perception yes also it's it comes from a place of for me it came from a place of privilege because okay so i'm a fucking like upper middle class you know white person in america majoring in theater with no student

loans of course i can tell myself that everything that's meant to happen happens for a reason that my life will be okay because nine times out of ten my life is going to turn out okay but it's so fucking selfish of me to like think that was someone i don't know living in a fucking destitute area who's dying of dysentery like oh everything happens for a reason what a privileged fucking thing to think about sure well the other version is god has a plan and what's your plan man yeah i know show me your five step show me your what's your five year plan god i don't even have time to think about it. I know.

You know, like, that's what, you know, the idea of God and all that, when people are like, God, you know, I don't even think about it anymore. Yeah. So atheism is practical and makes you take responsibility.

Yeah, and that's why I call, I say I'm a practical atheist and a theoretical agnostic, that the way that I live my life day to day is taking full responsibility for my actions and being a nice person just to be a nice person.

It doesn't relate to what governs the universe. To me, the two things are completely separate. So I would never claim, we know very little about the universe.

There might be a teenage alien running this computer simulation that we're all living in, but that has nothing to do with how I live my life. That whole simulation. That shit's crazy, right?

I won't do it. No, I don't do it. What are you, no, it's, yeah, it's crazy. I mean, what am I going to waste my time with that?

I can't even break it down that much to believe that? No. Do I want to spend an hour with a person selling me on that idea that this is all hallucination or we're just part

of some simulation? Do I want to be convinced of that so I could do what? What happens then? Nothing. That's why it's all theoretical. No, but it adds anxiety. Because if I get to a point where I'm like,

wow, that makes sense. Yeah. Well, now what? I think it's just interesting. I mean, it doesn't actually change anything. I'm still existing and I'm still feeling. I think it's, I don't know. It doesn't freak me out anymore.

I'm not freaked out by it. I just don't have the time for it. My brain won't do that anymore. Well busy i guess but i mean i think about things but just not that well maybe you also subconsciously know that or consciously that if you start thinking about it you're gonna spin well no but i'm more concerned about you know you know what what is happening to our brains that are being sort of maneuvered by stimulus that diminishes our ability to think for ourselves, use our memory and maintain our intentions, man. I mean, I'm more concerned with my relationship with my phone. Dude, it's all I discuss with my psychiatrist. The phone, no,

the phone shit. He's on me about the phone shit the social media shit it's it's it's especially i don't know if you but i run i don't have adhd per se but i i have adhd tendencies i might have slight adhd and it's and it i feel the phone sending dopamine to my brain and just getting me like addicted and making me dumb yeah well it's a but it's your engagement with it the phone is like it's like you know looking at good comments from them. But it's your engagement with it. The phone is like, it's like, you know, looking at good comments and then bad comments.

It's a speedball. My thing now is just like compulsively reading news. Sure. What are we doing? We're talking about your life. So, but what do you have?

What do you, what is your fucking problem? Oh, I have, I guess, what's my diagnosis? I have low grade guess, what's my diagnosis? I have low-grade depression with varying anxiety. Yeah, I don't know. I have low-grade depression with varying anxiety and anxious and OCD tendencies with a little undercurrent of ADHD.

I don't know about the ADHD, but I have all the other ones. Yeah, it used to be worse. I have the exact same thing. Minor OCD, that helps comfort people. So OCD, the way I have it is different from the like, I'm going to wash my hands. Right, how do you have it? My OCD is all looping thoughts.

And it's all, it always ends in the fear that the OCD or the compulsive thought itself yeah is going to ruin my life that the thought itself is going to attack so the example okay perfect example all right we're pitching crazy ex-girlfriend the night before we pitch i don't sleep at all yeah of course and it becomes this thing of why aren't you going to sleep you fucking bitch you know go to sleep go to sleep I wake up. That whole week I have horrible insomnia. And insomnia makes anything you have a lot worse. I don't have it anymore, I know.

It's so bad. So then the next time, so then I get over that. But the next time I have insomnia, I happen to be in New York, it reminds me of the time that I had insomnia. And it sends me to a bad place of worrying if I'm going to have bad insomnia again. Alright, like seeing the sunrise kind of shit.

Like, you know, I don't want to fucking. I can't do this. Well, also, that obsession with you can't control

when you go to sleep. Sleep is the most fundamental thing but when you actually think about it, it's the, sleep is the act of letting go.

It's the act of not controlling anything which is crazy if you are someone who needs to control something like me and so i began to just spiral about sleep and then it began to kind of haunt my every waking moment where i wasn't thinking about even even when i wasn't even worrying about the night i would begin

i would i was fearing the night um because you wouldn't be able to go to sleep because i i'm going to be alone i'm going to be alone with my thoughts and this is before i started meditating and shit i'm going to be alone with my thoughts i'm going to be alone with I'm going to be alone with my thoughts. And this is before I started meditating and shit. I'm going to be alone with my thoughts. I'm going to be alone with the fact that I can't get to sleep. It's going to be terrible. And it just began to kind of haunt the day until it was this overall feeling of dread. And then I thought, oh, my God, I'm always going to feel this feeling. When is this feeling going to go away? And then in the middle of it, my boyfriend proposed in the middle of this thing that I was going through.

And I thought, oh, my God, whenever I think of my boyfriend now, I'm always going to think about this bad feeling. boyfriend proposed in the middle of this thing that i was going through and i thought oh my god whenever i think of my boyfriend now i'm always going to think about this bad feeling yeah that i had during this thing and it's going to ruin and it's going to ruin my relationship and it's going to attack everything and it just was this it becomes this trying to outthink the anxiety and that's that's the form it it takes and still takes is this is this feeling of it feels like there's this dark thing that if i let it take over it's just going to ruin everything even though i know that's a hyperbolic thought but it feels like when i'm about to have a little anxiety spiral yeah like i it feels like i'm walking on the edge of a swimming pool and i'm

all and i'm fine but if I even dip my toe into the thought yeah if I even form the question yeah I'm done I know I know that I have that it's dread yeah dread it's like existential dread that leads into my fear of failure right right but that's like that's just a manifestation of the anxiety like you know like yeah like it's yeah and it's not and it takes you out of the present it makes you live in your brain and i don't you know good for your boyfriend who's not your husband to to be able to to to sort of you must he must ground you somehow because i mean if i mean i have similar things where i've been just with age somehow or another i don't like i

don't i i know myself well enough to where i'm like, I'm not going to do that. Because I've gone through hypochondria, I've gone through whatever the fuck it is. I do get panic, but usually there's some foundation for it in real life. And I can spin out like that, but it's not as hypothetical as it used to be. So what happened when you went in to pitch it? I was fine because I'm a show pony. It's always fine.

That's the thing. You got to lean on that. I guess you're learning how to do that. Oh yeah. I mean it's always fine. You're a professional. It's never going to be

what I'm fearing because I've spent 31 years doing this. Right. Exactly. And so it's a matter of outsmarting it but not outsmarting it do you ever think it's part of your process have you gone down that road

what i what would i do without this like there's got to be no because i don't feel like myself when it's happening there's a different something comforting about it if you've been doing it all your life no it feels like i'm trying to outsmart it and solve it oh it that's what it feels like it feels like i'm trying to solve something i it and solve it. That's what it feels like. It feels like I'm trying to solve something. I'm trying to solve the unsolvable. I'm asking questions that have no answers. I know, but that particular pattern. It's how my mind works.

And it definitely relates to being creative. I think it's the dark side of my creativity. But don't you ever think like, oh, I don't know. It sounds like your parents are okay. Why are you such a control freak? Well, remember when we were saying let's let i mean here's the thing my let's just say there are there are i can talk about my experiences but when it comes to certain things in general with my family i it there are certain people i don't want to upset uh-huh okay yeah

well how bad was it everything's great show pony will you sing a song now everything is fine so but okay so you go to tish yeah and that's that's the hard school yeah and you and you didn't you didn't love it there why what happened well when you major in musical theater first of all everyone who majors in musical theater were all the leads of their high school plays. So you get there and it's a bunch of other like silverback gorillas who are like, well, I was Svanteen. Now I was Svanteen. And also musical theater kids, young musical theater kids are kind of the worst because they're all like comparing voices. Everything is like, who is the best actor?

Who's the best dancer? And it's just like, it's terrible. And it was also that I was immediately faced with people who were more talented than I was. Oh. And that's terrifying when your whole self-worth. For real though? Or just, I mean. Yeah.

You look back on it and you think that? Or do you look back on it and just have more together? I mean, you're pretty talented. I mean, what would determine that but it's like a binary technique thing of this person's voice literally sounds better okay and this person has more control over their instrument whatever right whatever I get and so there was a part of me that felt like I didn't fit in that I was kind of tired of people's personalities and also then we started to used to when you start to study musical theater

some of it is brilliant when musical theater is good it's the best thing in the world when musical theater is bad it's the worst thing in the world and i just began to i don't know i just something didn't feel right and so i auditioned for the school sketch comedy group and i got on and i very quickly like fell in love with that sketch comedy i mean it was the quickest i've ever fallen in love with anything i immediately i remember writing my first one of my first sketches on a lunch break at musical theater school like on the floor in my ballet shoes it's all i suddenly wanted to do i became obsessed and i think part of it was because it was a new skill i didn't have my ego wrapped up in it so i was okay to be on a group with a bunch of people who are more talented than I was because my ego wasn't wrapped up in being the best comedian.

So I was finally, for the first time, free to try my best at something, fail, and be okay with that. But in musical theater school, I started to subconsciously not try. First of all, because I wasn't getting a lot of sleep. I mean, I've had sleep problems since I was a little kid that I only in the past couple years recently dealt with. So I was getting five hours of sleep a night

and so I was exhausted and kind of wigged out. But also I wasn't trying because if I then wasn't good at a song, I could say to myself, well, I could, I mean, if I wanted to, I could have done it.

Yeah, I used to do a joke about that like sort of like i don't prepare uh you know because like um if if it goes well and you don't prepare you're fucking genius if it doesn't go well you can just be like no i didn't prepare exactly and it's so great when you don't prepare and it goes well because then you start to tell yourself well that's just my process yeah right i tell yourself, well, that's just my process. Yeah, right. I don't memorize my lines. That's just my process. But the problem with that is like you keep doing that

and you keep having success. At some point, you realize like, I'm the only one who thinks this is good. Yeah. Like there are people who are like,

she's not really that good and you're like, but I'm so honest. Oh, yeah. I took an on-camera acting class and I was doing the thing where where i hadn't prepared much and it was just coming from impulse and then they and then i watched it and it was garbage absolute trash and i was like oh i need to start preparing shit but you were in it though right

you felt like you were nailing it when you were doing it uh yeah yeah yeah because i was like oh it feels so true and so pure so what if i'm not getting the lines doesn't matter that's a that's an important hit to take yeah right yeah all right so okay so you like the improv and you do it and what'd you drop out are you finished no you finished no i finished um and then you're not gonna quit no no no i mean it was a weird thing where i was on the sketch group and this is a whole other thing but i i was the one of the only girls on the sketch group and i was really young i was a very young 18 like i hadn't drank or smoked or had sex and the older guys who were my directors started flirting with me and hitting on me as it happens and i got kind of unwittingly involved in

this like love triangle uh that then because they were young, too. I was like 19 and they were 24. The improv group people? Yeah, the sketch group people. They I was supposed to be the director of the group. And because I got in this love triangle and fell in love with one of them, but the other one also loved me. And then like I dumped one of them but continued to see the other. I got removed as director for my college sketch comedy group.

So this was a- By them? Yeah. So it was like a defining moment for me because I think that the way I learned comedy for the first year or two was just doing, almost doing an impression of what those guys were doing. And when this whole thing happened, I said, oh, okay. So the mentors I thought who I trusted who then wanted to fuck me and now they've completely turned on me. I'm just going to do my own thing.

And that's when I started to want to combine musical theater and comedy. It was only after that happened and I kind of rejected them as my mentors. Oh, and then that's when you started to move towards the videos? The videos came a couple of years later. How did you start to fuse them without them?

Did you start going to perform other places? Yeah. Or was this just a mental thing? I took a musical theater writing class. Oh, that's good. And then, this was after graduating, I wanted to have a show running at UCB. Because that's the status symbol. If you have a show running at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in the basement of the supermarket yeah you're done you're in

you're in you might as well be famous I mean that's that's really how you how I saw it and I was doing a sketch I was working out the sketch show and one of the sketches in it was a song about the movie Space Jam yeah and I wrote it with my friend and I played it for my boyfriend who's now my husband I've been with wrote it with my friend and I played it for my boyfriend, who's now my husband. I've been with my husband for 10 years. Yeah. I played it for my husband

and he went, you should just be doing this for the show. This is way more than me. Well, that's interesting though. You must have been one of the only people. I don't know, but I don't, you know,

you're one of the kids. I'm old. I mean, but it seems that what you do, I've not really seen it in, like, I mean, were there other people doing musical comedy sketch shit no no and it felt so obvious to me because it seemed like there was an obvious there was a

gap in musical theater when i tried to find a comedy audition song it was just these lame lame songs especially for women either old ones or just like songs that were funny adjacent. I think that also like, you know, until Glee, it wasn't particularly popular anymore. No, but I mean, I didn't know that. And when you're in the musical theater community, it's always popular. I mean, Glee's all, first of all, Glee's all covers. But just, you know, cultural resonance outside of Broadway. It just wasn't happening.

No. Right. No. And so that's why I'm going for, I mean, even now with Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, it's still, it's a cult show. Oh, in terms of who the people who love it? Yeah. Like when people love it, they love it.

But there are still a bunch of people who hear it's a musical and won't watch it. Okay. I hope they die. Let's not get there yet't watch it okay let's not get there yet so okay so he he says you should only be doing this he's not only but he said for this sketch show this is way more unique than just doing sketches so then i i made my first musical sketch show and i just felt it click at ucb yeah and i felt fell in love with it and i thought okay i want to be my own kind of one-stop shop comedy.

I want to write my own shit and star in my own shit. And I want that to be, I want to be my own one-person sketch group. So I'd seen people doing internet sketches. And I thought, okay, what can I do? And I had a song that I'd written in college that I didn't know what to do with called Falknary Bradbury. It was when I was thinking of sketches to do and a song popped into my head and I said oh that could actually make a really great first sketch as a music video and so I made it for two thousand dollars and not because you don't set out to make a viral video that doesn't

make any sense I made a video that I thought would be a great comedy calling card and it went super viral and got me representation that was 2010 2010 yeah yeah because i started this in 2009 yeah and but it's interesting that even then though i mean it went viral and that you know brought you attention but that was like we started even though youtube had been around a bit and podcasting had been around a bit it was just there was this moment yeah where you could break out of it now of course you have people that are specifically youtube or only podcast or whatever but there was a bit of a moment where you could break and you you you set that standard in a way so like hundreds of young people because of you were like you just got to put the video up well and the cool thing and the thing was the thing that set me apart i think is because

we were just coming out of so the landlord funnier die sketch happened i want to say 2007 maybe 2006 and it kind of had this grainy home video quality to it and so most sketches at that time were that yeah i had seen other people use great cinematography. And there was the cinematographer in New York, Paul Rondeau, who was his one-stop shop. He had all his own equipment. And so when I wanted to do a music video, I thought, what if I make it look good

like some of these other videos that I've seen? So I think that when I released that music video, it was also unique in that it looked great. Yeah, it looks great. And it looks professional yeah and that's just because I got a great take much to do that right that's what people don't that's what that always gets me about podcasting it's like you just need a good mic man don't get the fucking snowball and sit in the middle whatever but even now I mean the cameras yeah even on the phone right well now I mean the phones are better than we have a canon 70 the phone

my husband's new phone is better so so that then that's history so you got representation and that's history and you wrote a spec script but it didn't like it took a crazy ex-girlfriend to really put the whole vision together well it was kind of a slow burn because i was a working so after i got hired for my first gig writing for which i'm eternally grateful by the way i was a cartoon vetching about it earlier but yeah i'm eternally grateful for that i kept writing for tv i wrote for robot chicken you had seth on here he's the fucking best and i just kept writing for tv and various award shows but then i was also i did another ucb show of here uh yeah and i kept doing music videos that I was paying money, that I was paying for out of what I earned as a TV writer.

Right. And so it was those videos that this woman, Aline Brosh McKenna, saw five years ago at this point. And she is this big deal screenwriter. She wrote The Devil Wears Prada. Oh, I like that movie. Yeah. And she called me in for a general meeting at CBS,

and she said, I want to write a musical tv show with you and i'd already pitched she found you a thousand percent yeah you don't the video so yeah again and no one could have it wasn't my reps sending me around because no one had really i was doing the musical thing and they knew it was good but you can't i'd I'd pitch two musical TV shows. No one gave a shit. And you were doing relatively low profile writing jobs. Yeah. So you guys put this show together. She finds you. And she had the idea for a movie called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Yeah. And we thought that would be a great show because she was saying that all of my videos were, there was always this moment of sadness. They were all very, they were out there, but they were very emotional. And so that idea really worked and we developed it together.

And you had emotional sadness and emotional menace and then you get a great funny character. Actually, that's very true. It's dead on. Emotional sadness and emotional menace. So hot. Dennis the emotional menace

is less of a trickster, but he's more insidious. Yeah. And then the rest is like, you know, it's doing great. You're doing, what, one more season? One more season. We're on the final season. And you won a Golden Globe and a Critics' Choice and another one? A Television Critics Association. Have you been to that one? Yeah, I did go to that one. And I like the SAG Awards. That's the golden goose I can't get. I just liked being there

the most. I'd interviewed a lot of the people and now I was there as an actor and I felt like I was part of a community. It was nice. And Frances McDormand came up to me and told me, I love you on that show. Oh, that's so cool. And I'm like, oh, I kind of won. That's fucking awesome. I won. Though moments like that are where you really told me i love you on that show oh that's so cool and i'm like oh i kind of won that's that's

fucking awesome i won though moments like that are where you really win i mean the the awards are wonderful but the first person who emailed me after i won the golden globe was carol burnett oh my god that was my win that was my golden globe exactly like that done yeah that's all i need that's great and you know i watch the show and I like it. It's like, you know, because I'm the kind of person I am, I would probably categorize it as a guilty pleasure. Sure. Uh-huh.

Well, dig into that. Why? Because I'd like to think that like, I don't know if this show is really for me, but I enjoy it. Uh-huh. Interesting. Why would the show not be for you? Because, you know, you're singing.

huh interesting why would the show not be for you because you know you're singing it's funny because we get in because you're i assume you've watched a couple episodes of season one season three is all about we get way more into mental illness and i have a suicide attempt and my character's diagnosed with borderline personality disorder you don't have that do you no i don't have borderline but i have i have i know i have intimate knowledge of i know people with it yeah me too yeah it's rough it's really interesting that's why i could see that from the ones i've watched that that would be where it would go but you you didn't have that you didn't have that arc set up early on did you we knew something was going on the interesting thing about borderline is it's a heightened it's it's it's basically someone with no

emotional skin it's someone who always has these it feels like they have third degree burns they're so hypersensitive and so i have aspects of that we all do uh and it's stuff that we do just heightened which which is what borderline is so we always knew she had heightened aspects of stuff that i'd had and other people had had but also truly incapable of real emotional connection yeah and very black and white thinking yes and and manipulative horror show yes yeah and the split and the splitting i've started to re-watch a little season one and i i'm actually surprised we're like oh oh she's ill yeah oh she's very ill and then you know there's that character who And the split and the splitting. I've started to rewatch a little season one and I'm actually surprised. We're like, oh, oh, she's ill.

Oh, she's very ill. And then, you know, there's that character who keeps on. Surprise. Because you watch the pilot. I know, right? There's a character who keeps, you know, wanting to fuck her. This character, Greg. I'm like, dude, dude. And it's later revealed, spoiler alert, he's an alcoholic.

And in season two, he goes through like a program. I guess there's no reason I should. You know, I forget because like even the show I'm on, you know, Glow, that there's a lot of heavy shit going on. But because there's wrestling, you don't process the same way. And because there's music, you're not processing. Because if I really think about those the first few episodes where you're basically, you know, just sexually abusing that guy yep that like it's like no this is yes horrible but oh she's singing and there's an and there's a sheen over it now here's a question i would pose to you not to get controversial is if you see both theoretically

glow and crazy ex-girlfriend is things that you would call guilty pleasures right there are things that you theoretically enjoy i mean don't i mean i i think i was just being yeah no no no sure put much thought into it but i wonder if there's a little bit of that that is because it's shows created by and starring women i i and i not saying that it's you but i think that men see female content even if it's on a deep subconscious level as fluffy but i wonder generally i, I think that's a good question because I talk to a lot of dudes about GLOW and they're like, that wasn't gonna watch it. Yeah, why?

And then- Why, man? Because of that. Yeah, I mean, that's not, we didn't just crack a code. No. That's true. Oh, we've got it. Sometimes men don't like women.

Yeah. But what is is but why no i just i just think it's a relatability thing sure that you know i i don't think it's i'm sure there's levels of it that might be insidious but i think a lot of it's sort of like it's not for me you know what i mean like that might just be encultured and i don't even think it's misogynistic but the labeling and and i'm not saying this is necessarily you but the sometimes content that has women in it is created by women and seems quote unquote female is labeled as fluff. And you see.

Oh, I didn't think that. Yeah. But you see that. Okay, I hear you. Yeah. And you see that in every kind of aspect of art, things that take on, things that are true for women. That's true. My girlfriend's a painter and she you know she gets mislabeled

like that yep you know that that that it's sort of it's lighter it's this yeah and it just you know it's just because it's not for the mainstream gaze i mean we did or the market or like they're determining it i mean the market itself the people that make those decisions are acting out of, you know, either, you know, it's a principle or whatever, or they believe the market is this way or that way. But it's not always about like the audience. You know, there's people making those decisions. Sure. You know. But nine times out of 10, those people are male.

Sure. Right. But the interesting thing, I mean, you see, we did it with entertainment. Can I interrupt you some more? Yeah, please yeah please do it tell me why i'm wrong but for years we've done it with uh entertainment that we see is oh well that's for you know black people right now here and and the way that you see like oh well stuff that was on upn or bt or tyler perry well that's that's fluff like it's in the same way people sometimes think of female. I guess so.

It's weird. I never noticed that because I always think like it's either like, you know, maybe it's not for me, but I don't think it's fluff or it's for kids. Uh-huh. It's either not for me. It's either for kids or it's like that seems to be a show that other people would enjoy who live that life. I think that's one way to look at it,

but I think there is also a labeling of anything that isn't the mainstream story is less legitimate. It's less legitimate of a story and it's a niche product. Right. Well, everything's a niche now, so it's hard to make.

Well, exactly. And that's why it's great and that's why Peak TV is so great. I mean, that's what I'm really feeling is breaking out of what's, you know, legitimate, what isn't. I mean, I think that everyone, I was at the dinner for, I was at the Vanity Fair dinner for the Oscars. Big shot. Oh, I know, right. fair dinner for the oscars and big shot the oh i know right and the only time people stopped talking yeah when francis mcdormand won was talking about um inclusion writers but when jordan

peel won for get out yeah and when get out was maybe gonna win yeah yeah because even a couple years ago that movie wouldn't have been seen as legitimately let alone that it was conceived by a comedian which comedies are always seen as less legitimate and get out it's not a comedy but that's pretty when you think about something like the idea of things not being as legitimate because they're not about a king learning not to stutter a white king learning not to stutter no it's not a great movie what it wasn't a great i actually really love that nice i actually really love that movie. Nice. I actually really love that movie. But when I saw that movie, I went, well, that's a prototypical Oscar movie. Sure. And I think that those lines are starting to blur and that includes content created by women.

Many voices. For women. Exactly. And that's, it's refreshing. Good. But that's why I take umbrage with the term guilty pleasure. In the case you're saying, and it makes sense because it's musicals, but I think that that sometimes is code

for seeing something meant for a specific group of people. It's like you said, like your inverted, not inverted misogyny. Internalized misogyny? Well, I think that it's a version of that. You know, that like they can't,

and it's also a version, some of it might just have to be with posturing. You know, like, you know that like they can't and it's also a version uh some of it might just have to be with posturing do you know like you know because i've i know you know many sort of evolved people that uh you know don't necessarily want to cop to liking journey do you know the band sure so like i i think some of it just has to do with not having the balls or the to to to support something like that uh-huh like i love the band fun i know a lot of people who are like oh antonoff's band yeah yeah i love that band he's a pop wizard yeah i know some other people who are like they just generally don't like i like i like steel train i like his

other band the grateful dead band that he was okay yeah no i know exactly i think some of it's that but we don't have to solve this now I think we should take the take a few minutes I hear your husband made a movie nice segue yeah my husband made a movie and I'm in it and he co-wrote it and it's great I watched I watched about half uh-huh um And it wasn't because it was bad. I just, you know, I didn't get the fucking screener until this morning for some reason. Don't go yelling at anybody.

It's good that I only watch half because it is sort of a suspense. Yeah. It's a murder mystery. And I can't spoil it because I don't fucking know what happened yet. Great. But I like Adam Pauly a lot and you're great.

Yeah. And it looked great. It was shot nicely. He directed it? Yeah, he directed it and then co-wrote it with the guy who plays Dway duane who has that chin beard that's my husband's writing partner oh really yeah but it looked it looks great and i've seen a lot of indie movies that are comedies and like that you're just sort of like oh these characters

aren't going to hold up there's a problem with comedies of any kind where you know they they don't uh consider the integrity of the character and it gets diminished for the comedy. That's very important to both me. And that's something that my husband and I definitely connect on is not selling out emotion for a joke. Yeah, no. And it looked great. And is that Billy Eichner for a minute? Yeah. He plays the rabbi? Yeah.

And you have rabbis in your family? My cousin is a rabbi, yes. Progressive rabbi? He's a progressive conservative rabbi yeah and you have rabbis in your family i my cousin is a rabbi yes progressive rabbi uh a pro he's a progressive conservative rabbi so whatever that means right right so not reform uh where's it where's a yarmulke but supports gay marriage yeah sort of uh you know yeah okay yeah but uh but yeah no i i think it it looks great and uh thank you i i appreciated the the the long uh the long sort sort of pan shot at the beginning. What do you call it? A tracking shot.

Tracking shot, yeah. I know that he was like, you know, I'm going to do this. You could tell that he was like, and this is the tracking shot. Yeah, this is like the opening tracking shot, like the Orson Welles touch of evil, and then the player did a riff on it. This is my riff on the tracking shot that really has nothing to do with the rest of the film uh it and here's the thing i'll say about

that it actually does the tracking shot comes back the idea of the tracking shot does come back visually it's called back at the end of the film oh so bookends so like it's pretty great you spoiled it i did exactly you spoiled it for the film nerds. Spoiler alert. You're going to get into the tracking shot. That opening image is going to come back in the closing. I liked it. Yeah, it's funny.

And I think Adam Pauly is funny. I think he's like, I've seen him in other things. I've seen him in Bane's movies. Yeah. So he used to be writing partners with my husband and Doug, who's in the movie. Oh, really? Yeah. And the three of them were a sketch writing team

called Chubby Skinny Kids. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And now Pally's kind of gotten, he has this acting career, and so they wrote this part for him. Yeah, I feel like I've seen him grow up or something.

Yeah, and he's a really, the thing is he kind of has this like a, you know, he has this irreverent persona. He just did that thing at the Shorty Awards. We took down the Shorty Awards, which I thought was hilarious. But in person, he's also very,ent persona. He just did that thing at the Shorty Awards. We took down the Shorty Awards, which I thought was hilarious. But in person, he's also very, very kind. Jewish guy?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. Jersey, maybe? Yeah, Jersey. Lived in Jersey by way of Chicago, I think. And he has three kids, and he is married to his high school sweetheart. That's wild.

And this takes place in Long Island? Is it Long Island? Yeah, my husband's from Long Island. But he's not Jew, right? Oh, super Jew. He was raised conservadox. He was raised to not celebrate Halloween. Really?

Yeah, he went to Yeshiva until he was 14. Well, look at you marrying a Jew. I know, it's terrible. It's terrible because we all descend from 350 people eight years ago. Eight years. Eight hundred years ago. I like eight years.

Eight years ago. This is one of those conspiracy theories. Yeah. Eight years ago. It all happened eight years ago. Eight years ago. The fossils came up. In the simulation we're living.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that could have happened. We could have been created five seconds ago. And we're all just in planet with these memories. He's falling asleep. But yeah, no, he was raised super jew i mean you know he he and i both dated non-jews and i don't know we're both ashamed of it wow shame i'm not shame it's just much like oh we're so progressive and cool we could have done so much more instead of make his parents happy his parents are thrilled

and it's like of course everyone's thrilled everyone's thrilled. The state of Israel's thrilled. Really? You don't know. No, no, we've been to Israel. They're thrilled. they are.

Yes. They're hoping you're going to come there, send money. Oh, we went there right before, right before the election. And everyone said to us, this is weird because a lot of Israelis support Trump,

but they said, eh, well, maybe you come, maybe you come here and you make TV and television. And we were like, oh, we're pretty happy. American. They go, eh, with Trump coming, you may have you come here and you make TV and television. And we were like, oh, we're pretty happy. And America, and they go, with Trump coming, you may have to come here. They were almost psyched for another Holocaust.

It was very weird. You might have to come here. You might have to come here. So that's the new pitch. It's not like we're always here for all Jews. It's like, guess what? Guess what? It's coming.

In Hebrew, I think the show is called Ha'exitamitarefet. Which is? Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. But I think it literally means like insane person I used to date. Oh, and they like it in Israel? I think so. Jews, yeah, Jews in general seem to like it. Okay, good.

Well, then I'm glad you're making them happy. That's no small task. Oh, I know. It was great talking to you. It was great talking to you too. Do you talking to you, too. Do you feel satisfied? Did we do what we needed to do? For plugging the movie at the end? Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. There you go. A couple of Jews sitting around talking. Okay? Everybody okay with that? This is where the guitar is going to be soon.

Boomer lives! Calgary is an opportunity-rich city home to innovators, dreamers, disruptors, and problem solvers. The city's visionaries are turning heads around the globe across all sectors each and every day. They embody Calgary's DNA. A city that's innovative, inclusive, and creative. And they're helping put Calgary and our innovation ecosystem on the map as a place where people come to solve some of the world's greatest challenges. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look at CalgaryEconomicDevelopment.com. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a

special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com.